T-24 days ’til people start flashing the latest and greatest in PMP bling, and the soon-to-be-ubiquitous Apple ad campaign has initiated its launch sequence. Taylor at Music For Kids Who Can’t Read Good is excited, by the iPhone, yes, but apparently even more so by the iPhone’s iTunes library.
One thing I noticed, other than how freaking awesome these little gadgets are is that the iPhone (or the guy with perfectly manicured hands that uses it) has pretty great music taste. The albums that are featured prominently in the ads are: Beck – Information, Elliott Smith – XO (!), Lily Allen – Alright, Still, Gnarles Barkley – St. Elsewhere, Lupe Fiasco – Food & Liquor and Nine Inch Nails – Year Zero.
Not content to dwell on the prominently featured albums, MFKWCRG underwent a frame-by-frame analysis to further explore how the iPhone is cooler than you…
Also on iPhone’s playlist: The Reminder, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, “Icky Thump” (just the single, so Jack won’t be calling iPhone to bitch), Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots, Automatic For The People, Melloncollie…, Black Holes And Revelations, and the Noisettes’ What’s The Time Mr. Wolf?. (We also noticed Coltrane and Costello.)
Taylor’s conclusion?
This proves that iPhones are pretty ridiculously up-to-date and possibly British, since the Noisettes album hasn?t arrived in the US yet.
Ha. Regardless, this Blackberry needs to lose weight or something.
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Ironic thing is most hipsters are vehemently against any Apple products that none of them will even bother getting an iPhone.
…or is it the other way around with them and Apple? I swear, every week it changes up on me.
Umm…hate to break it to her, but the Noisettes album has been out in the US since April. I know because I bought it at Best Buy of all places.
The Noisettes album, on the other hand, is just merely OK.
Allen – hate to break it to you, but we don’t target hipsters anymore. How can they afford a $600 get-laid tool when they can’t even afford PBRs?
We’re after the 20/30-something self-important, self-obsessed banker/finance types in Manhattan.
What are you talking about? It was an early wave of the recent indie upwelling that marked the beginning of the success for the Apple iPod. The song selections in the Apple commercials are meticulously planned to appeal to early adopters such as the indie crowd. The Zune pathetically and unsuccessfully tried the same tactic upon initial release by going for the indie jugular (Coachella pictures on zune, forcefully placed “it” indie bands of that month (band of horses, etc) in albums list on ALL press material, fucking flying out indie bloggers to their lair. Yet it still failed, I wonder why? Perhaps it was that upon initial release the iPod wasn’t contrived and early adopters of it purchased it simply for usability. Now with a fairly strong foothold in the indie crowd, Apple doesn’t want the iPhone to have the same conotation as other competitors (businessy or lame) and going further wants it to be hip, like us early adopter trend setting indie kids.
Everyone knows that indie kids drink PBR to be cool and ironic, as they secretly spend their trust funds on $200 jeans. Fools I say, why drink the McDonalds of beer when you could be drinking something as brilliant as a Belgian Ale.
I saw Beastie Boys- The Mix Up in the playlist…… leak leak leak…
wait wait – what part of that music is considered indie? CYHSY, yes, but pretty much everything else on that list is on a major label. it might be COOL major label music, but i agree that any well-informed accountant/financial type suit might just have all those records on his iPod.
as for who they’re marketing this to, they are definitely taking Treos and Blackberries to task. The so-called “smartphone” demographic, which is primarily a business phone. I think you’ll see a few hipster kids walking around with them, but mostly just trust fund university types.
more to the point, i’ve read tons of marketing reports that indicate that everyone LOVES the iPhone — but nowhere near as many actually wants to pay for one. I’ll bet it does decent, but not amazingly well, especially considering all the Cingular/AT&T contractual requirements.
don’t forget when Steve announced it and showed off his prototype – he had the entire Beatles catalog on his!
Yeah, newsflash–hipsters aren’t poor. They also aren’t cool–they’re just in denial about their transition to being yuppies, something that Apple, Jetblue, et al exploit masterfully.
Indie is a genre (a creatively dead one, at that), not an adjective meaning “not on a major label.”
funny, i thought it meant “independent”, as in “not on a major label.”
Ontology doesn’t recapitulate philology. That’s where the word comes from, but that’s not what it means. Sebadoh had something to say on this 17 years ago on “Gimme Indie Rock.”
I’d love to have an iPhone, my WinMobile phone is… unreliable. But there’s no way they’re getting me to switch providers and drop a bunch of money I don’t have. Ah well, maybe in a few years.
D.
I vehemently resent the notion that indie rock is a creatively dead genre. I would go so far as to say it is one of the few creatively thriving genres we have left. In fact, you can’t even say that everything in indie rock is derivative, because that would be an outright lie. But I must ask, if you think indie rock is dead, what do you think is thriving?
