leave cat power out of this.
― authentically inauthentic (Pat Finn), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 16:06 (eleven years ago) link
i like in the lumineers video how the guy visually represents the alleviation of his loneliness by surrounding himself with a chrous line of women wearing the exact same outfit as him. that's like bieber-level narcissism.
― authentically inauthentic (Pat Finn), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 16:09 (eleven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmSbXsFE3l8
― first geir, it's alright (hongro hongro go faster faster) (unregistered), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 16:21 (eleven years ago) link
every single tech ad now has this, it's so hard to stomach.
― Tioc Norris (LocalGarda), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 16:25 (eleven years ago) link
the tech companies, especially apple and google, have to work extra-hard to counteract the impression that they are evil empires.
― authentically inauthentic (Pat Finn), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 16:27 (eleven years ago) link
yes this def. seems to be a watershed moment for other tech. companies FINALLY working out that twee sells
― tpp, Tuesday, 16 April 2013 16:27 (eleven years ago) link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_music_used_by_Apple_Inc.
so it basically started around 2007 w/ Feist/Imogen Heap/The Bird and the Bee/Yael Naïm? it seems like earlier Apple ads were heavier on classic rock/pop and obvious Top 40 picks (also more black people!)
― first geir, it's alright (hongro hongro go faster faster) (unregistered), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 16:42 (eleven years ago) link
God that Lenka song adheres so strictly to the blueprint it's freaky. That's the sound of money alright.
― Eyeball Kicks, Tuesday, 16 April 2013 16:42 (eleven years ago) link
Feist seems pretty crucial here as a jumping-off point for these other acts, could be wrong about that but I suspect a lot of people who weren't paying attention to baby-voice twee indie before that went "oh wait, there's money in this."
― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, 16 April 2013 16:44 (eleven years ago) link
(I really like "Mushaboom" for the record)
― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, 16 April 2013 16:45 (eleven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EUYTGBpBms
― jaymc, Tuesday, 16 April 2013 16:48 (eleven years ago) link
I was at a really hip bar that had like five songs by The Bird and the Bee on their playlist and the whole thing felt like a 2 hour ad for the bright orange iPod nano
― frogbs, Tuesday, 16 April 2013 16:49 (eleven years ago) link
Few years ago an indieish mate of mine told me how someone she knew who worked in advertising called her up & asked her to recommend some twee music to use in ads
― ok let's all fuck our pants to something new (wins), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 16:54 (eleven years ago) link
idk this music at all but i have become aware of this inadvertent subgenre
it all sounds a bit like how i remember vampire weekend sounding (nb i probably listened to one song of theirs three years ago)? that sort of pellucid chimy indie, purged of all distortion or irregularity with extensive protooling
― Nilmar Honorato da Silva, Tuesday, 16 April 2013 16:58 (eleven years ago) link
is this just the generic sound of "indie" becoming mainstream? Is there "mainstream indie" that doesn't have this irritating feel?
― Poliopolice, Tuesday, 16 April 2013 17:15 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― Nilmar Honorato da Silva, Tuesday, 16 April 2013 17:58 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― ARE YOU HIRING A NANNY OR A SHAMAN (Phil D.), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 18:09 (eleven years ago) link
Anyway, Windows does this shit now, too. Ladies and gentlemen, Kishi Bashi:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBmtde_XNBs
― ARE YOU HIRING A NANNY OR A SHAMAN (Phil D.), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 18:11 (eleven years ago) link
chime-y major arpeggios
― shit tie (Jordan), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 18:12 (eleven years ago) link
fuck a glockenspiel
― LADIES ONLY PHYCHIC NIGHT (crüt), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 18:13 (eleven years ago) link
And it permeates out into all related culture. Adventure Time, I'm looking at you.
― ARE YOU HIRING A NANNY OR A SHAMAN (Phil D.), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 18:14 (eleven years ago) link
glockenspielukelelemandolinpoorly mic'd piano
what other instruments am I missing here
― LADIES ONLY PHYCHIC NIGHT (crüt), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 18:17 (eleven years ago) link
brb checking magnetic fields album credits
― "LOL is other people" - Jean-Paul Snarktre (wins), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 18:18 (eleven years ago) link
tambourine?
