March 6, 2001

9:17 AM

KPMG Consultanting's official corporate song - playable as Shockwave audio or as an mp3. The lyrics of this suitably wishy-washy and jargon-laden elevator anthem may inspire you: "KPMG, we're strong as can be, a team of power and energy. We go for the gold, together we hold to our vision of global strategy..."
posted by tobyslater (24 comments total)

Not sure what "Consultanting" is but it sounds impressive. Apologies for the typo... is there any way to edit messages once they've being posted?
posted by tobyslater at 9:21 AM on March 6, 2001

And there's plenty more where that came from...
posted by freakytrigger at 9:28 AM on March 6, 2001

*nod* - the jungle version (linked from the corporateanthems website) is particularly special. thankfully, everyone i've spoken to at kpmg has been appropriately embarassed by the whole thing ;-)
posted by raettig at 9:34 AM on March 6, 2001

This makes me happy to work in a small company.
posted by vanderwal2 at 9:50 AM on March 6, 2001

Is the corporate anthem supposed to inspire the "troops?" Perhaps it's intended to amuse them. Imagine what they paid for that shlock, sheesh, corporate waste at its finest.
posted by Chairman_MaoXian at 10:02 AM on March 6, 2001

I wish it was my job to write those songs.

I write the songs that make the whole world SUCK.
posted by sonofsamiam at 10:19 AM on March 6, 2001

Don't turn around, wah-oh! (Zsa zsa!) Der Komissar's in town! Wah-oh!
posted by Skot at 10:24 AM on March 6, 2001

I couldn't even make it past the first 30 seconds. It's awful.
posted by armando at 10:32 AM on March 6, 2001

Yikes. Sounds like Kathi Lee Gifford.

All if would motivate me to do is to start looking for another job.
posted by jasonshellen at 10:42 AM on March 6, 2001

I always wonder about the people who have to sing these things. How do they manage to sound soulful and impassioned while doing umpteen takes of a song about global strategy or Ford trucks or Tampax? How do they live with themselves afterwards?
posted by davidfg at 10:44 AM on March 6, 2001

If you want a good company song, work for a university. On Wisconsin is better than anything KPMG has.
posted by Mekon at 12:12 PM on March 6, 2001

Theres a pretty good compilation of ridicuolous corporate themesongs. most of which date from the 50's and 60's. I don't know the name of the album, but a former roommate of mine had it on cd.
Some are short jingles, but the best track on the album is a 9 or 10 minute long song, extolling the virtues of using coal as a heat source. I think it was called "Everybody Get A Little Cold, Sometimes," and dates from somewhere in 60's. The song starts off with a little girl talking about the summer, how wonderful it is to be warm, over some orchestral bubbley pop. Soon though, winter sets in, and the music turns to scray psychadelic music, with some evil baritone vocals. Once the narrator ventures inside though, everything turns sweet again, thanks to the wonders of coal heating.

If anyone has any idea as to what the name of this record is, *please* let me know ([e-mail]).
posted by skwm at 12:47 PM on March 6, 2001

In college, I worked at a jingle mill. The bulk of our work was creating musical drops for radio, with occasional commercial work. It was tedious and dumb, spending all day singing "KPTC, Omaha's At Work Station" and "KDKA, something special's on the air."

But never was work more horrifying than the day I was told that our assignment was to record a corporate theme song for a huge agribusiness concern in the midwest. Never in my life have I sung anything as scary as "Corn, golden and glorious, the heart of our business, corn, it's everything to us." I'm making myself slightly nauseous just remembering it. Gah.
posted by Dreama at 1:01 PM on March 6, 2001

I hate to think, given some of the places I've worked, what a compilation of my employment career might sound like. Assuming these are mostly taken internally, like nasty medicine, why in the world would any company think this was a good idea?
posted by raku at 1:34 PM on March 6, 2001

Want a corporate anthem of your very own? Scott will demo one for you, at a price that can't be beat.

According to Scott:

"So here's the deal: There's no money to spend up-front; so you've got nothing to lose. Just send an e-mail with your idea for a commercial jingle or for a personal song you'd like to have written. You can suggest lyrics, song styles, etc. You will be contacted a week later. A rough cut of the song will be posted at a secret site for you to preview. Then you can decide if you want to pay to continue the work. You can work out the $ considerations privately at that time."

Anybody want to write some lyrics for Metafilter?
posted by shinybeast at 1:51 PM on March 6, 2001

Never trust anyone who doesn't know the correct spelling of "Skot."
posted by Skot at 2:18 PM on March 6, 2001

Anybody want to write some lyrics for Metafilter?

o/~ Oooohhhh...
I ain't seen my dog since the neighbor kilt 'er,
I drown my sorrows in MetaFilter...
My aunt's the county's champion quilter,
She trades her patterns on MetaFilter...
Ooooohhh... o/~
posted by sonofsamiam at 2:26 PM on March 6, 2001

I'm downloading with trepidation, since I have the sgi CD and its wounds still ache. If that's only number twelve I dread to think what the rest are like.

Sure it's BS, but these are corporations - what can one *expect* them to sing about? "We're-compelled to-make mon-ey for-our sharehol-derrrs/ We have no-particular vision for the worrrrrld/ Our services are-prob-ab-ly-no better or worrrrse/ than our competitors"?

Hey, that's quite catchy...
posted by BobInce at 2:26 PM on March 6, 2001

How about:


MetaFilter, MetaFilter,
not as good as it used to be.
Please don't self-post, this topic
is more appropriate to MetaTalk.
Hey, doublepostguy!
Oh, baby.

MetaFilter, MetaFilter,
this looks like a troll to me.
Why do you whiny liberals think
every posting by a conservative is a troll?
You two take this to email.
Baby, yeah.

bridge:
Aaaieeee!!
Scary pictures of Michael Jackson.
Excuse me, but Dubya did steal that election,
Blogger is down!! Any news from Pyra?

MetaFilter, MetaFilter,
Warning: Salon post. You really should
warn about linking to a 2.4meg video.
Flash isn't evil, but this is Flashturbation.
Don't mention Jakob Nielsen.
No no no, yeah yeah yeah.

I'm willing to donate any profits.
posted by argybarg at 2:40 PM on March 6, 2001

*sniff*

argybarg, that was beautiful man.

(you forgot to mention "when headlines go bad", "I hate that damn a-list!", "kottke! kottke! kottke!", and "NYT: sorry, it requires registration" in a verse.)
posted by mathowie at 2:51 PM on March 6, 2001

*holds lit lighter aloft in tribute to argybarg*
posted by allaboutgeorge at 3:22 PM on March 6, 2001

Nice! Not quite as catchy as "Blind Man's Penis", but still worthy of booty shaking. Were those lyrics written with a particular melody in mind? Or a particular musical style? In the interest of science, I would be happy to e-mail them to Scott.
posted by shinybeast at 9:33 PM on March 6, 2001

I should think Scott would know best. Although if it could, at some point, segue from Bob Seger-style ballad to cheesy calypso I'd be all for it.
posted by argybarg at 10:20 PM on March 6, 2001

this is why i love metafilter.
posted by Zeldman at 3:16 AM on March 7, 2001