RFD: Light-hearted, whimsical indie hipster music that seemed specifically manufactured for Apple commercials

2010/06 WWDC Intra-session 6/7/09 7:50pm, 2011/06 WWDC Intra-session 6/6/11 1:52 p.m., 6/7/11 9:50 a.m., 4:03 p.m.

that wiki page is mortifying

That frigging Lenka song was used in Moneyball where they tried to pass it off as if it was an original written by Brad Pitt's daughter. It was the most surreal thing.

Anyway, Windows does this shit now, too. Ladies and gentlemen, Kishi Bashi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBmtde_XNBs

chime-y major arpeggios

fuck a glockenspiel

And it permeates out into all related culture. Adventure Time, I'm looking at you.

glockenspiel
ukelele
mandolin
poorly mic'd piano

what other instruments am I missing here

brb checking magnetic fields album credits

tambourine?

handclaps

Hate this stuff. Sounds like it was made for very small children.

idk cat power v well but the music is definitely not twee! The name, sure.

or light-hearted. I mean, lol.

What are the defining characteristics?

"La, la, la, la (21x)"

Worst offender:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw20ssNMQlU

the thing is i love handclaps, tambourines, glockenspiels, poorly mic'd pianos, and toy instruments, but this context makes them terrible. i've had to check myself when recording at times because it was "too Apple commercial" or "too This American Life interlude-y".

I think that Prius commercial is perfect; it's a car for condescending turds with bad taste.

I was looking for that Prius one. Was seeing it in EVERY BREAK on Hulu and was about to kill someone.

this whole thing is out of control, there needs to be a massive massive rivethead revival to restore some balance.

juno

^^^ yes! There was a bunch of discussion of this trend in the Pomplamoose thread, and I blame Juno/Kimya Dawson for much of it.

A friend whose musical tastes I almost always agree with burned me a Kimya CD once, and I was like... um... thanks?

this one drives me nuts, a peppy update of the Mr Rogers theme for Target's entry to Canada

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jb22vkh9g4

it seems like an entire genre based on Melanie's "Brand New Key" and low-rent Zooey Deschanels.

Rent-a-Deschanels.

someone mentioned that this stuff sounds like it was made for small kids. I think there's something there. Something about marketing the guilelessness of youth's innocence, naivete, and authenticity to, ironically, a world of cynicism and commercialization.

It's also marketing a kind of androgyny, a state of innocence which cuts across gender codes.

weird, I have some random ass person from a marketing firm following my Spotify library. I hope we'll start getting some commercials featuring Chrome

oh that was a million xposts away

Does anyone have any idea who pioneered this genre? Someone said Kimya Dawson, but I would have thought that was too late. Is there anything like this from the 80s or 90s?

ime people who are into this also really like ~4 Velvet Underground songs.

I really like ~4 Velvet Underground songs

the thing is i love handclaps, tambourines, glockenspiels, poorly mic'd pianos, and toy instruments, but this context makes them terrible.

me too, though curiously the Apple ad archetype is so dominant that I can't even remember which bands that sound like this it was that I used to like? It's like tech ad themes have violently overwritten everything in the "handclaps, tambourines, glockenspiels, poorly mic'd pianos, and toy instruments" section of my brain.

Poor Frente, twenty years too soon for $$$

There was a bunch of discussion on the Pomplamoose thread about the progenitors this faux-naif-baby-voice-lalala thing, and Mo Tucker was one of the names thrown out there. I'm not sure I buy that.

Given that wiki list of Apple music upthread, and considering the release of Juno, Feist's The Reminder and the She and Him debut (all 2007/2008,) the floodgates really opened right around then imo.

Australia has been big on this before the rest of the world I think, though maybe in tandem with the UK.

Our statutory body for traffic accident compensation was using a twee girl cover of "Pictures of You" to discourage speeding for a while, not the first example but it felt like the most complete.

Mobile phone network ads in the UK have been the worst offenders for this some years ago, not sure if it's quite the same as this but more strummy, twee, 'I'm having a lovely day' type rainbows-and-ribbons bullshit. I think that progressed into the more handclappy DIY instruments from there.

I seem to recall that Motown had the same advert omnipresence in the early to mid nineties?

Australia has been big on this before the rest of the world I think, though maybe in tandem with the UK.

Well, Sally Seltmann wrote "1 2 3 4," so there's that.

Yes, and it's a very oz-feeling tune even leaving aside that it's actually written by an Australian.

I also felt like, when Mumford & Sons break through, "wait, this has been what is played at pubs and bars all around my local area for the past five years at least". But maybe that's true in lots of other places as well? At any rate entire swathes of Melbourne could be characterised by vintage children's clothing stores, single speed bikes, kale smoothies and the sound of twee indie.

It's not all bad: the hot guys at the local pool have large biceps and read Murakami.

Tell you what though, actual small children find this stuff really boring IME.

I liked "My Moon, My Man" but it was kind of slinky and sexy and didn't seem like it was aimed at kindergarteners.

