“My Maserati does 185 … I lost my license, now I can’t drive.”
Just like that classic Joe Walsh couplet above, rock stars have been name-dropping luxury brands of all stripes in their songs for decades. It’s a way of not-so-subtly showing you how the other half live the luxe life.
Bloomberg did a deep-dive, poring over all the lyrics from all the top 20 hits from the Billboard 100 from May 2014 to May 2017, and picking out all the brand-mentions.
Here’s what they came up with (and what RCLife thinks about it):
-Rolls-Royce got the most mentions with 11 in total, which unbelievably didn’t include Lil B.’s “Rolls-Royce,” which landed in 2009, outside of Bloomberg‘s area of analysis.
-That was followed by Ferrari, with nine mentions, and Hennessy and Porsche tied at seven apiece. (We’re hoping that no one ever decides to mix all three together and go for a drive; that would be criminally dangerous.)
-Incredibly, Chevrolet tied Lamborghini with six mentions each, leading us to believe that Don McLean’s “American Pie”—or at least its catchy chorus—helped get and keep Chevys in the national conversation.
-The list of brands that tied with five mentions is pretty interesting; included are Bentley, Cadillac, Jordans, Mercedes Benz, Rolex and Xanax. It makes total sense to us: If we wore Jordans and a Rolex around and had that kind of collection in our driveway, we’d be taking a lot of the latter, too.
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