Share some amateurish lo-fi happy songs

So this morning I have been thinking about happy music and how hard it is to make. Maybe I've just not been looking in the right places, but I can't think of many examples of really upbeat, positive music made by bedroom type producers/musicians who aren't very technically skilled or don't know much about musical theory. Now some of my fave music is made by just those kind of musicians, it tends to be stuff like this though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bMQTU2iI1E

Pulse X

or this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEMReQAXGSQ

Truus de Groot - NY NY

ie certain types of dance music, post/punk/industrial, outsider folk, drone, that kinda thing. Again, I love that sort of shit but it's not really what you'd call joyful, and when I say joyful I mean the type of tune that would be a perfect soundtrack to strolling through the park on a summer's day with a big old smile on your face, tunes like Inspector Norse or Is It All Over My Face or My Boy Lollipop. you know that I mean

but it seems to me like someone needs to be quite a technically accomplished musician to write those kind of songs. is it even possible to write something that's super uplifting if you don't really know what you're doing with your instrument of choice? I guess I'm not necessarily looking for tracks that sound just like the ones I just mentioned except recorded in a bedroom, just tunes that maybe have that kind of vibe while being quite simple and lofi. share if you can think of any examples!

here are a few that come to mind for me, they're not super lofi and basic though, am honestly struggling to think of many more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poM64CPbMU8

Silicon teens - just like eddie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjNln9mXuTI

deceptacon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57e3ht31S8Y

andreas dorau - fred vom jupiter

Daniel Johnston gets pretty joyful...

i've not heard much daniel johnston!

maybe under mi sleng teng, basically a preset and some drums

I dunno if you can stroll in the park to it, but definitely puts a smile on my face:
https://nyegenyegetapes.bandcamp.com/album/sounds-of-sisso

This OMD cover (Genetic Engineering) by Optiganally Yours might do it.

that's really good!

i honestly don't know what i think about that nyege nyege tapes comp

dan treacy master of tragicomic effervescent pop that instantly puts a smile on your face
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zRyY2N9P7w

"son of a gun" by the vaselines is the first thing i thought of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0qIARknhMg

How much digging have you done into late 80s - early 90s indie pop? Lots of lofi recordings and cassette comps etc. Parameters you set seem pretty broad so that whole universe of music counts I think...

tally ho! by the clean always gets me there

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVkC8W_-a-8

good stuff folks! never heard anything by the clean or the vaselines, unless you count nirvana's covers of their tunes

and the only television personalities track i've heard is part time punks, which I love. i guess there was quite a lot of punk and post-punk that was sorta cheery, like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcl_vavnZQ4

The Flys - Love And A Molotov Cocktail

xp i know v little about that type of music! I heard that c86 comp for the first time the other week and thought it was quite good

my parameters are pretty broad, I guess I wasn't very clear, i was talking about bedroom producers and was then going on about stuff like deceptacon and under mi sleng teng. so yeah, i'm looking for the most amateurish and lofi yet upbeat tracks that ya got.

just had a thought - with a lot of really raw music there aren't many elements involved, but it seems like for happy music you need at least four (which I guess isn't a huge number), but you're going to struggle to make something too positive with just a synth and a drum machine or a guitar and your voice

Well in that case there's tons of classic indie pop that is 100% "most amateurish and lofi yet upbeat". Once I get some time later I can produce an extremely long list for you. Would also be happy to share via soulseek at some point if you were really interested.

dolly mixture! have always been partial to this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYW49NbIG84

maybe obvious but here’s a wacky catchy gbv:

“Bee thousand” (the song)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS2lC4ahtf4

those are nice :) especially feeling the GBV track, love how raw it is, don't think I've heard anything by them before

evan thanks! not sure if I need an extremely long list though :) i'd be interested in hearing your highlights!

so does anyone have any thoughts on my feeling that happy music is harder to make than moody music? at least in terms of the technical ability involved - seems to me that if you want to make an upbeat track it really helps to have more than a very basic understanding of how to play your instrument 'properly'

I dunno if you can stroll in the park to it, but definitely puts a smile on my face:
https://nyegenyegetapes.bandcamp.com/album/sounds-of-sisso

― The king of the demo (bernard snowy), Thursday, 6 July 2023 13:33 (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I still don't know what I think about this, I'm fairly sure I like it

the coathangers - nestle in my boobies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oihwsQp1r8

so does anyone have any thoughts on my feeling that happy music is harder to make than moody music? at least in terms of the technical ability involved - seems to me that if you want to make an upbeat track it really helps to have more than a very basic understanding of how to play your instrument 'properly'

yeah i mean sure, a lot of people who are novice songwriters will sit down with a guitar or keyboard and produce a Mogwai-esque 2 chord dirge. and i think that's just down to the individual, and like the tempo or groove that they gravitate towards. there are endless counter-examples.

just had a thought - with a lot of really raw music there aren't many elements involved, but it seems like for happy music you need at least four (which I guess isn't a huge number), but you're going to struggle to make something too positive with just a synth and a drum machine or a guitar and your voice

lots of happy music is just a voice, or just a drum, etc. if we're talking about punk and indiepop, a lot of those artists tend to write individually, which is a different thing to idk the Red Hot Chili Peppers or the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, who seem to write by jamming together. so Pete Shelley from the Buzzcocks i think is writing stuff alone with just a guitar and voice, but he's probably *imagining* what it would sound like with a full band playing it in his head as he writes. does that count as 2 elements, or more? And then he presents it to the Buzzcocks at some stage of completion, i assume, and he's strumming the guitar in a very percussive way. so if you were to reduce it to just guitar and voice, it sounds incomplete but the bounce and the energy is built in, and to some extent it's suggestive of what the other players would add.

remember this thread?