^^
freak-tribal-folk-hop
Seems to me that the only death to indie is that it’s deviated from meaning “not from major label” and onto it’s current genre status.
First things first:
Did you REALLY imply that Nine Inch Nails’ “Year Zero” was evidence of “good taste” in music?!
And, Devin: You can’t possibly spend that much of your time worshiping/hating something as trivial as mp3 players, can you? Seriously.
And on that note, if someone wants to give me an iPhone for Christmas, then I won’t be upset.
Really? You guys actually think the iPhone is marketed to businessmen, bankers, etc?
Only folks I’ve actually seen splooging over this are tech geeks who salivate at the idea of building their own computer and poor folks who like showing off that they’re really not all that poor. Frankly, most of the business/sales types I know have said they’d much rather stick with their Blackberries than something that looks more catered to entertainment purposes than business purposes.
“How can they afford a $600 get-laid tool when they can’t even afford PBRs?”
that is the funniest thing i’ve heard in a long time. nice.
“Really? You guys actually think the iPhone is marketed to businessmen, bankers, etc?”
Yeah, no one serious about sending email and doing “productivity” things wants to use a soft-keyboard. The iPhone is certainly pretty, but business people are going to take “useful” over pretty… and useful to them requires a full keyboard, e.g. Blackberry, Palm, etc.
My dad works in the movie business and he said ALL of his co-workers are on the waiting list or what not for an iPhone. Producer-director-desperate-to-stay-hip types. So take from that what you will. I, on the other hand, will definitely not buy one, considering how the moment I step onto my public school campus there will be a 99.9% chance it will be stolen. It’s like asking to get robbed basically.
where do you live danielle, detroit?
I’m sick of all the bitching on these “indie blogs” about trust fund kids and what not…. not everyone who can afford a bit of luxury has a trust fund. Ever heard of working hard, saving money and rewarding yourself with a bit of “whatever floats your boat”? What you waste your money on is your business, don’t demean someone cause they have different financial perspectives and priorities.
Look, if you’re reading this you’re not as poor as the millions of people in certain 3rd world countries where they don’t even have phones (of any kind!)…
So, stop being jealous of the person next to you who might have something you want but can’t afford (yet). Work harder and save up for it. It’ll mean so much more to you after that. And don’t forget that there’s always someone poorer than you who wish they have what you have….
the grass is always greener on the other side….
Ju Bean,
Indie rock died for me the day the first Death Cab album came out in 97 or whatever it was. I bought it on the day it came out because of the advance notice it had been getting, but when I started listening, it was immediately clear that this was the first of a coming wave of fake versions of the music I had loved all through high school and early college. I even gave them another chance, bought their second album, saw them live, and they always sucked, and then pretty soon a bunch of other awful bands started to emerge–the Shins, the Decemberists, etc.–depressingly many of them from my hometown of Portland, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s been downhill ever since.
I could actually be missing out on something, though–I’m sure there are some great bands out there of which I am unaware. It just seems like each new “big deal” that comes along is both uninteresting and derivative (which I don’t think are the same thing)–The Arcade Fire is boring and insincere and sounds like one of those big Olympia bands from the mid-90s; Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are just A Bad Band, etc. I’m not a “bubble of negativity” type by any means, I just don’t much like that genre of music any more. Also, I am probably a little bitter since it meant so much to me in high school (graduated in 96), so it’s been surprisingly therapeutic to get this out…thanks for asking.
To tell the truth, I haven’t felt that good about much new popular music lately. I felt like rap had a little renaissance maybe 3 years ago or so, and I like some of what is going on there now. I also like some rock and roll, but the things I like are few and far between. Actually, do you have any suggestions for me? If you’ve read this far and you do, I would appreciate it and I would definitely check them out.
Thanks,
D.
“where do you live danielle, detroit?”
Um actually I live in LA, haha. My school gets bused-in kids from the inner city, and yeah… some guy got stabbed in the bathroom last year for a PSP.
D., who are the “real indie bands” that you listened to in high school? Who was being copied? Just curious. I graduated around the same time and had quite a diverse taste in music, and yet very little of it was as innovative as some of the great ‘indie rock bands” of today such as Arcade Fire, TVOTR, Decemberists, Clap Your Hands.
“Umm…hate to break it to her, but the Noisettes album has been out in the US since April. I know because I bought it at Best Buy of all places.”
Dude, Taylor’s a boys name too, and I don’t know what Best Buy you’re shopping at, but the Noisettes didn’t come out till today (which is after I wrote the piece).
