This week, Apple held its annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. To preview its new iOS 10 mobile operating system, the company shared a video set to a curious—and, admittedly, pretty catchy—bit of music. As nearly 6,000 Shazam users have discovered as of publishing, the spry, cowbell-tinged pop-funk track is titled “Hey Hi Hello,” and it’s by Hollywood Wildlife. Surprisingly from a company known for ads that make songs famous, ranging from Daft Punk’s “Technologic” to Feist’s “1 2 3 4,” Hollywood Wildlife wasn’t an up-and-coming act—at least, not in any usual sense. Hollywood Wildlife quietly released a digital album last month, but the band has no website, no social media presence. There’s hardly evidence that Hollywood Wildlife exists, because, right now, it doesn’t.
Hollywood Wildlife, however, didn’t exactly come out of nowhere. The songwriters behind “Hey Hi Hello” were three pros with major-label backgrounds: Blake Healy, who has played alongside Miley Cyrus’ brother Trace in Metro Station; Fransisca “Fran” Hall, who’s also a featured vocalist on “Hey Hi Hello” and has songwriting credits for Britney Spears, Major Lazer, and Selena Gomez; and Doug Brown of Nashville’s SafetySuit, who had a Top 10 album four years ago. It has become cliché for new artists to cultivate a false air of mystery around themselves, but Hollywood Wildlife weren’t obscure because it seemed like a good marketing strategy. They were obscure because their music was made for marketing.
Reached by phone, Healy tells Pitchfork that after leaving Metro Station, he had been writing for artists, commercials, and TV through EMI Music Publishing (now Sony/ATV Music Publishing). Sony, he says, set up a songwriting session with Hall and Brown, and “Hey Hi Hello” was the result. The song was more electronic and playful than the acoustic rock songs Healy had been writing, and he didn’t know if Sony would like it. But they did, and then Apple happened. “They just said that Apple wanted to use it, which was kind of awesome,” Healy explains. “So now we’re trying to figure out if we want to pursue it as a real band. We haven’t played shows or anything. We just did a couple of songs together.”
As throngs of new listeners were discovering “Hey Hi Hello,” others were finding it oddly familiar. Singer-songwriter Troye Sivan tweeted a link to the video at Shamir, asking if he had “legal representation.” Shamir retweeted it.
Sivan’s tweet didn’t explain itself—but it didn’t have to. “Hey Hi Hello” shares a similar lyrical opening as the breakout single from Shamir’s 2015 debut Ratchet, “On the Regular,” which begins, “Hi, hi, howdy, howdy, hi, hi!” The two songs also have similar cowbell rhythms—how many songs could you even say that about? (Apologies to Will Ferrell, of course.) What’s more, Shamir has appeared in Apple Musiccommercials (like the one below), a twist that at least suggests the company should be aware of his work. And certainly bands have battled brands before over the alleged use of soundalike music.
Whether or not “Hey Hi Hello” derives from “On the Regular” is tough to prove. After all, Shamir’s song also recalls elements of Azealia Banks’ “212.” And Hollywood Wildlife’s track arrives at a time when who deserves a share of the songwriting credit has been increasingly up for debate, whether that involves Led Zeppelin or Justin Bieber.
XL Recordings, Shamir's label home, declined to comment to Pitchfork for this story. Shamir’s camp, perhaps understandably given Apple’s prominence in the digital music realm, also declined to make any outright allegations or threats of legal action. When asked directly if Apple inquired about using “On the Regular” in an Apple ad, Shamir's manager directed Pitchfork to the song's publisher, BMG Chrysalis UK, who handle such requests (our phone call there was not returned as of press time; we'll update if we hear back). Instead, Shamir's team responded to Pitchfork with—perhaps less understandably, depending on how well you know your memes—the following edit of an existing Apple billboard:
Paul Williams, a spokesperson for Sony/ATV, told Pitchfork that “Hey Hi Hello” was “an original piece of music.” He said it was “created as a side project under the name Hollywood Wildlife by three very successful Sony/ATV songwriters who were put together by Sony/ATV and who all have a great track record of placing songs in film, TV, and commercials.”
Apple, for its part, declined to comment to Pitchfork beyond confirming Sony/ATV’s statement.
Healy says he can’t remember where the idea for “Hey Hi Hello” came from, specifically. “When we were working on the song—who was it?—‘Uptown Funk’ was popular then,” he adds. “Kind of the bassline and maybe the beat is a little bit from that type of style.”
What about Shamir’s “On the Regular”? “I have heard that song,” Healy says. “I think that song’s awesome.” He continues: “I like stuff like M.I.A. a lot. But the stuff I do is not as deep. It’s more fun and party, simple. I like that feel of just the electronic stuff.”
Told of suggestions “Hey Hi Hello” may be derived from “On the Regular,” Healy remains unflustered. “I don’t know,” he says. “Hopefully that’s a good thing.I think it’s a good thing. I think that stuff is so cool and fun. When I heard his song, I was like, ‘Who did this, and how did people find it?’”
Not coincidentally, that’s the same question being asked about Hollywood Wildlife lately as well. Though Apple declined to comment, there are signs the company’s connection to the project may extend beyond merely licensing the song. Elizabeth Rosenberg, a spokesperson for Media Arts Lab, ad agency TBWA Worldwide’s dedicated Apple unit, told Pitchfork that Apple “handled this one in-house.” Healy told Pitchfork that Apple did the artwork for Hollywood Wildlife’s lone, self-titled album of sync-ready tracks, which Healy worked on with a variety of singers and songwriters, and self-released online in recent weeks through Tunecore.
“Before we put it up or anything, they were like, ‘You should post it on iTunes,’” Healy says. “We were like, ‘OK, but we don’t have any artwork or anything.’ They made artwork that matched what the commercial was going to be.”