Hate Apple’s “By the Seaside” alarm tune? You are not alone | CNN Business

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One morning at 6 a.m., Gyaltsen Moktan woke up in a panic.

It was 2019. He worked at an all-you-can-eat sushi buffet and was responsible for opening the restaurant each morning. So he put out a wake-up call on his iPhone.

Then the sound of Apple’s “By the Seaside” alarm went off. Moktan chose the upbeat, happy tune available as a ringtone and alarm on many Apple devices, thinking the song’s laid-back melody would make waking up a peaceful experience.

This bet has gone bad. “The alarm is mocking you in a way. It’s a bit like a horror movie, where they do a nursery rhyme before the disaster,” said Moktan, now an English teacher in Tokyo, Japan.

“By the Seaside” is perhaps Apple’s most polarizing alarm and ringtone, evoking comparisons to nails on a chalkboard, the word “wet” and screaming children on an airplane.

In the past, telephones had only one sound: the shrill, continuous ringing of a landline. With so many ringtones now available, the sounds say more about how people express themselves and what can cause stress and anxiety.

You probably think you don’t know “By the Seaside”, but you do. On YouTube there are extended versions, rap versions, versions played on various instruments.

“Some people think it’s a great ringtone. And others say, ‘Oh, my God, it’s terrible,’ said Carlos Xavier Rodriguez, chair of music theory at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater and Dance. air that divides. “You either love it or you hate it.”

People have been trying to use sound to reliably wake up for centuries, relying on everything from church bells to roosters.

Until the 1970s, in some parts of Britain, some people employed the services of knockers, or workers paid to wake customers by tapping on the door or window with a stick.

The first known alarm clock in the United States was invented by watchmaker Levi Hutchins of Concord, New Hampshire in 1787, but his clock chimed only once at 4 a.m.

In 1874, French inventor Antoine Redier patented an adjustable mechanical alarm clock. Seth Thomas patented a mechanical alarm clock a few years later, and the electric alarm clock was invented in the late 19th century. (Its inventors probably didn’t expect the iPhone.)

Since then, alarm clocks have evolved further. These days, some high-tech devices are designed to emit light that mimics the sunrise, gently waking users with a soft glow and relaxing sounds such as birds chirping or the rhythm of a flute.

Boston Flake, a 15-year-old high school student from Utah, says “By the Seaside” is the only alarm that can wake him up every morning for school. Far from being a morning person, he has tried creating alarms himself that are mixes of songs, blaring sirens, horns and thumping bass lines, to no avail.

“It’s kind of a love-hate relationship,” Flake said. “Sometimes I hear it in my dreams and I get a little shaken and I start to panic.”

Apple did not respond to requests for comment.

There are musical elements in “By the Seaside” that make listening difficult, Rodriguez said. There is no discernible key. The song doesn’t end on a downbeat, so there’s no sense of resolution when it briefly stops before repeating.

But a more important factor in users’ emotional responses is the “uncanny valley” element of air, Rodriguez says. The uncanny valley phenomenon is the feeling of unease people have around realistic, but not quite human, objects, like robots, dolls, or even clowns. “By the Seaside” has the cheesy electronic sound of a Casio keyboard that is reminiscent of computerized music strangely devoid of human contact, Rodrigo said.

Critics of the alarm sound express their displeasure: ‘If your alarm is ‘at the seaside,’ you’re just an unserious person,’ says a viral article on spicy than “nobody”. It received 160,000 likes and over 15,000 reposts, with many users giving feedback. Some claim the melody sends them into a “flight or fight” response. Others say the melody gives them heart palpitations and fills them with dread.

The nautical jingle is so controversial that it has even spawned an Internet tradition. Rumors circulated on social media that pop singer Adele wrote the song and that it made her more money than her entire discography combined. Ryan Meadows, the creator of Fake Showbiz News, confirmed to CNN that he started the rumor.

“We like to think Adele would find the joke funny. Maybe it could even inspire him to compose a suite of ringtones for the iPhones of the future! Meadows, who goes by a pseudonym, wrote in an email to CNN.

Representatives for Adele did not respond to requests for comment.

Certainly, the song has its supporters. Krystal Roxas, a biopharmaceutical quality systems specialist in San Bruno, California, used to wake up to the default “Radar” alarm. She moved to “By the Seaside” in 2018 after moving in with her boyfriend, who complained that the sound of his alarm made him anxious in the morning.

She has been a loyal listener ever since. “I love ‘By the Sea’. I don’t know why people hate it,” Roxas, 34, said. “I actually let it play out until it was finished. I do a little dance in bed.

Moktan, 26, admits he thinks users’ hatred of the alarm might stem from the fact that people end up hating what wakes them up. He once tried setting “Just the Two of Us” by Bill Withers and Grover Washington, Jr. as his alarm, before changing it because he was starting to dislike the song, he says.

“I haven’t found an alarm I like yet,” Moktan said.