― LADIES ONLY PHYCHIC NIGHT (crüt), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 18:19 (eleven years ago) link
handclaps
― shit tie (Jordan), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 18:25 (eleven years ago) link
Hate this stuff. Sounds like it was made for very small children.
― brimstead, Tuesday, 16 April 2013 18:26 (eleven years ago) link
idk cat power v well but the music is definitely not twee! The name, sure.
― brimstead, Tuesday, 16 April 2013 18:29 (eleven years ago) link
or light-hearted. I mean, lol.
― brimstead, Tuesday, 16 April 2013 18:30 (eleven years ago) link
What are the defining characteristics?
"La, la, la, la (21x)"
― New Authentic Everybootsy Collins (Dan Peterson), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 18:34 (eleven years ago) link
Worst offender:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw20ssNMQlU
― lazulum, Tuesday, 16 April 2013 18:35 (eleven years ago) link
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".
― shit tie (Jordan), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 18:40 (eleven years ago) link
I think that Prius commercial is perfect; it's a car for condescending turds with bad taste.
― Spectrum, Tuesday, 16 April 2013 18:40 (eleven years ago) link
I was looking for that Prius one. Was seeing it in EVERY BREAK on Hulu and was about to kill someone.
― ARE YOU HIRING A NANNY OR A SHAMAN (Phil D.), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 18:42 (eleven years ago) link
this whole thing is out of control, there needs to be a massive massive rivethead revival to restore some balance.
― brimstead, Tuesday, 16 April 2013 18:44 (eleven years ago) link
juno
― slugbuggy, Tuesday, 16 April 2013 18:51 (eleven years ago) link
^^^ yes! There was a bunch of discussion of this trend in the Pomplamoose thread, and I blame Juno/Kimya Dawson for much of it.
― New Authentic Everybootsy Collins (Dan Peterson), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 18:55 (eleven years ago) link
A friend whose musical tastes I almost always agree with burned me a Kimya CD once, and I was like... um... thanks?
― New Authentic Everybootsy Collins (Dan Peterson), Tuesday, 16 April 2013 18:57 (eleven years ago) link
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
― brio, Tuesday, 16 April 2013 19:39 (eleven years ago) link
it seems like an entire genre based on Melanie's "Brand New Key" and low-rent Zooey Deschanels.
― brio, Tuesday, 16 April 2013 19:41 (eleven years ago) link
Rent-a-Deschanels.
― brio, Tuesday, 16 April 2013 19:50 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― Poliopolice, Tuesday, 16 April 2013 20:11 (eleven years ago) link
It's also marketing a kind of androgyny, a state of innocence which cuts across gender codes.
― lazulum, Tuesday, 16 April 2013 20:53 (eleven years ago) link
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
― Spectrum, Wednesday, 17 April 2013 01:19 (eleven years ago) link
oh that was a million xposts away
― Spectrum, Wednesday, 17 April 2013 01:20 (eleven years ago) link
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?
― Poliopolice, Wednesday, 17 April 2013 20:57 (eleven years ago) link
ime people who are into this also really like ~4 Velvet Underground songs.
― supermassive pot hole (seandalai), Wednesday, 17 April 2013 21:51 (eleven years ago) link
I really like ~4 Velvet Underground songs
― sandra dayo connor (The Reverend), Wednesday, 17 April 2013 21:53 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― the kind of man who best draws girls' eyeballs (Merdeyeux), Wednesday, 17 April 2013 22:08 (eleven years ago) link
Poor Frente, twenty years too soon for $$$
― Tim F, Wednesday, 17 April 2013 22:14 (eleven years ago) link
Also that, when carried out by men, the point of this move is often to reject as forcefully as possible some kind of boring idea about what adult manhood is supposed to be like, and this doesn't seem like such a bad idea
this thread hasn't fallen into misogyny but I think the venom that you see the nu-twee aesthetic producing elsewhere often does, and what you say is a big part of that - it's completely fair to dislike the placidly regressive middle class twerps we're talking about here of course, but the wholesale-and-then-some dismissal of everything surrounding them can amount to dismissing what I think can still be an important critical position to be taking wrt macho bullshit ideas of social and cultural legitimacy and the like.
