Discover the iPhone alarm clock tone that “traumatized” users

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

It was 2019. He worked at a sushi buffet and was responsible for opening the restaurant every morning. So he set an alarm clock on his iPhone.

Apple’s “By the Sea” alarm went off. Moktan chose the happy melody thinking it would make waking up a peaceful experience.

That didn’t work. “The alarm kind of mocks you. It’s like a horror movie, where they play the lullaby before doom,” said Moktan, now an English teacher in Tokyo, Japan.

“By the Sea” is perhaps Apple’s most polarizing alarm, evoking comparisons to nails on a chalkboard and screaming children on a plane.

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

You probably think you don’t know “À Beira-Mar”, but you do. On YouTube, there are extended versions, rap versions and versions played on various instruments.

“Some people think it’s a great touch. Others say, oh my God, it’s terrible,” said Carlos Xavier Rodriguez, chair of music theory at the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theater and Dance. “You either love it or hate it.”

From alarm clocks to birds chirping

People have been trying to use sounds to reliably wake up for centuries, turning to everything from church bells to roosters.

Some people employed the services of “knocker-uppers”, workers paid to wake up customers by knocking on the door or window with a bat, until the 1970s in some parts of Britain.

The first known alarm clock in the United States was invented by clockmaker Levi Hutchins of Concord, New Hampshire, in 1787, but his clock only chimed 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.

Alarm clocks have evolved even further since then. Some of the more modern ones are designed to emit light that mimics a sunrise, gently waking users with a soft glow and relaxing sounds, like birds chirping or the trill of a flute.

What’s wrong with this song?

Boston Flake, a 15-year-old student from Utah, says “By the Sea” is the only alarm that can wake him up for school every morning. Far from being a morning person, he tried to create alarms with song mash-ups, sirens, horns and booming basslines, to no avail.

“It’s a love-hate relationship,” Flake said. “Sometimes I hear it in my dreams and it scares me.”

Apple did not respond to requests for comment.

There are musical elements in “À Beira-Mar” that make it difficult to listen to, says Rodriguez. There is no discernible hue. The song doesn’t end with a descending beat, so there’s no sense of resolution when it pauses briefly before repeating itself.

But a bigger factor in users’ emotional responses is the melody’s “uncanny valley” element, says Rodriguez. The uncanny valley phenomenon is the feeling of discomfort people have around things that look human but are not quite human, such as robots, dolls, or clowns. “By the Seaside” has a cheesy, electronic Casio keyboard sound that resembles computerized music eerily devoid of human touch.

Critics of the alarm sound are vocal in their discontent: “if your alarm is ‘By the Sea’ you are an unserious person,” says one viral post on users commenting their own opinions. Some claim that the melody makes them go into a “fight or flight” response. Others say the melody gives them heart palpitations and fills them with fear.

if ur alarm is “by the seaside” you are one unserious mf

— sarah lugor! (@sarahlugor) March 27, 2022

The nautical melody is so controversial that it even spawned legends on the internet. Rumors are circulating on social media that pop singer Adele wrote the tune and that it made more money than her entire discography combined. Ryan Meadows, creator of Fake Showbiz News, confirmed to CNN who started this rumor.

“We like to think that [Adele] I would find the joke funny. Maybe it will even inspire you to compose a suite of ringtones for the iPhones of the future!” Meadows, who uses a pseudonym, wrote in an email to CNN.

Adele’s representatives did not respond to requests for comment.

Certainly, the melody has its defenders. Krystal Roxas, a biopharmaceutical quality systems specialist in San Bruno, California, used to wake up to the standard “Radar” alarm. She switched to “À Beira-Mar” in 2018 after moving in with her boyfriend, who complained that the sound of her alarm made him anxious in the morning.

She has been a faithful listener ever since. “I love ‘By the Sea’. I don’t know why people hate it,” said 34-year-old Roxas. “I let it play until the end. I do a little dance on the bed.”

Moktan, 26, believes users’ hatred of alarms could be because people end up hating what wakes them up. He tried setting “Just the Two of Us” by Bill Withers and Grover Washington Jr. as his alarm, before changing it because he started to dislike the song, he says.

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