With a national culture as iconic and well-defined as that of Australia, where do you turn for a sound-track to convey the soul of your travel experience?

If you're the city of Brisbane, you apparently turn to a singer raised in Sweden who now makes his home in New York.

In a bizarre case of a tourism marketing organization turning a blind eye to concepts like cultural authenticity and competitive differentiation, Brisbane has launched a new tourism brand video featuring "Save Tonight" by Swedish-American singer Eagle-Eye Cherry.  To be honest, I'm not sure whether the song featured in the video is the original recording -- it may be a cover by a local Australian artist.  Either way, it's a well known American song.

With a vibrant domestic music industry (with a history of international success -- see AC/DC, hoodoo gurus, the Bee Gees, INXS, Kylie Minogue, and probably lots of more current bands that the kids are listening to today), why would you need to look outside your own borders for a brand soundtrack?

A quick tour of their website reveals a Brisbane eager to position itself as a hip urban center, free of dingo's and barbequed shrimp.  The one nod to Australia's "Where the Bloody Hell Are You" campaign seems to be a more upscale rendering of the Australian bikini babe:




Perhaps Brisbane felt that going international on its soundtrack would help to position the city as a world-class centre?  It's plausible, but it's a mistake to court the generification that comes with chasing the blandness of an "international" image.  People don't travel to visit things they can experience elsewhere -- they travel to experience something unique.