Who were or are the most cheerful musicians?
I say Louis Armstrong, Tito Puente, Roy Clark, and Eddie Van Halen

― Josefa, Tuesday, July 26, 2022 8:00 PM (eleven months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Mark Knopfler circa '78/79

― stirmonster, Tuesday, July 26, 2022 8:06 PM (eleven months ago) bookmarkflaglink

cannonball adderley

― "Why is the voice of reason treated as the unreliable narrator?", asked (Austin), Tuesday, July 26, 2022 10:49 PM (eleven months ago) bookmarkflaglink

That's a technically proficient bunch of players, but

Jonathan Richman?

― clemenza, Wednesday, July 27, 2022 12:59 AM (eleven months ago) bookmarkflaglink

not so much?

i don't know how "amateurish" Jonathan Richman actually is. He may not be a guitar virtuoso or anything, i don't think he's going to win American Idol but he's a professional *something* imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5D6-7TwDMY

love how this song just glosses over all the famously tragic shit about Van Gogh, how he died penniless and cut off his own ear, and only sees the joy ♥️

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6THaqtVncsM

"I Like Rain" by the JPS Experience:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLSgk78IfNM

^ great song, discovered it in one of my favorite mixes ever, jimi hey's pink noise

Jimi Hey's "Pink Noise" tracklist

it also has other great examples of amateurish lo-fi happy songs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5ADrcHJLFg

https://www.mixcloud.com/jimihey2/pink-noise-side-a/
and https://www.mixcloud.com/jimihey2/pink-noise-side-b/

a teenage Jimi Hey used to call in to my radio show regularly so i'd like to think i may have been an influence!

(would you happen to have the tracklist for the mix? I'm not seeing it atm.)

(intro is an excerpt from Everlasting Bass by Rodney O
and Joe Cooley blending into Jimmy by Boogie Down
Productions blending into a track by Aube)

1. The North Wind Blew South - Philamore Lincoln
2. Today - Hot Legs
3. Dogs In Baskets - Geranium Pond
4. Hands 2 take - Flying Lizards
5. DK 50/80 - John Otway
6. Images Blue - Complex
7. Up - AR Kane
8. Nice And Easy - Susan Cadogan
9. What About You (In The World Today) - Co Real Artists (blends into a Fuxa song which then blends into...)
10. Love At First Sight - The Gist
11. Mr. Sun - Elevator To Hell
12. No Me Tomorrow - Euphoria
13. Swings And Roundabouts - Stavely Makepeace
14. Ice Cold Waves - No More
15. Smokeytime Springtime - The Doves
16. excerpt from a Phil Ochs anti drug promo spot.

side B:
1. The Secret - Slapp Happy
2. One Of These Days - The Roosters
3. Let Me Take Your Foto - The Speedies
4. Driving And Talking At The Same Time/5. Runaway Child (Minors Beware) - The Necessaries
6. Can You See What You Speak - The Field Trip
7. Two By Two/8. Love Songs In The Night - Steve Martin (w/ The Left Banke)
9. I Like Rain - The Jean Paul Sartre Experience
10. Keep On Believin/ 11. All You've Got - The Lovin
12. Crazy Kids - Jook
13. Tinkertoy Tomorrow - Milk N Cookies
14. Lawnchairs - Our Daughter's Wedding
15. A Bun In The Oven - Princess Tinymeat
16. This Way Please - The Golden Dawn
17. Flying Lizards excerpt.

- Jimi Hey

sorry for late replying!

if we're talking about punk and indiepop, a lot of those artists tend to write individually, which is a different thing to idk the Red Hot Chili Peppers or the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, who seem to write by jamming together. so Pete Shelley from the Buzzcocks i think is writing stuff alone with just a guitar and voice, but he's probably *imagining* what it would sound like with a full band playing it in his head as he writes. does that count as 2 elements, or more? And then he presents it to the Buzzcocks at some stage of completion, i assume, and he's strumming the guitar in a very percussive way. so if you were to reduce it to just guitar and voice, it sounds incomplete but the bounce and the energy is built in, and to some extent it's suggestive of what the other players would add.

I didn't know that! tbh i don't actually know much about how bands write songs or about how difficult it is to make music with 'proper' instruments, eg guitars etc. I think I might have just got this idea in my head that songwriting is harder technically than it actually is, which is what's given me the idea that you need to be quite skilled to come up with happy music?

just read that back, not sure how much sense it makes but hopefully you see where I'm coming from :)

and that is some great music shared above, thanks folks!! I especially like the fatman crossing song and am baffled as to how it only has like 200 views on youtube

i don't know any of that either, ava, i'm really just guessing based on what i hear. there are so many different approaches and i think most artists try at least a few. songwriting and composing music more broadly seems to come more easily to some people than others, regardless of technical ability. people who struggle with it often produce amazing work as well, and the technical stuff can help different kinds of artists in different ways. but there's a certain freshness and exuberance that is difficult to recreate from a more knowing frame of reference and that's relevant itt, especially wrt "indiepop" maybe.

the process of sketching something out that is driven by an imagined ensemble is interesting to me, cause it doesn't seem to belong to one tier of ability or another.

https://countrydusk.bandcamp.com/track/too-sweet-2

Midwest alt country rock
Tweedy hasn’t written a tune close to this in 20 years