Yung’s New Video for “Commercial” Takes All the Cliché Advertising Tropes and Laughs at Them

Each and every one of us will, or has, spent a period of their life unemployed and attached to the sofa at home. Mornings pass like boats in the fog, your sense of purpose evaporates onto the ceiling and leaves a strange dark stain, and you spend entire days watching TV, only standing upright the moment you hear your flatmate turn the key in the door so they don’t think you’ve been sat on your arse all day.

In spells like these, TV commercials take on a whole new light. They become strange beacons of light amidst the dark and dreary mundanity of Jeremy Kyle followed by Judge Rinder followed by something hosted by Ben Shephard. A simple man who fell off a ladder at work – LOL. A mysterious Scottish widow wandering around mazes with her hood up and dispensing personal pensions advice – okay, I’m interested. An aftershave that promises to make you feel like a tsunami just smashed into your face, and also very attractive – yes. Some women mucking around with Maltesers – lovely. And, somehow, these adverts lighten your flatlining mood, like little visual nuggets of Citalopram – and you think: you know what, I’m not gonna sit here all day and waste my life… I’m gonna go to the shop and buy some bloody Maltesers!

Videos by VICE

It’s this very scene that inspired Danish punk rockers Yung (who recently released their debut album A Youthful Dream) and their fast-paced new song and video “Commercial”. Lead singer Mikkel Holm Silkier explains: “I originally demoed the song a couple of years back but didn’t really like it back then. When we were about to record the album it resurfaced out of the blue and made it onto the album. Lyrically, it’s about the very strange effect advertising can have on you. Some TV ads can really light up your own appalling everyday life – but it’s all fake.”

The video takes on the theme wholeheartedly, portraying false visions of vanity and the perfect life, offset by subliminal messaging, product placement, a girl galloping through water, wide shots of the big city, that new shaver you need to get, and, of course, loads of great hair blowing in the wind. Basically, it takes every conniving advertising trope that has ever massaged your brain, and turns them all upside down. Well done Yung, very clever.

Watch the full video now, excusively on Noisey: