L.A. songstress gets help from Hollywood starlet

Rolling Stone.com


Thanks to Paris Hilton -- and plenty of soap suds -- Eleni Mandell's punkified version of the Cole Porter classic "I Love Paris" is getting a whole lotta attention. The song, featured in a titillating ad for Carl's Jr./Hardees' new Spicy BBQ Burger, will be commercially available beginning Wednesday through the iTunes Music Store.

Mandell was coaxed into recording the track -- which provides the soundtrack to a scantily clad Hilton soaping up a Bentley in between bites of a Spicy BBQ Burger -- by an ad agency a little more than a month ago. "I thought it would just be a commercial where Paris goes into a restaurant in the middle of nowhere," the Los Angeles indie rocker says with a laugh. "They wanted me to sex up [the song] . . . They kept trying to get me to sing it sexier."



HUM Recordings plans to release the single to traditional stores by the end of summer, but the label wanted to rush it to iTunes because of the overwhelming response that poured in from the commercial, which began airing late last month. "I'm really excited," Mandell says. "I'm a fan of Cole Porter. It's a lot different from what I do regularly, but it was great getting an opportunity to do a jazz standard."



Not everybody's a fan, however: Public interest group the Parents Television Council launched a campaign to have the commercial banned. "This blatant sexually charged ad has no place on the public airwaves, and especially when children are in the audience," L. Brent Bozell, president of the PTC said in a statement. "At this crucial time when broadcasters are under increased scrutiny by millions of parents who are fed up with current television content, we would think that the awareness would extend to advertisers. Instead, Carl's Jr./Hardees have done the opposite and are forcing American families to digest their filth."



Mandell, who is at work on the follow-up to her critically acclaimed 2004 CD Afternoon, is baffled by the controversy. "I don't think there's anything pornographic about it," she says. "Across the board, advertising is suggestive. Isn't that the idea?"



JOLIE LASH
(Posted Jun 07, 2005)