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

It's also, insofar as it's in an ad, all the things it could be but isn't. Like, you can already picture the commercial that starts with this music, then there's the ''record needle suddenly lifted from the platter'' effect and then a ''hard rock'' or a ''gangster rap'' song or ''Bad to the Bone'' (or their 2013 equivalents) start playing, to tell you that these new spicy chicken bites are not soundtracked with sissy wussy yuppie music for people that never get their hands dirty! So the ad choosing this sound is telling the opposite story for a different set of people who imagine themselves quirky creatives. Both groups will end up eating the spicy chicken bites and neither of them get their hands dirty or quirkily create anything but it makes for an ad. The only real impact will be a wave of high school garage bands that explicitly define themselves in opposition to this sound and another wave slightly later of college bands appropriating it in some werid way that we can't yet anticipate.

http://imageshack.us/a/img832/9253/tumblrmlbzzz9agp1qzz5ic.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img199/66/tumblrmlbzzz9agp1qzz5ic.png

Doctor Casino, very well put.

I mute these ads as quickly as possible & have turned down money to make one with great embarrassment at having been asked, but I always feel like when a bunch of people are getting excited about them there's a whole lot to parse that doesn't get parsed, most of which might be answered by the question 'and this bothers you why, exactly?' like, for me, it's because a lot of this music is essentially my side of the street in some ways - (purportedly) clever somewhat bookish types with an occasional ear for melody. (There however we part ways, because I don't pine for my fucking pre-adolescence or romanticize it, I like being a grown-up and the best parts of adolescence do not seem to be, for me, what they are for most of my fellow white indie dudes. Fuck "innocence" and fuck even thinking about its "loss" imo.) So I'm offended, and embarrassed, that the best my class (in two senses: plenty of these people of course are much newer "classes") has to offer is...this shit. Poor unoriginal production choices, shitty lyrics, phoned-in sentiments without enough technical facility to make them worth scrutinizing, interchangeable melodies, the dullest harmonies. Awful arrangements. But there's music just this shitty, and much shittier, in literally all the other genres - and plenty of it gets used in ads as ubiquitous as tech ads, but it doesn't inspire the same rancor.

well, if it's pop-country it tends to end up making the ILM year-end top 20

@ aero, with jingles, the dullification of the music is typically done by request. I had a producer ask that I re-record a studio version of a song, redo it into a Boss Loopstation to create a more "demo'd sound". I've seen producers physically respond to a newly overdubbed glockenspiel with wriggling glee.

hedgehog90

First the Newtown massacre, then the Boston tragedy... now I understand that Band of Horses are going to be in a Toyota ad.

*jumps off cliff*

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

As it happens, I was listening to "Indian Summer" two days ago, and when this part came up, I thought to myself, weird, I would never think of Beat Happening as "twee" because, sonically, they're so NOT, but I had to concede that those were some pretty twee lyrics.

I like Beat Happening alright, there's a sense of painful wistfulness and unease in their "tweeness" that's at least relateable. I don't know what the hell these car commercial musicians are using as a point of reference for what they're trying to evoke, but it's something (thankfully) completely alien to me.

Also, surely Kina Grannis belongs here somewhere

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOu0DuxFAT0

well, if it's pop-country it tends to end up making the ILM year-end top 20

that's the thing - whoever yr indie targets of the day are, sure their music is shitty, but it's just shitty in a more obnoxious/grating style, we're not exactly living in the golden age of songwriting

when did these children earn the right to be so light-hearted

There however we part ways, because I don't pine for my fucking pre-adolescence or romanticize it, I like being a grown-up and the best parts of adolescence do not seem to be, for me, what they are for most of my fellow white indie dudes. Fuck "innocence" and fuck even thinking about its "loss" imo.

I would say that romanticizing pre-adolescence is just as good as romanticizing any of the other things rock music likes to romanticize.

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; I mean, there's a reason Tullycraft and Bratmobile have similar-sounding names and were often listened to by the same people. (Whether Tullycraft could sell iPods is a different question. Also note: I don't really like Tullycraft.)

I've seen producers physically respond to a newly overdubbed glockenspiel with wriggling glee.

well guys, it's been a good run, but it's time to go.

http://i.imgur.com/DSfxaEf.png

I would say that romanticizing pre-adolescence is just as good as romanticizing any of the other things rock music likes to romanticize.

this, in big bold caps

I would say that romanticizing pre-adolescence is just as good as romanticizing any of the other things rock music likes to romanticize.

this is the kind of question I can argue about all day but let me just say, I disagree

q: why? a: because it's reactionary, which is not a necessary condition of romanticization but is of this one

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

and the thing is, I agree strongly w/this. but when I hear the results of this move, I feel like I wanna say, while I agree with where you may be coming from,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13muFXkEuIU

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.

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.

^^^

"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

My mom has started playing ukelele but only cause the leader of the hula group she's in has asked her to.

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.

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.

what if hockey night in canada asked to use a song

maybe its music about not needing music, or not needing to make music.

so maybe it's just bobo music

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobos_in_Paradise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2-S96FcFbk

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjZ0rXSXeBA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVERz5D1YEU

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.

that iphone marimba clip is a great find, pretty neatly summing up this entire thread

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…"