Amateur strumming-type songs in adverts

Emp_Fab

It seems to be a trend lately, having some barely-competent singer, sounding like they're either very nervous or on the verge of tears, singing along to a single strummed acoustic that's only just in tune.  e.g. - the Hive (heating your home thing) ad.... amongst others.

Fuck off.

Get someone who can sing and play.

Chalky

Showing your age - its the 'thing'. Like Rock and Roll, Punk, New Romantics, etc. At our age we just don't understand.

sinbaadi

Used to be that if you couldn't sing very well you could still make it if the songs you wrote were good enough. Now you just need a random Now album. Hmm maybe I'll write something by level 42 today.

As cover versions they're rubbish YouTube efforts at best.

richardhomer

Stuart Maconie was talking about Gary Jules's cover of Tears For Fear's 'Mad World' on the radio or - given my vast age and general out-of-touchness - 'wireless', the other day.

Much as he liked it, he believes it started the trend for slightly fey, acoustic based versions of previously more muscular songs - particularly in adverts.

Is suspect in a world that treats One Direction like The Beatles, for younger people, these kind of covers are seen a 'real' music.

I don't mind some of them - I'm getting too old to get upset really....

Sambostar

It's the age old line of manufactured innocence doing the hard sell for foreign corporations that don't pay tax and fuck you over.  By the time you've bought a lemon of a car...or whatever....it's already too late.

I think it's a similar marketing philosophy to that which makes white Range Rover and Ford Focus drivers really believe that they actually don't have an arsehole and are thus superior human beings.

thomasross20

I was reading through Eric Roche's Acoustic Guitar Bible the other day and there were several pages dedicated simply to strumming. It's one of the unique things you can do on guitar and some styles (flamenco) make full use of this. It's a vastly under-rated "technique" and I plan on improving mine!! But I get your drift, the "strumming" on these ads is a bit guff?

Teetonetal

The public are to blame for wanting the easiness of familiarity over working a little bit harder to accept something more original and creative.

Marconi is wrong though, altered covers are a massive part of music history. Presley, stones, Beatles all owe a lot to the cover song. And let's not even talk about zeppelin and song stealing.

Still nothing upsets me more the Leona Lewis murdering run, or that horrific cover of skinny love, that took an atmospheric heartfelt love song and stripped it of everything good and replaced it with over sung faux emotion pop rubbish.

EricTheWeary

I was in a well known coffee shop yesterday and one of the tracks in the background was a strummy version of Electric Dreams ( the Phil Oakey song wasn't it?). I don't know if it was meant to be ironic? But awful.

Emp_Fab

It is an attack on our very core.  It is like presenting a skilfully crafted oil painting only to be told that they would prefer it a 'bit rougher' and would you mind taking a wallpaper paste brush with shit on it and slapping it all over your masterpiece.  As Sambostar said, it's manufactured innocence - for the purposes of manipulating our subconscious into buying whatever it is the corporate giants want us to buy.

Apart from the principles of it, it just sounds shit.  Like your nephew whose just learned to play and is 'treating' you to a rendition of Wonderwall, with a sharp G string and poor timing.

Grumpyrocker

I saw an advert at the cinema the other day that had one of these terrible strummy breathy covers - and it was Welcome to the Jungle. 

Looking forward to the Waitrose arse-water folk version of Cradle of Filth's Gilded Cunt next Christmas.

Chalky

My Mom said similar derogatory things about the Righteous Brothers cover of Unchained Melody - one of the highest earning songs of all time.  Be honest, you just don't like covers of songs that you like. Twas ever thus... )

WezV

So we moan about the decline of the guitar in modern music then moan when guitars get used in a modern style of music we don;t like ???

I find the simple vocals and simple guitar think a nice andedote to other mainstream over produced music.   Most is a bit boring, but i would rather the kids today are playing boring music rather than annoying music.  its not required that I "Get it"

this thread made me think of this

and this

thomasross20

Grumpyrocker;619260" said:

I saw an advert at the cinema the other day that had one of these terrible strummy breathy covers - and it was Welcome to the Jungle. 

As a major GnR fan let me say... Noooooooooooooooooooo!!
Link?

hugbot

Its the Lynx Black one

Paul_C

is this better ?

underdog

Love the bluesy Ace of Spades, have done since I first seen it.

Nunogilberto

I'm in total agreement with the OP - horrible, breathy, teary voiced covers of otherwise gutsy songs. Total shite.

scrumhalf

There was a dreadful cover of Buzzcocks' Ever Fallen In Love used for some car advert a while back.

This sort of crap should be outlawed in the same legislation that bans Amercian adverts with English voices overdubbed so badly that time warps. There's one on at the moment for some sort of garden implement, it ranks alongside that shitty Odoreaters one from years back.

guitarfishbay

I mean... Have you heard that bloody Simon and Garfunkel cover of Nevermore's Sound of Silence?

holnrew

ITT old people being old.

Sassafras

Fortunately, I don't have a telly so I don't know what's going on here. Ignorance can sometimes be bliss.