the fake bossa nova 80's hits music they play at cafes

also 90's hits 70's hits 60's hits etc.

I have a sick fascination with this stuff. It feels like there's just an endless supply of it, presumably exclusively to play in cafes or at functions, can't imagine anyone actively seeking it out. Like old school muzak it is designed to be as inoffensive as possible, and like vintage muzak it ends up all the more obnoxious for it (except of course old muzak now sounds charming and sometimes great - don't know if this will ever happen to this stuff).

It's kinda crazy that in the early 00's this was a novel enough concept for bands like Nouvelle Vague to make a living peddling it. Can't imagine that's still the case now, any band would have to compete with so many anonymous compilations of it.

Is it one of the few niches left for professional working musicians who play traditional instruments? I imagine the workload must be like for those library music guys in the 70's, just cranking these out. Can't imagine it being anything but soul destroying, surely even the most open minded muso will start to feel miserable by the 500th bossa nova arrangement of an old Synthpop tune.

when I was a kid I thought this music created itself

What weirds me out is some of these bossa / jazz
covers of rock/pop tend to have a really good production. Means there’s definitely someone paying good money for them to exist.

There’s also “reggae cafe” covers forgot about those.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0DY_t5gTFE

I hate the reggae cafe covers not because they're bad but because they're almost exclusively played in places with a tropical theme geared towards white suburbanites and instead of playing authentic reggae, they play shit like Magic!, Sublime, or reggae covers of white people music.

I haven't been in a while, but I recall that all the branches of Chop't in NYC would play real, authentic reggae. The manager of one I went to a lot was from Jamaica. I thought he got his name from the middle name of a U.S. president, but he told me his father actually named him after a friend of Captain Morgan.

we have a lot of shitty faux-Carribean places in Florida. though a number of good ones too, and near me which is nice.

Chop't sounds like my jam

I really only know the Seu Jorge Bowie covers. I had no idea Fake Bossa 80s is a thing, but as usual I'm out of touch with most "things."

It’s the flat affectless vocals that freak me out. Like replicants imitating Astrud Gilberto. Music stripped of all feeling except “chill” and sterilized nostalgia.

My mom has several Karen Souza and Diana Krall cds that are usually featured on those 70’s, 80’s, 90’s lounge bossa/jazz cover compilations and I’m a bit ashamed to admit there’s several songs I like a lot.

Diana Krall’s cover of Tom Waits “temptation” is a particular favorite.

the Todd Rundgren album where he does Bossa nova covers of all his hits is really good. super lush.

I really only know the Seu Jorge Bowie covers. I had no idea Fake Bossa 80s is a thing, but as usual I'm out of touch with most "things."

To be clear here knowing about this shit does not make you in touch with anything. It just means you went to a cafe whose owner has bad taste.

It's stuff like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXlBQna732U

Seu Jorge is like on a totally different level.

It’s the flat affectless vocals that freak me out. Like replicants imitating Astrud Gilberto. Music stripped of all feeling except “chill” and sterilized nostalgia.

OTM.

haha omg that 3 hour mix is incredible (and terrible)

would dispute that the production is good, think it's mostly vsts, not real instruments, I think these can be churned out easily

was at a market this weekend where they were playing some vintage compilation with bossa covers (with strings!) and I was thinking to myself, why would try and improve on these, you can't mellow out getz/gilberto, shit is mellow

I remember hearing Gotan Project in bistros and hotel lobbies around 2013 and thinking it was an updated version of this.

Gotan Project is eletronic tango right? Def can imagine their fanbases, such as they are, overlapping with Nouvelle Vague's.

For those lucky enough not to know about that band:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3GVd4DFFPA

These guys played festivals and shit, as I said I don't think a band could do that now with so much landfill bossa covers around.

Ah yeah Nouvelle Vague were definitely the ones to profit the most out of the schtick.

I think they actually did bring some interesting things though. Doing a cover in this style of “too drunk to fuck” is brilliant imho

Okay, I've now listened to a few of these. I think I have a higher tolerance for "novelty music" than most around here. If I heard one bossa nova Michael Jackson song in a coffee shop I'd probably smile and not think much else about it. If that was the only thing that was playing song after song I'd find a new coffee shop stat.

I own the first Gotan Project cd, but I don't think that's quite what this is? This seems to be music designed to be ignored, like an update of dentist's office smooth jazz, or as Daniel_rf noted, Muzak itself.

I just remembered this cover from 1997. I used to DJ at a "chillout lounge" and slipped this one in fairly often.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYpPAXWVgq8

Great meal at a Japanese place sadly playing a playlist of thid shit. Recent hits by Dua Lipa and Miley Cyrus alongside "Head Over Heels", "What's Love Got To Do With It" and of course "Never Gonna Give You Up", which got a nearby family to sing along to the chorus. So it makes some ppl happy I guess.