I understand that Cat Power is untouchable around here, but voice wise she is the godmother of twee....how different is Feist's voice from Cat Power anyway?

I was thinking the other week that it's pretty remarkable that the peak moments of Cat Power's Covers Record still really hit me even after the ten million inferior imitations of the last ten years.

I don't think of Chan Marshall's distressed and distracted tones as anything remotely to do with "twee". I saw her on a bill with proper actual solid gold tweeists Girlfrendo 15 years ago and she was Diamanda Galas in comparison.

Yeah to me this descends from more of a The Sundays --> Frente --> "Don't Falter" lineage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRdyDSbWg7w

so sad that this quintessentially ~blue state~ panglossian idiot child music derives from the work of mo tucker, when mo herself has quite correctly realized that milquetoast liberalism is destroying america

^ sage

Light-hearted, whimsical indie hipster music icons that seem specifically manufactured for cell phone commercials

that IS actually Wayne Coyne, isn't it...?

That clip sounds so much like Penguin Cafe Orchestra that it's uncomfortable. The problem is, I LIKE Penguin Cafe Orchestra, and this may be some roundabout homage to their song "Telephone and Rubber Band", which built around a phone busy signal. Nevertheless, I am sickened by these obnoxious hipster fucks!

that marimba clip is p. good and kiz seem to be working in a totally difft tradition than we're talking about here, although perhaps also suitable for tech ads (but not seemingly _manufactured_ for them!).

their youtube channel and website have any number of really enjoyable tracks.

(website being this: http://www.kizmusique.com/)

the new ryan hemsworth ep is great but i keep thinking of this thread. apple-trap.

https://soundcloud.com/ryanhemsworth/sets/a

I can't really get into that dude. A year back or so I was thinking often that trap-EDM or whatever you want to call it would be better if someone was bringing a more feminine vibe to counter the dudeishness but then someone did that and I'm like ehhhh. Maybe I should listen to this new stuff tho.

i feel like i should like these tracks more than i do, because i love chime-y melodies and it kinda sounds like old four tet with updated production, but nothing comes close to this: http://wedidit.bandcamp.com/track/the-happy-mask-shop

i guess they sound a little too contented with life, needs more giant choir drama.

does this belong here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKZxIrITsyo

i know one place it does belong, and that is with the rest of my tv that i threw out the window

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeVZi_GbaWM

cat power being in this thread is the single most baffling thing I have read here

http://whydopeoplesinglikethis.tumblr.com/

Time for that blog to be updated with Catey Shaw from the rolling worst music of 2014 thread.

(Hmm, guess I don't know how to link to other threads)

OMG the latest iPhone 5 commercial featuring the most inane (even for an Apple ad) song ever turns out to be Julie Doiron?!?

I think she has probably just smoked herself insane.

lyrics:

"I’m feeling hopefully feeling quite hopefully
with good people all around me I’m feeling hopefully

And the light shines bright all through the night and our dreams are making us nice stories
And my loves are well sleeping just right and I know know know now that we’re…
Living the life of dreams living the life of dreams…"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o84y-5-cO0

I don't blame Nick Drake for this. I do blame these fuckers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8YCSJpF4g4

Is the trend for ads using teeth-gratingly bad stripped down cover versions a separate thing, or all part of the same general malaise of tweeness?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSLOnR1s74o

Heard this at the gym (???) the other day and it reminded me that someone has to send a Terminator back in time to kill Ben Lee:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTeZcHWHeW4

this genre of cloying crap that would fit perfectly in a tv commercial is called 'indie' now.

I never thought I'd get a chance to say this, but I actually really like this Ingrid Michaelson song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GBT37_yyzY

she is the WC Handy/Bill Monroe/Chuck Berry/James Brown/Kraftwerk of light-hearted, whimsical indie hipster music that seems specifically manufactured for Apple commercials. without 'The Way I Am' and "Be OK', there could be no Pomplamoose or She & Him.

I got into that song after hearing it at the grocery store a while back. I guess that made me think it was a bigger success than it actually was.

yeah, I've heard it a lot while shopping. I'm more surprised that 'The Way I Am' (which I despise) only got to #37 on Billboard. I could have sworn it was a major hit at the time.

I wouldn't really lump "Girls Chase Boys" in with the Apple commercials btw... different kind of pop, trying to catch some kind of observational gravitas and emotion. Within its world, there are things at stake. For comparison, check, I dunno, that awful Geico ad with the cheery lady singing about computers covered in bees. Whoever agreed to do the background whistling for that should be banned from the music industry on principle.

is this supposed to be mocking Robert Palmer, or is it just a coincidence?

what part of "(An Homage to Robert Palmer's 'Simply Irresistible')" fails to answer your question?

good song tho. nowhere near as horrid as pomplamoose and geico advert choon etc.

Ah, didn't click through so it didn't show me the title.

This seems completely consistent with 'Apple commercial' music to me. Maybe not necessarily Apple, per se, but definitely some tech bullshit