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'The Jingle King' Tracks Decline Of Original Music In Advertising

Steve Karmen wrote a number of famous jingles, including Budweiser's "When You Say Bud"; the New York State song, "I Love New York"; the jingle "Here Comes the King"; the Exxon Song; and Wrigley Spearmint Gum's "Carry The Big Fresh Flavor." He also composed several music scores for motion pictures during the 1960s and performed briefly as a calypso singer. Karmen is the recipient of 16 Clio Awards. NPR explores how the business of writing the music for advertising has changed.

Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Corrected: December 16, 2016 at 12:00 AM EST
We prematurely aged Steve Karmen; he is actually 79, not 80. We also incorrectly said Karmen informally crowned himself the "king of jingles." Karmen tells us that the accolade was not his own invention but came from an article in Peoplemagazine.