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

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

agree on nick drake being a moment for ad execs in the 'cool music will make this memorable' thing.

there are also bands i quite like that seem to have ended up really cashing in on the ad music thing -- noisettes, vampire weekend (of course), a few others. honestly i don't hear their music as that twee, and don't mind their songs being used at all except now it makes it harder to just hear them as songs when i go back to the albums.

some beat happening for scott too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7KNRC8SSAw

"Motorbike to cemetery
Picnic on wild berries
French toast with molasses
Croquet and Baked Alaskas"

vs.

"There are moments when the body is as numinous
as words, days that are the good flesh continuing.
Such tenderness, those afternoons and evenings,
saying blackberry, blackberry, blackberry."

i only know the indian summer song cuz sonic boom covered it. i think. maybe i'll listen to that...would break my streak though.

Even though it's not the same kind of indie being described in the OP, I feel like mention needs to be made of how this played into the whole thing:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Mvm6KfJDE0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Mvm6KfJDE0

http://books.google.com/books?id=l2VK76iKk8kC&lpg=PA45&ots=j9tHhrVptW&dq=nick%20drake%20vw%20ad&pg=PA44#v=onepage&q=nick%20drake%20vw%20ad&f=false

I didn't know VW had done ads with Luna, Stereolab, Spiritualized and Velocity Girl songs before the pink moon ad.

thomas frank called this way back in the day too: http://www.amazon.com/Commodify-Your-Dissent-Salvos-Baffler/dp/0393316734

wait, i think i'm lying. i think i watched a beat happening video last year when i went on youtube to listen to will oldham for the first time.

i've been enjoying this indie rock comp today. the only band i know on it is boo radleys. and i barely know them.

http://www.discogs.com/Various-The-Dark-Side-Of-The-Pool/release/585391

thomas frank called this way back in the day too: http://www.amazon.com/Commodify-Your-Dissent-Salvos-Baffler/dp/0393316734

I've read that book, but what exactly did he call?

he was the one who told us we had been lied to, iirc.

WOW. SOMEHOW HE KNEW

meanwhile, i was totally twee this week! my kids can make me do anything. like sing. which i would never do in real life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPCQ9Wnd3hI

lol. i know, fish + barrel, but still...

"Yup, a V-neck with buttons. Deal with that mutherfuckers!"

http://usedwigs.com/nolikey/

so many great pictures, but this might be my fave:

http://usedwigs.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/nolike_033-440x330.jpg

take pretty much any of this stuff over fucken rusted root tho

what exactly did he call?

basically how very good society is at taking things that define themselves as somehow oppositional and using them to sell things, and also the reflexive action back on the production of these cultural things themselves.

awesome thread

do the trachtenburg family slideshow players factor into this somehow? they're like the stooges of rinky-dink.

take pretty much any of this stuff over fucken rusted root tho

aweemaway

What is it about this music that is so marketable? Is its marketability connected to certain societal trends and attitudes specific to this time?

I think there's the 'cool dad' angle and the creativity angle. People get older and settle down but they want to feel like they're still part of the zeitgeist and they have taste and dress their toddlers in Ramones t-shirts etc. Hipster Runoff had a whole cool dad series of posts that tried to pick this apart.

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.

maybe most people don't want to lock themselves in a room and torture themselves?

I mean the view that creativity is something to be pursued by all, and not just for artists, you have that guy a few years back saying 40 million Americans belong to the 'Creative Class', you have Subway calling their employees 'sandwich artists', I'm not explaining this very well, maybe I'm not creative enough.