Beach House - Bloom

this kind of "ripping off" is totally fine, who cares. "that stoner rock band rips off black sabbath!"

same here, i was kinda shocked when i first saw a video. i thought it was a female sounding dude rather than a woman who sounds like a dude who sounds like a woman.

am0n, it's a whole different thing if an ad agency commission a soundalike track after a licensing refusal from a band.

Beach House's response is that they don't care about it too much either but i suspect that they're just being gracious.

not illegal, totally fine. case closed

its all on the up and up

probably those kinds of deliberate soundalikes happen all the time but the case is usually more like this than something undeniably obviously like getting a guy to sing like Tom Waits

Its not illegal, but its a huge dick move.

"Can we use your song?"

"No."

"Fine, we'll just pay some schlubs to craft a subtlely different 'take' on it."

The only reason this is a big deal is because it was used in a tv ad. The same people complaining about this are the people who download Girl Talk albums the first day they're available and champion his straight up unlicensed use of dozens of copyrighted recordings.

dog i don't even care about this but you're bending over backwards with some apples and orange ish

Maybe. I just feel a bit righteous today is all. This is the fight I picked.

ad execs are walking dick moves tho, what do you expect. in truth, i don't rly side one way or the other but i think its lolworthy that there's an indie wrecking crew band

The only reason this is a big deal is because it was used in a tv ad. The same people complaining about this are the people who download Girl Talk albums the first day they're available and champion his straight up unlicensed use of dozens of copyrighted recordings.

this is insane

i don't understand why ppl who were okay with an artist using unlicensed samples to make his collage music are not okay with an advertising agency ripping off a band's song to help sell their merchandise. totally incomprehensible to me!

me too

I don't find one of these to be any worse than the other, but for some reason when a sound(ish)alike song shows up in a commercial, people go apeshit. For that matter, when an original recording of a song shows up in a commercial, people go apeshit.

So, by this metric, it's okay for Greg Gillis to make his bones by ripping off actual recordings, but it's not okay at all for these probably reasonably okay people to use Beach House as a starting point while creating something altogether original. rmde at the whole internet.

people definitely overreact about songs in commercials. bringing up Girl Talk is silly though.

Nah, there's a pretty stark contradiction in attitudes about what kind of theft is kosher in blogger/indie stan circles.

Do you really not see any difference between the two? I think there are some self-evidently obvious reasons why one might be bothered by one of these things and not by another.

Let's say that the commercial actually ripped off the Beach House song explicitly and without any question. Total and complete copyright infringement. Would you claim that there would be no difference between that and Girl Talk? Or is it just that there's no difference between Girl Talk's use of copyrighted materials and this commercials non-infringment? (The former is obviously ridiculous, the second is incoherent.)

Let's say that the commercial actually ripped off the Beach House song explicitly and without any question.

This didn't happen. If it had, I might be more sympathetic to the whiner crowd.

I'm not arguing about whether the complaints are legitimate or not. I just think you haven't clearly thought through your comparison to Girl Talk.

Also, if it was literally copyright infringement you "might" be more sympathetic? I guess you're an anti-copyright hardliner?

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

hey guys this has been happening since the dawn of time, wasn't there just a Mad Men about it?

http://www.monkey.org/~chunk/superchunk/article/spin2.html

Yet the band's members aren't blowhards rigidly standing on principle. Although they're wary of major-label offers (they're happy where they are), that didn't stop them from doing the music for a British Knights commercial. If they didn't do it, the ad agency would've gone and hired studio musicians to ape their sound; Superchunk decided it had nothing to lose. "It helped pay for our new van so I don't feel like we whored ourselves too badly," says the sensible Mac; they got free sneakers, too.

it's 2012 y'all, i thought we had all accepted that doing music for ads/tv/movies is the only way to make money these days (whether by licensing or recording).

that's not at all the convo taking place here though

thread of people gettin all foamy just because pitchfork posts about it

Sniffy Dog compose and produce music and sound design for TV, Film and Advertising. We have an intuitive and flexible approach to sound for picture. We understand that music is a language in itself. Our strength lies in our ability to listen to ideas and translate them into a number of fully-produced sonic options. Whether it's composition, research, re-recording or licensing. We can do all of these; and anything in between.

Whatever your project, we will always deliver a creative and original soundtrack.

sonic options

Sniffy Dog=Toto for the 2000s?

I just think you haven't clearly thought through your comparison to Girl Talk.

My comparison actually isn't between what's happened here and what Girl Talk does. It's the the people who love one are moaning about the other, and it seems completely disingenuous to me for that to be happening. (I just pulled Girl Talk out of my hat, fwiw. It could have been any sample-heavy performer.)

Album debuted in the top ten

the lower dens album and this one are easy to confuse when i put the two together on shuffle

xp Really late response to Johnny Fever. The difference is simple and it's not about copyright. Firstly it's assumed consent. If you hear a Girl Talk collage you don't assume the artists he samples had any say in what he did with their work so whether you love it or hate it has no bearing on the reputation of those artists. If you hear an ad song which sounds uncannily like Beach House you may well assume that Beach House endorse this product and this ad. Secondly it's a question of honesty. Girl Talk's use of those samples highlights, and even depends upon, the listener's familiarity with the sources. This ad agency is putting out an obvious imitation and then pretending there's no connection. Plus there's way more cash involved in a big car campaign than Greg Gillis is ever going to get from DJing so that makes it smell even worse.

