What's the name for that twee music in all the commercials nowadays?

I believe the proper term for it is "Millennial douche music."

It was invented at Abu Ghraib.

Hipster Folk Music?

You mean this?

Suddenly I feel like buying a Subaru so I can drive to see the latest quirky romantic comedy with Anne Hathaway.

Tiny Dancer explains the power of learning the ukulele.

From the comments on R4's link: "This music is proof of no god"

And there's always some whispery vocalist with the voice of a 7 year old girl . And there's no emotion or passion in the voice just "cutsiness ". Are singers now required to have these weird childlike voices?

It's awful, OP. You're the first person I've heard complain about it. I've been grousing about it for years, and my friends act like they don't know what I'm talking about.

Duke Ellington said, "There are two kinds of music. Good music...and the other kind."

Guess which category yours falls into, OP?

Ok, so we all can agree on the sound and style of this music and you know what I'm talking about, but my questions remain unanswered.

What is the name for this? It ain't rap, rock, jazz, pop... what do you call it?

Who/What/When did it start? Was it always just used in commercials?

Will it ever end?

Does it even have a name? It just seems like "inoffensive bland mass appeal don't piss anyone off track A"

Any music in a Panera Bread ad fits this description.

It's frau music

It's "mommypreneur" aka "mommyblogger" music

It's very, very bland. Very purposefully lowest common denominator.

It's mug cradler music, or perhaps better described as smug cradler music

I'm a full time mommypreneur with a passion for cooking...

So awful. Those whispery barley understandable lyrics. I feel like they are trying and failing to do a nick drake pink moon thing.

Oh god, every time I hear that music I'm like, what organic, gluten-free gimmick product are they pushing on us now?

The official genre is called white-lady music.

I think we may have caused this...

It has the effect of calming the violent emotions of the frau and the breeder moo.

I think that Come Along song from the Apple ad with all the people running around in colored jumpsuits has some crack in it. "Come along catch a Heffalump..." Was this song even in some Winnie the Pooh movie or does the guy just like singing about Heffalumps? So strange, yet, it's stuck in my head.

You named it without knowing it, OP. I will at least say that I’m hearing it less and less, mostly now just in commercials.

And you forgot to mention the glockenspiel.

When I hear that someone is passionate in their appreciation for Wes Anderson films, I keep my distance. It’s a big red flag.

Did this song start it? Featured on Grey's Anatomy:

Unrelated, but for extra credit, the Millenial Whoop

It's the 2000's version of MUZAK.

Jason Mraz. Pyjama priest of twee.

All the comments about fraus and mommy bloggers . . . that ain't quite it. These people doing it are much younger. Their voices, especially the young women, all sound exactly alike with punches of vocal fry and creepy childlike innocence. I blame it on millennials refusing to grow up. Simple, dumb Peter Pan music.

Ukuleles now out sell guitars in this country. Further proof that the end days are fast approaching.

Ukuleles are easier to play, than guitars.

They only have four strings and they also have less frets.

Plus, they're smaller and easier to handle than a guitar.

I see the attraction. If someone wants to try to play a stringed instrument, an ukulele is pretty easy.

Don't be such a snob, R33.

Technically this would be something like folk pop or something like that. This is a trend of stock music that started with Youtube releasing R4 song as stock music for their videos. I've worked creating this sort of music back in the day, it follows some random trend that everyone copies then it dies and something else comes up. I'd say this has heavy influence of hipsterism and the idolatry of the ukulele.

Don’t be such a twee pussy, R34.

OP, this music is something I complain about on a daily basis. It’s a fad that’s been going on for a long time, well over a decade, and you can trace it back to The Shins and the separate so-called “freak folk” movement of the mid-00s, plus duos like The Moldy Peaches (think: Juno soundtrack). I always call it “fey, plinky dink toy piano ukulele commercial music”. Yeah, it’s fucking dorky as hell.

I’m hoping people will get sick enough of it that aggressive rock music with blaring, violently noisy guitars will make a comeback (that’s mostly what I listen to). And the person upthread who corrected the misapprehension that this music is any way connected to fraus or mommies is correct: it might appeal to those women, but this music comes straight out of Williamsburg Millennial land. Rich girls with straight blond hair in long skirts riding fixed gear bicycles through McCarren Park. Fans of Zooey Deschanel, Wes Anderson, and other quirky/queer hipster-airhead-wimp touchstones.

God, I hate it. Make it stop.

I agree OP, it’s mind-numbingly bad. But At least it’s somewhat relegated to commercials at this point. And those can be somewhat avoided.