― the kind of man who best draws girls' eyeballs (Merdeyeux), Sunday, 21 April 2013 20:57 (eleven years ago) link
you are otm but it just makes me even more disappointed by the music in question. presented with the good idea of not being macho, they respond by rejecting adulthood.
― not feeling those lighters (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, 21 April 2013 20:59 (eleven years ago) link
^^^
― sandra dayo connor (The Reverend), Sunday, 21 April 2013 21:10 (eleven years ago) link
"Also there's the democratisation of a kind of small-c creativity - not tortured genius lock yourself in a room and write a symphony creativity, but take a quirky picture of a pelican and Instagram it, or bake cupcakes, or yes, write a little song on a ukulele, that got big in the last 10-15 years.
I think part of the purpose of the song in these ads is to to flatter the listener, a sort of transferrance of quirk."
this x10000
thing is, i'm actually totally in favor of ppl feeling empowered to ~get creative~, it just bums me out that pap like this encourages "non-creative" people to try their hand at, say, music* while totally codifying the acceptable ways to do that.
*i know more than one person who did not grow up playing an instrument who has recently taken up the ukulele. they're cheap, they're easy (or so i'm told), and you can buy one on a lark and not feel guilty if it gathers dust
― well if it isn't old 11 cameras simon (gbx), Sunday, 21 April 2013 22:15 (eleven years ago) link
My mom has started playing ukelele but only cause the leader of the hula group she's in has asked her to.
― sandra dayo connor (The Reverend), Sunday, 21 April 2013 22:34 (eleven years ago) link
the uke isn't a bad thing, neither is the glockenspiel, you can play great ukelele (I like Jake Shimabukuro a lot, ymmv but that breeze 70s instrumental AOR feel lives on in him imo and I dig that sound) and you can do all kinds of cool things with a glockenspiel. It sucks that you sort of have to take extra pains to make sure your context doesn't read as a One Of Those Bands deal but not super-hard I don't think.
― not feeling those lighters (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Sunday, 21 April 2013 23:40 (eleven years ago) link
as an aesthetic move, some sort of engagement with notion/symbols of childhood and adolescence can be v. productive. i'll rep for sara records or kindercore and certainly beat happening all day. (and darla records stuff like flowchart too! and helium!)
i mean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb3XCgb8vsE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmlG9BZKPyk
but the stuff on this thread is obv doing something very different than any of that was. and its not just "not drowning the melody in noise". its not the regressiveness but the lack of friction or movement maybe that gets to me. i'm sure there's a better way to articulate it.
― Chuck E was a hero to most (s.clover), Sunday, 21 April 2013 23:43 (eleven years ago) link
what if hockey night in canada asked to use a song
― mookieproof, Sunday, 21 April 2013 23:44 (eleven years ago) link
maybe its music about not needing music, or not needing to make music.
― Chuck E was a hero to most (s.clover), Sunday, 21 April 2013 23:45 (eleven years ago) link
so maybe it's just bobo music
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobos_in_Paradise
― anonanon, Tuesday, 23 April 2013 06:43 (eleven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2-S96FcFbk
― 乒乓, Monday, 6 May 2013 23:43 (eleven years ago) link
Light-hearted, whimsical indie hipster music icons that seem specifically manufactured for cell phone commercials
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjZ0rXSXeBA
― scott seward, Monday, 6 May 2013 23:55 (eleven years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVERz5D1YEU
― 乒乓, Tuesday, 7 May 2013 11:59 (eleven years ago) link
the lower level of this trend is even worse - like instead of big brands getting an actual song - loads of little shitty mortgage ads with a crappy ukelele soundtrack.
― Tioc Norris (LocalGarda), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 12:00 (eleven years ago) link
that iphone marimba clip is a great find, pretty neatly summing up this entire thread
― anonanon, Tuesday, 7 May 2013 18:06 (eleven years ago) link
that IS actually Wayne Coyne, isn't it...?
