Twee music out – dub step in?


I read an article in Creative Review that claimed twee music has been over used in TV advertising. Think back to Sony; nobody can deny that Jose Gonzales those millions of colourful bouncy balls being released wasn’t a match made in heaven. And from there the trend of using folky music in advertising seems to have encapsulated the world!

Apple jumped on the bandwagon by promoting their iPod Nano with Feist soundtrack ‘1234’, and match.com even went as far as creating their own folk music to promote their dating service. It’s amazing how this trend transpired and has carried on for so long now. I remember when the film Juno came out and people went mad for the soundtrack, as well as the quirky hand drawn graphics - and that 5 years ago now!

I find it interesting that this trend is being branded ‘out dated’. It has been going for a long time now and apparently audiences are growing tired of it. It works because it appeals to everyone, but perhaps it’s growing mundane for the same reason. We’ve seen it all before, and it seems to be growing difficult to street it in a new direction – one that hasn’t been used before. The new trend predicted for 2012 advertising is (there’s no way you couldn’t have guessed it!) dub step.

2011 was quite a year for dub step. It seemed to crawl out of the woodwork from hidden away 24-hour field raves and niche club nights to suddenly standing proudly next to Take That and Rihanna in the charts and being the focus of every teens iPod! I’ve lost count of the number of 15 year olds I’ve seen wearing t-shirt claiming they ‘love filthy dub step’ so I totally agree that this is going to be the next big thing. We’ve already seen Playstation use Magnetic Man ‘Getting Nowhere’ to promote the Playstation Move, and Weetabix have smashed dub step straight into youth advertising by using Mord Fustang ‘A New World’ in their 2011 Chocolate Spoonsize advert. The trend has already hit and we’re in the second month into the New Year! I think it’s gonna be HUGE this year, and it’s something to make note of, especially when targeting the teens. They absolutely love the stuff.

That being said, I still don’t think it’s the last we will see of the folk stuff. There’s something too endearing and innocent about it. If it’s managed to stick for this long then it’ll carry on, perhaps in the background, but it will definitely be there.