I think the Millennial Whoop r29 posted is even worse. Every song on commercial radio has some of that Whoop in it now.

And I like The Shins.

It's bubble gum Folk. I guess you could also call it Pop Folk. Whatever it is called, it irritates me to no end. Thank you OP for starting this thread.

bubble-gum folk is perfect, though i do like mommypreneuse (eau, dière!)

it’s our modern-day “urban BBQ” soundtrack - remember when every commercial had to have a feel-good breakbeat? i did like those despite their transparency.

It sounds more like a random jam session than an actual track with melody composition and arranged beat rythm.

It's basically the music the from the 1960s and 1970s being 're-imagined' by hipster assholes who think they've discovered the wheel. Hipsters mine the past for everything.

Dreampop, probably. If you search for Dreampop with female singers you get a lot of examples like what you're talking about.

Usually I just hear it called indie or folk, though.

Certainly popularized it, R28. That kind of song is always called something like folk, indie folk, or folk pop.

There are male bands like Baptist Generals who do the same sort of thing, but without the twee vocals.

Dream Pop is more like Cocteau Twins or Blonde Redhead though, R42...

Sure, R44, but there were bands back then like The Innocence Mission who have a lot more similarity to modern Dreampop, like Alvvays or Tiny Fireflies.

Not a lot of ukulele in this compilation but I think it's what OP is talking about, maybe a little less peppy.

The example at OP is called 'buyout music', where for only $16, you can put it in your video or commercial and avoid licensing and copyright issues. Greatest thing ever for sadistic or passive aggressive content makers.

46 posts and nobody has mentioned Fiest yet?

Come back George Formby. All is forgiven.

If young urban professionals are Yuppies, does that make poor urban professionals Puppies?

In England, I believe they think the decline began with this song - that this song is very symbolic of something very, very bad on the horizon.

Can anyone name/post a specific commercial. I don't live in the USA.

Generic Music Backdrop.

Greta Gerwig is about to dethrone Zoey Deschannel as the Queen of Twee.

It's the music favoured by Tiffany, a junior account manager, at Publicis or some other ad agency. They think it will appeal to girls like them and hipsters ("I get what this generation is all about!") so they push it aggressively. It goes well with avocado toast and poké bowls.

Her. She seemed to be the girl singer in many commercials a few years back...or at least someone who sounded like her.

The Innocence Mission is NOTHING like this Dreampop shit.

"Curious" is on the March 1995 Gap In-Store Playlist.

"Mushroom" by Feist is closer to the OP's description. Watch this video. It's exactly what the OP described.

"Mushroom" is on the July 2005 Gap In-Store Playlist.

This is why I don't listen to anything but pre-1980 show tunes and classical music.

I believe the technical term for this music is “shit.”

If it also features whistling, “total fucking shit.”

"MUSHABOOM" damned Autocorrect!

....

R50...OMG, haha! Seriously, this could have been the Aberdeen Proving Ground for this shit!

I think you could blame it on Jack Johnson imitators. I like his music, however.

The whistly, crappy shit I heard upthread is annoying as fuck.

Thank you for that, R46. Now it all makes sense. It's on every commercial, because this shit is CHEAP.

Anyone who wants to know exactly what the op is referring to, you can find it at R55. Her shit music is on literally EVERY commercial nowdays.

Omg, the girl singing at R55 is the devil - and her name is Kat Edmondson!

Yep, the devil. I had the urge to strangle her. This must be the musical equivalent of vocal fry.

R55 = ARRRGH my ears are bleeding!

R55 reminds me why I hate fish.

I blame the rise of K-Pop. And John Mayer.

Yes, R55 is AWFUL.

popular YT comment:

[bold]Look at the crowd's faces ... they're all enchanted. So am I. (If Kat was a stock, I'd be loading up right now. Go Kat Go!)[/bold]

Jack Johnson is hipster trash whose horrid music has infested so many, including fellow hipster trash, Donovan Frankenreiter.

Here's the OP's sound!

I'm in an Apple commercial from the late 2000s!

R72, the newest Apple commercial is still doing it.

R71 is a grump. Hipster trash? No, just someone living their best life in a beautiful place.

Johnson is harmless fun. Kat is a disease.

R63 / R74 is a Bernie Bro, so he's part of the hipster trash problem.

It goes back to Tiny TIm and from him back to the 20s and 30s.

Faux-k

All contemporary pop music is trash.

The prototype could be the "twee pop" which emerged in the 80s.

