The Temper Trap

It is almost always told the same way: an American indie film put "Sweet Disposition" on its soundtrack and discovered The Temper Trap. The dates say the opposite. The song had been a hit in Australia for almost a year when it turned up in (500) Days of Summer, and in the United Kingdom it was already on the singles chart two and a half weeks before the film opened there. What pushed it in Britain was, as well as the film, a run of television commercials that played for months. The band is Australian, from Melbourne, and belongs to that tradition of groups from there who did better abroad than at home, like Men at Work or INXS. This is the chronology in order.

Melbourne, 2005, and a voice that came from Manado

The Temper Trap formed in Melbourne in 2005. Their distinguishing feature was Dougy Mandagi's voice: a high, clean falsetto that let them build songs that rose and rose without breaking. The rest of the group is Australian, but Mandagi was not born there: he is Indonesian, from Manado, in North Sulawesi, and emigrated to Australia when he was young.

The sound was indie rock of bright guitars and wide spaces, with reverb and arrangements meant for big venues before they had an audience to fill them. It worked especially well on a song they had written about youth and the moments one knows are not coming back, built on a guitar figure that flickers and never stops.

It was already a hit in Australia in 2008

"Sweet Disposition" was released in Australia on 16 September 2008 and worked straight away: No. 14 on the ARIA chart. That is, in its own country it was a hit before any film, any commercial and any British edition existed.

With that in hand, the band moved to London at the end of 2008. In June 2009 the Infectious label re-recorded and reissued the single for the British market. The debut record, Conditions, came out that same year.

The chart first, the film afterwards

The British sequence is precise and worth following day by day. On 13 July 2009 the soundtrack album of (500) Days of Summer was released, with "Sweet Disposition" as track eight. On 17 July the film had its limited release in the United States. On 15 August the song entered the Official Singles Chart for the first time. And on 2 September — two and a half weeks after that entry — the film opened in the United Kingdom.

The peak came on 17 October 2009: No. 6 in the United Kingdom. It was also No. 1 on the Official Independent Singles Chart for more than a year, and No. 9 on the US Alternative Songs chart. In Ireland it also reached No. 6. It did better twelve thousand kilometres from home than at home, where it had stalled at No. 14; that is not unusual in Australian music, and something similar had happened to Savage Garden a decade earlier.

And there is a factor the cinematic account swallows whole: advertising. Between 2009 and 2010 the song played in campaigns for Center Parcs, O2, Sky Sports and Diet Coke, the last of these broadcast during the 2010 Oscars. In the United Kingdom, those commercials weighed as much as the film or more in sheer volume of exposure. "Sweet Disposition" was not discovered: it was accumulated.

A decade of silence and Sungazer

After three records, the group went into hiatus around 2018 and 2019. It was not a solemn announcement or a break-up: they simply stopped putting material out. The return came in 2022, with concerts and with the band working again.

The fourth album, Sungazer, was released on 10 July 2026, and is their first new material in a decade. Seventeen years after the single that defined them, the catalogue moved again.

What to remember

The Temper Trap wrote a song that captured an emotion that is hard to name, the nostalgia for a moment while it is still happening, and they did it with nobody's help: "Sweet Disposition" was already No. 14 in Australia in September 2008 and was already on the British chart on 15 August 2009, two and a half weeks before (500) Days of Summer opened in that country. Its peak was No. 6, on 17 October 2009.

The correction is not an archival detail. The usual version turns the band into a director's lucky find, when what there was was a group that moved continent, re-recorded its single and pushed it for a year across independent charts, radio stations and commercial breaks. With Sungazer, released in July 2026, they are still working long after the moment the song described had passed.

---

Sources

The Temper Trap is an Australian indie rock band formed in Melbourne in 2005. Its singer, Dougy Mandagi, is Indonesian, born in Manado, North Sulawesi, and emigrated to Australia; the rest of the members are Australian. "Sweet Disposition" was released in Australia on 16 September 2008 and reached No. 14 on the ARIA chart. The band moved to London in 2008 and in June 2009 the Infectious label re-recorded and reissued the single for the British market; the debut album, "Conditions", was released in 2009. The soundtrack album of the film "(500) Days of Summer" was released on 13 July 2009, with "Sweet Disposition" as the eighth track, and the film had a limited release in the United States on 17 July 2009. The song entered the United Kingdom's Official Singles Chart for the first time on 15 August 2009, while the film opened in the United Kingdom on 2 September 2009, two and a half weeks later. The single reached its peak position, No. 6 in Britain, on 17 October 2009; it was No. 1 on the Official Independent Singles Chart for more than a year, No. 6 in Ireland and No. 9 on the US Alternative Songs chart. Between 2009 and 2010 the song was used in advertising campaigns for Center Parcs, O2, Sky Sports and Diet Coke, the last of these broadcast during the 2010 Oscars ceremony. The band went into hiatus between 2018 and 2019 and returned in 2022; its fourth album, "Sungazer", was released on 10 July 2026 and is its first new material in a decade. Profile compiled for Rebobinados with fact-checking; interpretations of the meaning of the work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Wikipedia, Official Charts Company, ARIA, Billboard and other press coverage.