Also, nowhere do I or stereogum call this music indie, I just called it “great music”. No need to get into a genre war. (and for the record, I’m not at all a fan of NIN, I just included it for completist purposes).
Rock on Taylor, nice piece with links-a-plenty, including BWE.
“iShitCash”, albeit some valid points, for chrissakes Mom, have I NOT asked you repeatedly to stay off of my damn blogs??!!
Carry on everyone.
D., who are the “real indie bands” that you listened to in high school?
^^^^^^^^^
Most of them are still around, I guess, but as older standard-bearers–Built Spill, Modest Mouse, The Halo Benders, Pavement, The Silver Jews, Lync, etc…pretty widely imitated now (and to be honest, those of them who are still around are pretty boring now themselves.) I guess I was mostly just into the local music scene in the Northwest, and this probably reflects on my diminishing ability to get really interested in new pop music at all, but I find most of those new bands pretentious and unlistenable. There’s nothing wrong with pretense, as long as the band has a feel for music to back it up…I really don’t mean to affront anybody’s sensibilities; I have a passionate distaste for this music, but I don’t presume to know what’s best for other people.
Taylor,
Sorry about the whole mix up with your gender, no harm meant by that.
I purchased the album in Fayetteville, GA (suburb of Atlanta), where I currently live. If you look at the amazon.com page you linked to, you will see that it says the album was to be released in the states on 4/17/07 with an original UK release of 2/5/07. I would imagine, however, that it may have experienced a limited release, in which case it may have taken more time getting to you.
D.
Well, when I think of bands that are not derivative, it’s hard to come up with anything that you might not view as pretentious. And by most accounts, part of the reason that indie music is so fresh today is because a lot of it was the stuff older musicians tried to avoid in the first place.
I think that where TV on the Radio, Battles, the Mars Volta, !!!, and Animal Collective (whom I hate passionately) all succeed in innovation, they fail miserably when it comes to their inability to avoid pretension. So yeah, I can defend the fact that the genre isn’t dead, but I can’t sit here with a straight face and account for its M.O.’s.
But it is easy to become dejected when it comes to music, so I at least understand where you’re coming from.
D.: Based on the above, it looks I like the kind stuff you do and don’t like the junk you don’t, so I’ll venture a couple of offhand suggestions: The New Pornographers, Apostle of Hustle (who put on a great show opening for Andrew Bird at the Crystal a few weeks back), Polytechnic. 20 Minute Loop.
It’s easier to get ridiculed for your likes than for your dislikes, though. Either way, there’s still good stuff from ten years ago that I’m just now learning about, so it’s tough for me to complain about a dearth of music.
Art is new art. Pretension is required to play a single guitar chord. Nothing is sacred. The “hipster” has always been reborn and dying, and everyone will always bitch.
Thanks, guys. I’ve heard a bit of some of those bands (!!!, Apostle of Hustle) and liked them okay, but didn’t find myself going back to them…I’ll give them another listen. I saw TV on the Radio live and thought they seemed good, but the songs never took of for me on record. I do really like the Walkmen, but mostly only their last album (of their own music). It’s one of the only recent things I go back to consistently.
I think what this FakeMonger character is saying about pretension is true–it takes a certain degree of it to think anybody will care about what you have to say musically. To me, it’s just that bands have to ring true on some level of what they’re doing or how they’re doing it, and that’s a relatively rare thing.
Thanks,
D.
TO shitscash:
You completely miss the point of why people call indie hipsters out on their ‘trustfund’ antics. It’s one thing to go out and buy yourself nice things (something I enjoy, hence my original comment about them missing out on actual good beer)but it’s another to try to keep up a disheveled and needy indie kid image and try to convince everyone around you that you’re too poor to afford anything but PBR, because really that’s what the conotation is derived from- trying to appear as though you’re not some comfortable middle class white kid- while in reality that’s precisely what they are. Take the contrived struggling indie image and combine it with their ability to afford much nicer things than they’d like to let on and you get what everyone loves to mock.
Good music creates the image of authenticity and most of those bands create good music, whether or not radio friendly, and thats the market apple’s trying to appeal to. Authentic doesn’t mean poor and I don’t think anyone believes the kid who has the iphone and looks like he just rolled out of bed into a 100 dollar haircut is buying pbr for anything but the image as well
IShitCash also seems to assume that everyone who earns money wants to buy $200 jeans and nice beer. EVER HEARD OF INVESTING, ISHITCASH?
today my friend told me he is going to wait at least a couple months to buy an i-phone since they will just come out with a new version. next, he said, they will create an iphone with a blender attached and he didn’t want to have an outdated non-blending iphone.
Today my friend told me he is going to wait a couple months to buy an iphone, you know, once it’s gone out of style to buy the iphone, and then it’ll be way cooler because it won’t be cool.