"Twee pop, as a genre, is more or less applied retroactively to bands part of the indie pop movement of the 1980s and early 1990s. Used at first in an almost derogatory fashion, the word "twee", meaning overly quaint or cute, was applied by commentators who saw a "revolt into childhood" demonstrated by its practitioners. Musically, it can be characterized by jangling guitars with a distinct post-punk background and 1960s pop influence, similarly with other indie pop acts, but also with a more noticeable theme of innocent and amorous subject matter."

Examples include Belle and Sebastian, Architecture in Helsinki, Camera Obscura and The Field Mice.

Thanks to whoever posted the Atlantic article at r26. It explains a lot.

Pomplamoose own this thread.

It's almost like a parody of the genre, something conceived by Lens Dunham, but, no, they're dead serious about their "craft."

That little girl with the ukulele on americas got talent!

^ Cringe!

Derivative, for sure. Like most pop music.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who can't stand this shit. I've felt like the Grinch when expressing my disdain for this type of music in certain circles. So I've just learned to keep my mouth shut. It's just infantile, and theyr'e all just so damned smug.

Thank you once again, DL for assuring me that I'm not the only one carrying this sort of hatred in my heart. I have plenty of love to give, but this shit isn't it.

Eh, R74, go suck your bubble toes.

This thread is giving me crazy Deja Vu.

[QUOTE]What is the name for this? It ain't rap, rock, jazz, pop... what do you call it?

At work, we call it "Shit Meredith Grey likes."

R15 and R16 have it.

[quote] I've worked creating this sort of music

You're gonna burn in hell for the rest of time when you die.

r37 nothing is worse than the Millennial Whoop.

Someone should have told Kat Edmonson "Nooooo...don't." That is one singularly awful voice, enough to make you hate music if it was the only voice you ever heard.

r73, that is Beethoven or the Beatles compared to the shit under discussion in this thread.

R75, you're an idiot. Bernie is irrelevant. No one fucking cares anymore and we have bigger fish to see fried. I'm a lesbian, I vote straight Dem and always have. I'm also far too old to be a hipster.

You, on the other hand, are a TROLL...capital T

I tend to agree with r93: "Kat is a disease."

I don't rush to call alternaposters "TROLL," though.

It's tit for tat, R94, when it comes to insult, but that particular TROLL is divisive politically. 'Bernie Bro', by this point, has become their calling card.

[quote]The Innocence Mission is NOTHING like this Dreampop shit.

Then you'd better go correct Wikipedia and about 10,000 YouTube music compilation videos, Gap Boy.

"TROLL" is divisive Dataloungically, an even duller insult than "Bernie Bro."

No ukelele, but this song seems adjacent to this genre, along with Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes' "Home" and the "La La" music by Sam Phillips they played at the beginning of a scene on "Gilmore Girls".

It gives me cavities and makes me nauseous...that's all I know!!!

I like r98 well enough, and I've played "Home" five times or more on repeat.

I hate the rest of the tweeism, though.

It's not an alternaposter, R94, it's the Gap Playlist Guy, and while I also have disdain for BernieBros, there was no reason to bring them up in this thread. Gap Boy is incredibly tetchy when he's outside his comfort zone, I've noticed.

Oof, R98. I just realized I have Sam Phillips "Reflecting Light" in my personal playlist, so I'm probably going to be one of the first up against the wall when the revolution comes.

r100 Is there really only one Gap Playlist Guy?

What's up the girl from Pompalmoose's jaw? She seems very determined not to move it. Or emote at all, for that matter.

[quote]I blame it on millennials refusing to grow up. Simple, dumb Peter Pan music.

They're not hiding it either. Melanie Martinez's whole schtick seems to be the baby/little girl thing (she even released a perfume in a bottle that looks like a baby bottle).

Oh my god...adult babies have gone mainstream now???

R105 only for attractive, thin, 20-something females.

[quote]They're not hiding it either. Melanie Martinez's whole schtick seems to be the baby/little girl thing (she even released a perfume in a bottle that looks like a baby bottle).

I see mumble rappers as the male flipside of the same trend. They all sound like they've only just started teething.

I think I'm now going to perform harakiri.

To be fair, somewhere around the end of the 1990s, GenX started embracing the "little kid" aesthetic too, albeit not sexualized like the current version. It was more about watching nothing but cartoons and collecting all the Star Wars figurines you'd lost from your youth.

Nowadays it's all babygirls and manchildren with porn fetishes.

R29 is my hero.

I'll just call this "TweeFolk" music.

