Songwriter Crafts Winning Jingles into Full-Length Songs
For anyone who is a fan of good jingles, we just heard some interesting news that may be of interest to you. Mikey McCleary is releasing a 10 song album titled TV Dinners. McCleary is a popular singer/songwriter who’s been living in Mumbai since 2007. He’s written several successful jingles for companies like Levis, Audi and Coca Cola over the years.Here's an ad for Cadbury Silk Library featuring one of his jingles:In TV Dinners, the songwriter has taken several of his most popular jingles and expanded them into independent songs. The album also features several renowned Indian artists, such as Shalmali Kholgade, Anushka Manchanda and Monica Dogra.
Where’d This Novel Idea Come From?
McCleary says that he’s been mulling over this idea for a while now, since so many fans had requested full length versions of his many made for TV jingles. He finally found himself in the right place in his career to act on the idea. He was able to find 10 of the best jingles and re-formatted them to sound more like traditional songs.The selected jingles were originally featured in ads for brands like:
Levis
Vodafone
Lakme
Audi
Titan
Additional lyrics, pieces and musical selections were implemented in order to flesh out the chosen jingles. They’re relatable in sound but also represent something inherently new. Over the last six months, McCleary has been re-formatting the songs and personally directing the accompanying music videos (have we mentioned that this guy is pretty talented??). The songwriter says that fans should be pleasantly surprised by the variety they’ll experience when listening to TV Dinners.
Pursuing a Passion for Jingles
The range of talented singers that are featured in TV Dinners should give fans yet another reason to be excited. McCleary says he was able to team up with some of his favorite female vocalists for the project. One of the music videos from the album has already become a significant hit on Youtube. The team was able to bring in a number of Bollywood celebrities for the video (never a bad idea).Check out his video for Chasing a Dream:When asked what motivated him to pursue this project, McCleary said, “My reason for doing this is people’s encouraging response to the jingles. I received so many messages from people asking where they can find the rest of the song, or how can they download the songs they heard in ads. I’ve thought about this very hard for the past six months before deciding to make it into an album. And interestingly, this has never been done anywhere in the world. It was very important to select the right songs for the album which had no advertising jargon in it and should sound like a normal song.”
Where Did “TV Dinners” Come From?
As for the inspiration for the album’s title, he said, “I was looking for a name that would connect. I don’t know why this popped up in my head. Normally, people watch TV and have dinner with family, and that’s when they see the ads together. I wanted to co-relate the two, somehow I guess I’m still deciphering the title!”McCleary seems to love crafting catchy songs for both advertisements and film. He’ll be the first to tell you that writing a successful jingle is no easy task (history only remembers a few who’ve done it really well). Still, the creation process is a lifelong passion for this talented musician, and it really gets to shine through in this new album. You can learn more about Mikey McCleary by visiting his site here.