Brands & Merch

Beach House comment on copycat VW ad

By | Published on Monday 21 May 2012

Beach House

Dream-pop duo Beach House have responded to a new Volkswagon Polo advert whose soundtrack bears suspicious resemblance to ‘Take Care’, a single from the band’s 2010 album ‘Teen Dream’.

Based on what Beach House have said, it appears the ad campaign’s maker DDB (and the new song’s composers, music and sound co Sniffy Dog) may have taken poetic license with the original track’s sonic blueprint after the band “politely declined” to grant an actual, legal license for the original version to feature in the ad. Anyway, to a statement from Beach House, whose new LP ‘Bloom’ is just out (and in danger of being overshadowed by all this).

The band say: “Hate to have address this VW ad story during our release week, but an important part of information wasn’t included in the [Pitchfork] news story. The ad agency actively tried to license ‘Take Care’ from us for weeks, to which we politely declined. People’s comments/anger should not be directed towards VW or us”.

They continue: “It was the ad agency that made these moves. I hope this also clarifies to fans and non-fans just how ‘Take Care’ and the VW ad song are related. We will release a proper statement weeks from now when we don’t have more interesting things to do/talk about”.

‘Whispers And Stories’, by the way, really does sound an awful lot like ‘Take Care’. Omnipresent throughout are Beach House’s signature jingle-jangle guitars and synths, while the ad song substitutes the original’s chorus lyric “I’ll take care of you” for “I’ll watch over you”. So sly.

You can compare the two tracks here:



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