I leave this here for you all to enjoy. Kill me. Now.

Can we blame this on NPR? Is Starbucks implicated?

Where does Andrew Bird fit in? What about The Bird and the Bee?

Jason Mraz always makes me think of some young frau-in-training with an "I'd like to speak with the manager" haircut getting wasted on fruity drinks with "her girls" on a weekend trip to Cancun.

"I'm a very sexy baby!"

I call it 'Ding-Ding! Baby-crib Infant Spit-up' music. I'm so glad someone raised this issue.

The Apple ad with the people running in colored onesies would be SO much better if they were zombies.

This thread reminded me of one of the princess rap battles:

Quirky stupid chicks and nobody can stand'em You're that annoying girl shouting, "LOL I'm so random!"

OMG, R55. Yes. That is that fucking singing. Ugh!

The most godawful trend among young female “indie” folk-pop singers the last several years. Why the fuck do they all think that sounds good? Or natural? Why does it supposedly appeal to a broad base of people? It makes me want to KILL.

The song at R71 is hot garbage of course, but holy fuck is that guy sexy. He looks so much like my boyfriend’s closeted bisexual friend whom I would give anything to fuck, or even just make out with. I wouldn’t call Donovan F a hipster, though—I think he’s more an L.A. surfer/scenester/lame musician. Truly hip people don’t make music like that or listen to it.

You can blame it all on the abysmal state of music education in America and the recording companies, who abandoned any integrity for the bottom line decades ago.

And if that dude at r71 is hot, than I'm a fucking god.

I'm also freaking sick of millenials and ge z-ers re imagining 80's pop songs as slow wispy lullaby's for commercials.

R121 Lol! I know, they just suck the fucking life and emotion out of every song they cover.

That “Hey Soul Sister” song fits into this genre, and gave Train an unexpected second act for their drying career.

[quote]I'm also freaking sick of millenials and ge z-ers re imagining 80's pop songs as slow wispy lullaby's for commercials.

Nouvelle Vague built their whole career on exactly that. First album was a slightly charming novelty, now it's well past annoying.

[quote]And if that dude at [R71] is hot, than I'm a fucking god.

But without a pic, r120, we'll never know.

[quote]I'm also freaking sick of millenials and ge z-ers re imagining pop songs as slow wispy lullabies for commercials.

Someone ruined the Stones' "No Expectations" by wisping it as the last act montage for some TV drama I watched recently. Just RUINED the song.

[quote]“Hey Soul Sister” song fits into this genre

No, it doesn't. Too much melody. Too much beat. Too much dong.

Unless you're talking about this version.

Some mainstream examples of little girl voice.

Lisa Hannigan.

Someone made a compilation of female artists singing with baby voices in recent years.

Slightly off subject... but dark, grim “reimaginings” of pop songs for movie trailers also makes me want to harm myself and others near me.

[quote]Where does Andrew Bird fit in?

On god. I lived in a college town in my twenties, and Andrew was THE panty-wetter extraordinaire for nerdy girls, the kind who would later take up knitting in public as a form of recreation. He is twee as fuck.

Isn’t twee pretty much passè now anyway? It went the way of the Williamsburg iteration of the hipster. They grew up and turned into square, regular old parents and worker drones. I only hear traces of the ukelele/ glockenspiel/ humming and clapping stuff in toothpaste and Pine Sol commercials. It has been thoroughly diffused and corporatized. And twee seems rather quaint as youth movements go, especially compared to what followed it: Paul Logan, Pewdiepie, Kardashians, etc. They are all about fame and material wealth in a way that Hipsters reviled. If Hipsters were naive ‘60s optimism fused with ‘90s irony, youth is all ‘80s frivolty and narcissism.

Here’s the “bro” version of this genre. TweeRock perhaps?

Thanks to R46 I now know about "buyout music" and many mysteries have been cleared up for me.

George Harrison and Paul McCartney popularized ukulele music in the 1990s. George collected Ukuleles and gave Paul some which got him into them. And of course Israel Kamakawiwoʻole played ukulele and sang his unique version of Over the Rainbow in 1999 which became one of the biggest hit songs of all time. I think Iz's ukulele playing inspired many people to take up ukulele.

A ukelele in and of itself is not necessarily bad. Ukelele + "la la la" baby voice vocals + glockenspiel + handclaps make me feel stabby.

The word "stabby" makes me feel glockenspiely + handclappy.

Ahhh now we're getting to the genuine crux of the matter, R136. and R137. Keep up your work and we'll have this issue cleared up by the next weekend.