― four Marxes plus four Obamas plus four Bin Ladens (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 7 May 2013 18:17 (eleven years ago) link
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!
― Poliopolice, Tuesday, 7 May 2013 18:26 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― stefon taylor swiftboat (s.clover), Thursday, 9 May 2013 05:26 (eleven years ago) link
(website being this: http://www.kizmusique.com/)
― stefon taylor swiftboat (s.clover), Thursday, 9 May 2013 05:27 (eleven years ago) link
the new ryan hemsworth ep is great but i keep thinking of this thread. apple-trap.
https://soundcloud.com/ryanhemsworth/sets/a
― precious bonsai children of new york (Jordan), Thursday, 23 May 2013 19:19 (eleven years ago) link
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.
― MIGUEL 3D: THEY FLY @ U FACE (The Reverend), Thursday, 23 May 2013 19:32 (eleven years ago) link
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
― precious bonsai children of new york (Jordan), Thursday, 23 May 2013 19:39 (eleven years ago) link
i guess they sound a little too contented with life, needs more giant choir drama.
― precious bonsai children of new york (Jordan), Thursday, 23 May 2013 19:41 (eleven years ago) link
does this belong here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKZxIrITsyo
― ty based gay dead computer god (zachlyon), Wednesday, 5 June 2013 23:51 (eleven years ago) link
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
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Saturday, 14 September 2013 02:16 (eleven years ago) link
cat power being in this thread is the single most baffling thing I have read here
― katherine, Saturday, 14 September 2013 04:28 (eleven years ago) link
http://whydopeoplesinglikethis.tumblr.com/
― everybody loves lana del raymond (s.clover), Thursday, 17 July 2014 03:30 (ten years ago) link
Time for that blog to be updated with Catey Shaw from the rolling worst music of 2014 thread.
― JRN, Thursday, 17 July 2014 04:09 (ten years ago) link
(Hmm, guess I don't know how to link to other threads)
― JRN, Thursday, 17 July 2014 04:11 (ten years ago) link
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 hopefullywith 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 storiesAnd 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…"
― rip van wanko, Sunday, 3 August 2014 13:24 (ten years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o84y-5-cO0
― goth colouring book (anagram), Saturday, 25 October 2014 20:24 (nine years ago) link
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
― Pheeel, Sunday, 26 October 2014 01:43 (nine years ago) link
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
― Tim F, Sunday, 26 October 2014 04:25 (nine years ago) link
this genre of cloying crap that would fit perfectly in a tv commercial is called 'indie' now.
― Poliopolice, Tuesday, 3 March 2015 20:17 (nine years ago) link
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.
― dichtgekitte discman (unregistered), Tuesday, 3 March 2015 23:12 (nine years ago) link
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.
― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, 3 March 2015 23:21 (nine years ago) link
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.
― dichtgekitte discman (unregistered), Tuesday, 3 March 2015 23:34 (nine years ago) link
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.
― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, 3 March 2015 23:37 (nine years ago) link
is this supposed to be mocking Robert Palmer, or is it just a coincidence?
― Poliopolice, Wednesday, 4 March 2015 00:45 (nine years ago) link
what part of "(An Homage to Robert Palmer's 'Simply Irresistible')" fails to answer your question?
― describing a scene in which the Hulk gets a boner (contenderizer), Wednesday, 4 March 2015 06:45 (nine years ago) link
good song tho. nowhere near as horrid as pomplamoose and geico advert choon etc.
― describing a scene in which the Hulk gets a boner (contenderizer), Wednesday, 4 March 2015 06:46 (nine years ago) link
Ah, didn't click through so it didn't show me the title.
― Poliopolice, Wednesday, 4 March 2015 15:42 (nine years ago) link
This seems completely consistent with 'Apple commercial' music to me. Maybe not necessarily Apple, per se, but definitely some tech bullshit
― Poliopolice, Wednesday, 4 March 2015 15:45 (nine years ago) link