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Willy Moon Is That Cute Guy From The iPod Touch Commercial

[caption id="attachment_75423" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Willy Moon loves you like Don Draper, baby.[/caption]

You know that ipod Touch commercial where the iPod is bouncing around because the song it's playing is just so awesome? Oh, you know. This one...

Well, I agree with the inanimate device. That song is pretty hot. It's called "Yeah Yeah," and it's by Willy Moon, a retro-fabulous singer-songwriter from New Zealand. Here's the full song, which is following Apple-endorsed tunes like Feist's "1,2,3,4" and Yael Naim's "New Soul" to mainstream success.

But do you think Willy Moon is going to be an artist we follow for the long haul? He's clearly talented, but at the moment, he strikes me as one-note. I've heard a few of his songs---including the jumpy "I Wanna Be Your Man"---and they all have the same "vintage blues-rock" vibe, with Moon howling like he's in a British Invasion band while the musicians and/or drum tracks practically demand that we stomp our feet. Even more obviously, Moon is always wearing a retro suit and sporting a Mad Men-appropriate hairstyle. How long before that joke stops being funny?

And yes, Bruno Mars loves the same fashions, but his music, for all its 60s influences, doesn't always sound the same. He can deliver a power ballad ("It Will Rain") or a reggae-lite groove ("The Lazy Song") just as easily as a throwback rock record ("Runaway.") That versatility lets Mars seem stylish instead of gimmicky. If Moon doesn't shake things up in the same way, then he's damning himself to novelty status. As Andrew Unterberger points out in his excellent write-up at PopDust,  Moon is a little like Jimmy Ray, a one-hit wonder from the 90s who also favored 60s style over musical variation. And who remembers Jimmy Ray now?

Of course, I may be jumping the gun on all of this, since "Yeah Yeah" isn't even a hit yet. It's just now starting to climb the iTunes chart, and it may never be as successful as "1,2,3,4." But it seems like Moon's got potential, and I just don't want him to squander it. I nag because I care!

Previously: Tom Hanks has a filthy mouth

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Thanks to that Apple ad for "1,2,3,4," Mark Blankenship has become a pretty big Feist fan, and he even loves her hit-free follow-up album. He tweets as @IAmBlankenship.

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