But anyway, I'm glad this album's doing well.

Thanks DL, I tried posting a response to same effect five days ago, but couldn't get past "I can't believe I have to explain this..."

beach house just posted this on their facebook. i guess they're back to caring about this again

http://www.thestrut.com/2012/05/24/see-7-commercials-that-rip-off-indie-artists/

the grizzly bear one is pretty funny, it's like they changed as few elements as was legally required with no consideration for it remaining vaguely musical.

I don't find one of these to be any worse than the other, but for some reason when a sound(ish)alike song shows up in a commercial, people go apeshit. For that matter, when an original recording of a song shows up in a commercial, people go apeshit.

I wanna give my testimony here. if somebody wanted to move this thread to '77 after I do, I wouldn't complain, but no big. In I think 2008, during a really pretty horrible period for me personally, some people got in touch with me asking me to sing & play a tune they had already written for a tv ad. The campaign was greenlit, somebody was going to sing this tune anyway and there was about two payments on the car in it for me, small money but still money. They sent me their demo of the song, and then we had a phone conversation about what they wanted.

They never explicitly said it, but it was very, very clear, both from the song itself & from the way they described what they wanted, was a song that sounded exactly like an indie artist who was & is a friend of mine & who'd recently come into considerable success. The song in question was a clear & obvious bite on this songwriter's style. I was to basically imitate my friend for money. I didn't do this; I found out they'd asked, like, half my friends for similar takes. I don't know who the person was that they ended up hiring, but when the ad aired half a year later, the singer they'd gotten was straight-up imitating my bud. Their whole approach was v. scummy & gross, from the "we've been fans forever" with lots of old-days reminiscences to their "you know what we mean" pitch. IOW what cantankerous indie ppl suspect & get aggro about in this shit is true. You can take their money or they'll pay somebody to bite your style. It's bullshit, imo.

Did you call them out on it? Or politely decline?

being in commercials and video games and football stadiums is the currency of a music nowadays. With the glut of music and media available to us at any given moment, you're only as culturally relevant as you are ubiquitous. I don't think "selling out" means anything anymore.

not everyone defines the success of a piece of art by its cultural ubiquity

I don't think "selling out" means anything anymore

So bored of this line. Glib, reductive, capitalist-realist statements like this are as bad as the puritanical finger-pointing of Maximum Rocknroll. If "selling out" means something to the artist then it matters. It doesn't matter what you or I think.

if u have the chance to sell out, u've already been sold. the artist's choice doesn't matter, just how susceptible he is to co-option by teh capitalismz

I wonder how much of this happens on a strictly regional level? I ask because there is a Gulf Coast casino currently running a TV ad soundtracked by a very faithful copping of the riff from The Black Keys' "Howlin' For You" (it's an even closer cop than the Pizza Hut "Gold On The Ceiling" ad in the above linked article).

I heard that ad agencies and TV shows are still requesting Black Keys imitations every week. It helps that their sound is easy to approximate - you're on safer ground with blues-rock than simulating Beach House or Fleet Foxes - but I wonder why that band in particular has struck a nerve in synch world.

they're the big alt band of the last couple years, obv

what is the hidden track on Bloom? i genuinely can't tell if it's a reprise of an earlier track on the album or something, all Beach House songs sound the same to me.

the lower dens album and this one are easy to confuse when i put the two together on shuffle

― ban halen (electricsound), Tuesday, May 22, 2012 8:23 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that's bizarre imo, Lower Dens actually switched up their sound this time. unless you mean their first album.

I don't really want to get too into this, but I have been having weird issues with people's lack of self-awareness lately, and this just irked me for some reason: Pitchfork posted one of their "news" items about Beach House's new video. They praise the video for having "the greatest use of eggs in music-based visuals ..." yada yada, and comment on various supernatural elements showing up in the video.

So, this egg gambit is a direct reference to the kitchen scene from Ghostbusters (i.e., they explode in the carton) and then a woman opens the fridge and the exact same visual, roughly, from Ghostbusters is there (i.e., the weird pyramid/city in the clouds kinda place where Zhoul[sp?] comes from).

No mention from Pitchfork that this is an "homage" to Ghostbusters (or a direct rip, whatever you wanna call it), yet they post these stupid fucking "news" pieces about bands getting ripped off in commercials (which yes, has been happening forever and is a big part of rock's history past present and future). I know they wanna drive traffic, but how about posting a piece about the dude who made the video "homaging" Ghostbusters. I mean, I am sure that Beach House has reasonable opinions on all of these things, but this just pissed me off. No attempt to be upfront about the video from anyone (which, of course, they may be completely unaware of if no one but the maker of the video has ever seen that obscure scene from the cult film Ghostbusters).

I think you've noticed a writer's embarrassing lapse when it comes to decoding pop culture references/homages/pastiches and determined that it's actually intentional? also, i don't know what any of that has to do with self-awareness (or lack thereof). ppl miss references to shit all the time.

also, everyone knows that it's okay for the little guy to steal from the big guy, but not the other way around. :P