Amateur strumming-type songs in adverts

mellowsun

I used to subscribe to the cue sheets on taxi.com and this was the predominant type of music wanted by clients. It's part of the hipster disease currently afflicting western society, like overpriced coffee and porridge.

Chalky

Daughter took me to Koko in Camden to watch boys with acoustic guitars stand up and sing their own songs, and I have to say that the singing wasn't that bad. Joshua Radin and Cary Brothers also knew how to talk to an audience - polite and interesting without the gushy Americanisms. So we shouldn't tar all the sing-and-strum guys with the same brush

BigMonka

thomasross20 said:

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?

Thank you so much for reminding me of Eric's name, he was such a legendarily amazing player and really sad that he died too early. The variety of sounds which he got out of an acoustic were just mind blowing and way beyond what most guitarists are even aware can be done.

(Sorry, that's my gushing over)

imalone

Teetonetal said:

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.

Well, the quote wasn't covers it was, "slightly fey, acoustic based versions of previously more muscular songs - particularly in adverts." And I can almost hear Stewart Maconie saying it. It's the same as the a capella versions of hits you get on adverts, it's not just familiarity, it's safe familiarity they're going for, music that people recognise, but with the rough edges smoothed off and repackaged into a more commercially friendly form. It's probably easier to license too, and you can record a version that builds to a wonderful uplifting climax when you unveil your deodorant or sixth razor blade or (most depressingly) mobile phone company.

Though I'm all for it, if amateur strumming is in demand the phone calls will soon be coming in.