sorry james blake, elder millennials made stealing music normal
Plus new music from La Luz, Schoolboy Q, Corridor, Holiday Ghosts and Mildlife
On Monday, a James Blake Twitter/IG thread went viral around a central claim of “The brainwashing worked and now people think music is free…”
And although he is right about all the algorithmic machinations that devalue thoughtful art and music, he’s wrong to fully blame our tech overlords, because let’s be honest: we brainwashed ourselves, and elder millennials are to blame for music being free.
I’m not saying it was malicious, I’m just saying that in 1998, Napster gave us the opportunity to get music without paying a dime and we collectively said hell yeah.
And with that, we signaled a new price point to the broader tech world, and music was one of the first things to turn into grist for the infinite content machine that we’re now yoked up to forever in our FYP online life.
Chuck Klosterman said it pretty well in an essay in 2008 that music just happened to be first in line as students drowned in debt. If anything, music just randomly happened to be first in a long line of services we decided we just…didn’t want to pay for:
It seems entirely plausible that the money college students saved by stealing MP3's played a critical role in paying down whatever they owed on Visa cards they never should have applied for in the first place. I suspect that if Shawn Fanning had pioneered a safe, socially acceptable way to electronically shoplift from Target in 1997, people would have jumped on that bandwagon instead.
And also, if you think somewhere Lars Ulrich is out here on the right side of history trying to improve online revenue for artists, here he is in 2014 calling Daniel Ek a “great man” so, yeah lol.
Looking for other Good Links? Well shucks:
New song! I produced “Bored” for NYC singer Veronica Maeve aka vampireluvr. She has an incredibly Romy XX-meets-Natalie Merchant voice, and I’m thrilled with this new song.
Make NYC DIY Covid-safe – Artists In Resistance (A.I.R.) NYC is fundraising for a library of free air purifiers for shows and DIY events. Want to breathe a little easier at your next hardware techno rave? Donate now!
Do your homework – Phil Elverum aka Mount Eerie messed with a very unprepared journalist who interviewed him for Ojai Valley News. My favorite part is him spitballing on his athleisure partnerships
Aaaand on to the new tracks! You can follow along on our playlists on Spotify and Apple Music, which update every Tuesday along with the newsletter. Enjoy!
La Luz – Strange World
The fine editors at Bandcamp had me very intrigued when they described this track as “Black Sabbath meets Broadcast in a galaxy far away” – and they aren’t wrong! Heavy riffery gives way to paranoid ye-ye pop, and then drifts off into dark matter. Rarely is music this cool this confounding, and I can’t wait to hear the rest of La Luz’s new LP News of the Universe when it drops May 24.
Schoolboy Q – Thank God 4 Me
The new Schoolboy Q album is sonically all over the place – in a good way! – but the the Pastor Troy-esque horn line at 0:30 quite literally stopped in my tracks. It's a club-fight song until it falls apart into a sample-driven bounce a minute later. It speaks to the impatient range of BLUE LIPS that it all works, even if each look on “Thank God 4 Me” could have merited its own three minute track.
Holiday Ghosts – Big Congratulations
“Big Congratulations” is spot-on C86 jangle-pop, but the real star of the single is its video shot at an Elvis impersonators convention. The impersonations would seem sad, but there’s something oddly noble about seeing all of these people live their dream back to back in slightly Lynchian digi-cam fizz.
Corridor – Mon Argent
Another LP I’m really excited for – like the last advance single from Mimi, “Mourir Domain,” there’s a little paisley psych mixed into the band’s pointillist post-punk, and it opens a whole world of strange color for the band.
Mildlife – Musica
Australian band Midlife’s new record takes a Cerrone-via-Headhunters approach to neo-disco, and you’ll find yourself wondering why everyone else doesn’t go all in on spacious reverb and extended synth solos.
throwback
A. C. Marias – Just Talk (Live on “The Other Side of Midnight”)
Just an incredible live clip of post-punk poppers A.C. Marias playing live on Tony Wilson’s late night show in 1989. The legs up on the mic stand? The mangled acoustic-electric guitar? The chorus that never comes? Immaculate vibes all around. (Found via NTS Radio)