i think it's more a criticism of the star system broadly (*as it is imploding again do to all kinds of factors - but this is a cycle), how one needs to be at that level of fame to have a career (*by the system's own intent), and the sycophantism of the gatekeeping in the spaces that create the scarcity model on which stardom runs, that is really what annoys people, not that some cool middle schoolers wrote a song and whether or not old hipsters are meant to appreciate said song.
these factors don't HAVE to dominate everyone else, but they often do - and they do worse now than ever as the streaming model literally destroys everyone's livelihoods, including the stars. but the stars have the record labels lobbying for their 53% cut of the revenue while the entire world fights for the bottom, smaller portion. i know literally hundreds of incredibly talented punk queer, trans, "of color" people who have been trying to catch a break for literally decades. they're everywhere if your goal is to elevate them. but that's clearly not what it's about (*see my initial comment about 'don't think you can do this, other girls' comment on like consequence of sound or paste or wherever i saw it.
so, those of us who see something like this, and who have seen it before again and again, we find ourselves a bit (possibly -too-) cynical about the whole thing. it doesn't matter who their parents are, unless it does. you know?
i think you underestimate just how little space there is in that system for artists to make a living. and also that these kids' parents are the ones who stand to benefit the most from their (*highly manufactured) success.
i saw a disclaimer that came along with their viral video on some site or other that said 'you won't get famous doing this - so don't try, kids.' so inspiring!
- i guess at least they're honest that it's a closed system and all these viral groups are completely constructed from whole-cloth synthetically in a marketing lab? then again, representationalism seems to just be a bit of a grim prison.
think this series is my actual album of the year. every song is wonderful and ive listened to them so much - even wish you were gay, which is actually a very mediocre song imo (srry). gastr del sol changed my life. dave grubbs forever.
any individual turn of phrase in basically any serengeti song has the possibility of being great like that, i totally agree. and i think he's only getting better at it, if this crop of new releases is any indication.
the kenny dennis character is personally hit or miss for me i have to say - though i catch myself humming dennehey all the time even still. -- but oh yeah also those cavanaugh demos i enjoyed more than the actual albums as well so maybe i should give the discoken demos a shot. the testarossa album he did with yoni is criminally underrated.
that record he put out with greg from deerhoof last month is so, so good. along with gentle fall and ajai, it's been a kind of ridiculous season for him.
yeah and so many of the military people who did such abhorrent things to the native americans - particularly what was done to the plains groups - many of them were civil war union war heroes. (custer anyone?) i mean this shit is so fucking rudely difficult to parse in some kind of absolutist moral terms (and certainly within the terrible american political dialectic terms) that it's not ACTUALLY that hard to understand how people now have no idea how to deal with it.
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