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

stereolab? really?

dots and loops era

i don't know if this is germane, having never heard them, but there are two new bands with the actual names "the sparrow and the workshop" and "a hawk and a hacksaw"

hawk and hacksaw have been around for 10 years and are much more legit and interesting musicians despite the elephant 6 twee connection you would assume

just re-order and re-write that sentence to make sense in your heads please

ya, Jeremy Barnes of A Hawk and a Hacksaw was the Neutral Milk Hotel drummer (when he was real young) but he's spent the last decade or so super immersed in eastern European folk music, with interesting results.

haha ok

much love to Malvina Reynolds but this feels like a notable touchstone in the '00s shift towards hearing sub-Moldy Peaches bullshit coming out of yr teevee:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_2lGkEU4Xs

the sparrow and the workshop

Heh, my old housemate got thrown out of that band. I have no idea whether they're any good or not.

mo herself has quite correctly realized that milquetoast liberalism is destroying america

you believe that? or are you just challoping?

Ford Fiesta song also features prominent use of an under-discussed twindie signifier: woozy but uplifting Elephant Six horn section. Would be interesting to figure out by what channels that went mainstream, seems like for ages it really signified bedroom recording, four-track, living-room-party type bands directly getting it from E6 records and then suddenly it was kind of everywhere.

― Doctor Casino, Wednesday, April 17, 2013 9:15 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I would trace it back to the mid 2000's kitchen sink twee like Polyphonic Spree, I'm from Barcelona, Architecture for Helsinki, which I guess ultimately traces back to Belle and Sebastian, though I don't place the blame at the latter's feet so much.

Oh and Sufjan of course.

That Nick Drake song in the VW ad really shook things up a lot when it came out in the late 90s. I remember that it seemed to tap into something a little different with the youth market. Could that have been the spark?

A big precursor of this whole phenomenon was definitely the VW ad with Pink Moon which was all the way back in 1999. But stuff like that still has a nocturnal pensive aspect so it's not so cloying (see also B&S, most of Feist, Cat Power, the Mad World cover, etc). The strain that emerged in the mid 2000's stripped that out to become purely happy-go-lucky kindergarten sing along music that I think people find so insufferable.

xpost beat me to the punch!

There was a whole era we're forgetting of indie-rock (but not twindie) music in commercials for young-people cars, e.g. Modest Mouse on the new Nissan Quest Commercial

Polyphonic Spree is a good connection, I sort of forgot their existence after the first album getting hyped to me by friends, but they may well be a link in the chain as they were, it turns out, much more successful than I remembered with licensing:

In early 2003, they were dropped by their record label, 679 Recordings, citing "lack of record sales." Ironically, it was about this time that the band had only just begun to break into the pop-cultural scene. The song "Light and Day / Reach For the Sun" was used in a joint Volkswagen Beetle/iPod tie-in advertising campaign, appearing on nationwide television commercials in 2004.[7] The same song was used in a tribute to Bill Walsh during an NFL football preseason special. It was also used in an episode of the TV series Scrubs, the end music for the first series of the BBC Radio 7 sci-fi comedy Undone, the music video for the song was also adapted for the movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind".

Startling to discover there are sixteen ILM threads about the Polyphonic Spree.

xpost!

wow polyphonic spree in a joint VW/apple commercial that is a bit overdetermined

That Nick Drake song in the VW ad really shook things up a lot when it came out in the late 90s. I remember that it seemed to tap into something a little different with the youth market. Could that have been the spark?

I think this is to blame... seemed to usher in an era of using music in the middle of the venn diagram between 'cool enough' for young people and 'young but unthreatening' to old people.

much love to Malvina Reynolds but this feels like a notable touchstone in the '00s shift towards hearing sub-Moldy Peaches bullshit coming out of yr teevee:

ever heard this atrocity?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM8JhvfoqdA

Even more than just how downright shitty this music is, I find I am enraged by the idea it seems to be selling, i.e., this wondrous fucking world of benevolent innovation that brings you new and stylish toys to connect to your childlike creativity and the miracles of sharing that via developing technologies to friends, family, and the hoards of admirers of your "art". When really, it's just to sell utterly useless shit that we spend millions of dollars creating and consuming instead of bothering putting time, money, or effort toward any of our problems as a nation and/or culture. It is actually music for children and plays the same role as putting a toy in a McDonald's Happy Meal or a cartoon on a packet of smokes: to sell something unnecessary and probably harmful to a bunch of innocent dupes who think they "need" this stuff.

"vest-and-hat"

I'v been calling it C&U, Cupcake and Ukulele.

can't believe companies are selling people stuff they don't "need"

i think that the use of this horribly, cloying music is not an attempt to sell "stuff" but to sell consumers a naive, innocent, creative, and simple state of being... which you can do by buying their expensive shit.

cat power for zoloft ad?

