Video: The Tough Alliance: Roxy snowboard commercial
Gothenburg, Sweden's the Tough Alliance have always seen pop's role as extending well beyond music. These are two guys who, as heads of their own Sincerely Yours label, will slap catalogue numbers on bulletproof vests or stage collapses as readily as records. Despite enjoying a fair amount of success in their home country (and generally looking more like Wham! than like the Clash), they're also fierce idealists. So for once it's sort of jarring to see a band taking advertisers' dollars-- like, "something bright and pure," remember?
A New Chance's first single "First Class Riot" can be heard bouncing optimistically throughout this commercial for Roxy snowboards, its individualism and hedonistic glee recontextualized to sell merchandise. Sincerely Yours has defined itself against artificiality, so perhaps there's something ideologically relevant in the fact that TTA are "sincerely" seeking not only pop stardom but also its financial trappings, rather than being hypocritical about it. After all, it's not Wal-Mart. How long until Sincerely Yours catalogues this as yours0063?
Video:> The Tough Alliance: Roxy snowboard commercial
[from A New Chance; out now on Sincerely Yours]