Back in June of this year, the (now-deceased) print edition of SPIN ran a cover story that could have also doubled as an Urban Outfitters catalog. The story focused on two subjects, Bethany Cosentino of indie band Best Coast and her boyfriend, Nathan Williams of WAVVES, and many readers criticized SPIN for buying into what appeared to be more of a PR push by Cosentino’s management that anything resembling journalistic integrity. But, then, when you’re being set up to become the “next big thing” in cute female-driven rock, it isn’t really about the music anymore, is it?
With this year’s release of The Only Place, Best Coast’s second full-length album, Cosentino came back into the indie-rock spotlight with a new hair color, a much slimmer figure, and her band’s shoegaze-y guitar fuzz totally absent from their new songs. While her ascent to stardom may not be as fast as her management was hoping for (unlike, say, Lana Del Rey), Cosentino is merging her brand with another going through a total image makeover, Microsoft, in a new CP+B-created campaign for the launch of Windows 8.
As the general U.S. populace is moving towards all-Apple everything at this point, Microsoft and CP+B decided to go to Apple’s former favorite target consumer, the young hipster. And, from a technology perspective, Windows 8 is, actually, pretty cool. (Feel free to confirm this with any programmer friends you might have.) But, by merging their brand with Best Coast’s, is Microsoft actually doing enough to really convince these Silverlake-dwelling cool cats that Windows is once again the go-to OS? Or, should it pull an Apple, and attempt to actually break bands instead of merely add its money to a music PR campaign in progress? One more Best Coast-less spot follows after the jump.