"there you go
marriage and kids
and drug addiction

all lies aside
I believe I am the
luckiest person alive

hell we all die
sometimes
hell we all try
somewhere

money always sees
money always draws
the light

hope you can see
through the beggars
In the clear"

we need to hate the president more!

http://www.randomhouse.ca/hazlitt/blog/rock-and-roll-so-boring-its-making-kurt-vile-seem-interesting

we need women with bigger balls!

http://www.yourmusicisawful.com/2013/04/hey-kids-grow-a-pair-how-music-blogs-neutered-indie-rock/

Much of the "tweeness" of the original source material that is cited here (Beat Happening, Kimya) has become twee because of the recontextualization of that sound (or their specific songs) within a commercial construct. I get that lots of ILM don't like either artist but to lump them in with latter-day cynical earnest-for-pay music, or cast them anybody as "where it all began" is a leaden, lumpen observation... afaic Nick Drake only became a 'reference with a negative connotation' after it was co-opted to sell Volkswagons. I'm not defending any artist here but a witchhunt for seminal glockenspiel usage seems to miss the point. Capital accumulation is ugly and will fuck up everything in the end, etc.

i have never knowingly heard a beat happening song. but i used to watch the sundance channel a lot years ago so maybe i have without knowing it.

heh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS_zpyW-Slc

irl lol at 'seminal glockenspiel usage.'

BrianWilson has been a genre of music for years much to the detriment of humanity. butwhatareyagonnado?

maybe there is nothing to be done. even when people are stones fans you end up with black keys, jack white, kings of leon. you just can't win.

you know what helps me get through these dark days? satanic minor threat covers. that's what.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8Zdl2wXnRc

SMALL GOD, BIG CROSS!

EP reissue cover deserves a medal.

http://bravewords-public.s3.amazonaws.com/images/p17gilh9391l4k1b5q1qe71ot71n634.jpg

Soon to be used in a Nike Crosstrainers ad, no doubt.

About four years ago I realised that everyone was vaguely fond of Beirut in an "I like that advert" kind of way.. I feel this website is relevant:

http://approachableindie.com/

― Tim F, Wednesday, April 17, 2013 8:22 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lmao they have ratings for how 'advanced' things are on here. Bon Iver is 'advanced' indie, Elliot Smith is 'intermediate' indie and Pains of Being Pure at heart are 'beginner'. Good to know.

You too can become a fan of Afro-Pop! This is the beauty of indie; it can encompass so many stylistic influences that Alternative Country can occupy the same space in your music library as Afro-Pop Soul. Filling that empty space in your genre list is tUnE-yArDs, a one-woman operation that makes so much noise an unexpected resentment toward artists playing just one instrument may occur.

If you like: KT Tunstall, M.I.A., Björk
Check out: tUnE-yArDs (start with w h o k i l l, continue with BiRd-BrAiNs, then graduate to EPs and rarities)
Feeling brave: Devendra Banhart, Juana Molina, Micachu, CocoRosie, Joanna Newsom

AI level: Advanced

lmao they have ratings for how 'advanced' things are on here. Bon Iver is 'advanced' indie, Elliot Smith is 'intermediate' indie and Pains of Being Pure at heart are 'beginner'. Good to know.

― global tetrahedron, Thursday, April 18, 2013 1:26 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

lmao!!!!

http://i.imgur.com/MlD8Wnn.gif

He’s a little bit dancey (I declare this a real word) electronic, he’s a little bit rock and roll. He knows how to write an infectious single and apparently knows when to quit while he is ahead.

AI level: Advanced

"AI level" - nice

http://i.imgur.com/WwIaMsv.jpg

rufus and other kids are doing that Of Monsters and Men song at the school talent show. it wasn't his idea. its not terrible, i guess. though i really don't know how that band doesn't get sued by edward sharpe and the magnetic zeros. it sounds so much like "home" ny ES&TMZ. okay, probably not grounds for a lawsuit similar, but it really sounds like this band listened to that song and then made a homage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghb6eDopW8I

if only some indie kid would base their career on this song. i'd be on board! (if there is an indie kid that does this, lemme know...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR1svqwTYK0

i could be wrong, but i get the impression that there is a serious lack of LSD in the United States. there are so many kids around now who have never tripped on acid. this has to have all kinds of negative effects on youth music.

About four years ago I realised that everyone was vaguely fond of Beirut in an "I like that advert" kind of way.. I feel this website is relevant:

http://approachableindie.com/

― Tim F, Wednesday, April 17, 2013 8:22 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lmao they have ratings for how 'advanced' things are on here. Bon Iver is 'advanced' indie, Elliot Smith is 'intermediate' indie and Pains of Being Pure at heart are 'beginner'. Good to know.

― global tetrahedron, Thursday, 18 April 2013 17:26 (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's the weird thing. At first glance it looks like stuff-white-people-like self-ironising, but then you realise it's totally straight.

Scott Seward otm

Re lsd

the drug kids are all into EDM I guess

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

― Nilmar Honorato da Silva, Wednesday, 17 April 2013 23:27 (Yesterday) Permalink

seriously the best post I've read in a long time

my cat just threw up 3 times