Nothing Gold Can (Or Should) Stay
Hello pretentious indie masses! It's time for another installment where I rip the shutter shades off of your face and expose you to the light of day. I hope that you put on sunblock because with as low as that AA v-neck is cut, you’re going to have one hell of a weird sunburn after this!
Today my target of mass disinterest is everyone’s favorite ex-A&R expense account groupie turned pseudo-intellectual “R&B singer.” First off, let me just say that I totally appreciate the fact that someone who was employed in what has become the music industry job that requires the least talent has herself become an artist. In the days of yore, an A&R rep was the one responsible for finding raw talent and grooming them for stardom. During the course of a band's career, their A&R would be the go-to person for help in choosing and arranging songs, and would sometimes even act as the band’s producer. These days, an A&R job consists of spending days on Myspace shifting through shit bands and throwing around phrases like “they’re amaaaazing!” or “I like them, but I'm not in love with them.” So just how awesome is it that one of these scum-sucking parasites actually became a buzz act? I am rolling around in the irony right now.
Santogold’s voice has the timbre of the chain-smoking spawn of a less talented Cyndi Lauper and a more melodic Lil’ Wayne. Only somewhat sonically pleasing after being doubled and tripled in the mix and buried in reverb, this “singer” manages to come off as a nasally MIA in desperate need of every engineer's default hide-the-suck studio aid, AutoTune (and trust me Ill get to MIA sooner or later). Her backing tracks, some of which could’ve been Sublime songs if Bradley had been addicted to acid instead of heroin, are so lo-fi and repetitive that they resemble something that a band of stoned 13-year-olds who just got their instruments for Christmas would produce out of their garage.
And oh, dear God, the lyrics! Can I be the first person to go on the record as saying that as soon as you start announcing yourself as a “creator” and an “innovator” in your music, then you are neither? If you are really creating and innovating then you don’t have a need to scream it from the mountain; you just do it. There’s no need to beat your chest and announce to the world that you are the first to do something, especially if you’re merely following in the footsteps of a line of “artists” that stretches for decades. Honey, your press releases are really getting to your head. Maybe if your single didn’t steal the melody from a Bic Runga song that was featured on the American Pie soundtrack I could take you seriously. No … probably couldn’t even then.
For those of you who are reading this and foaming at the mouth, get over it! Disconnect yourself from Pitchfork’s ass and stop believing that everything that some emaciated guy who lives in Brooklyn says is dogma. No matter how “amaaaazing!” some blogger or A&R rep or PR company says someone is, it doesn’t make them good. Ladies, in five years, when you’ve moved on from dressing in RCRD hats and leggings because your hair is all ratty from doing too much blow and your nether regions have been wrecked from the kid you popped out, you’ll be saying 'Santo-who?' And guys, when you’re 26 and you can’t pick up the alt-girls anymore because your beer gut scares them away and your band hasn’t made it “yet,” you’re not going to care about Santogold because you’re going to be too worried about how you’re going to pay child support for the kid that you accidentally fathered with that girl who used to look good in those leggings.
Just as seasons change and we all turn to dust eventually, so shall bad music disappear into the sands of time. And although Santogold, formerly a talentless industry scumbag and currently a talentless industry product, carries the namesake of a precious and durable metal, she has all the evanescent and valuable qualities of poop flushed down the drain of culture.
Today my target of mass disinterest is everyone’s favorite ex-A&R expense account groupie turned pseudo-intellectual “R&B singer.” First off, let me just say that I totally appreciate the fact that someone who was employed in what has become the music industry job that requires the least talent has herself become an artist. In the days of yore, an A&R rep was the one responsible for finding raw talent and grooming them for stardom. During the course of a band's career, their A&R would be the go-to person for help in choosing and arranging songs, and would sometimes even act as the band’s producer. These days, an A&R job consists of spending days on Myspace shifting through shit bands and throwing around phrases like “they’re amaaaazing!” or “I like them, but I'm not in love with them.” So just how awesome is it that one of these scum-sucking parasites actually became a buzz act? I am rolling around in the irony right now.
Santogold’s voice has the timbre of the chain-smoking spawn of a less talented Cyndi Lauper and a more melodic Lil’ Wayne. Only somewhat sonically pleasing after being doubled and tripled in the mix and buried in reverb, this “singer” manages to come off as a nasally MIA in desperate need of every engineer's default hide-the-suck studio aid, AutoTune (and trust me Ill get to MIA sooner or later). Her backing tracks, some of which could’ve been Sublime songs if Bradley had been addicted to acid instead of heroin, are so lo-fi and repetitive that they resemble something that a band of stoned 13-year-olds who just got their instruments for Christmas would produce out of their garage.
And oh, dear God, the lyrics! Can I be the first person to go on the record as saying that as soon as you start announcing yourself as a “creator” and an “innovator” in your music, then you are neither? If you are really creating and innovating then you don’t have a need to scream it from the mountain; you just do it. There’s no need to beat your chest and announce to the world that you are the first to do something, especially if you’re merely following in the footsteps of a line of “artists” that stretches for decades. Honey, your press releases are really getting to your head. Maybe if your single didn’t steal the melody from a Bic Runga song that was featured on the American Pie soundtrack I could take you seriously. No … probably couldn’t even then.
For those of you who are reading this and foaming at the mouth, get over it! Disconnect yourself from Pitchfork’s ass and stop believing that everything that some emaciated guy who lives in Brooklyn says is dogma. No matter how “amaaaazing!” some blogger or A&R rep or PR company says someone is, it doesn’t make them good. Ladies, in five years, when you’ve moved on from dressing in RCRD hats and leggings because your hair is all ratty from doing too much blow and your nether regions have been wrecked from the kid you popped out, you’ll be saying 'Santo-who?' And guys, when you’re 26 and you can’t pick up the alt-girls anymore because your beer gut scares them away and your band hasn’t made it “yet,” you’re not going to care about Santogold because you’re going to be too worried about how you’re going to pay child support for the kid that you accidentally fathered with that girl who used to look good in those leggings.
Just as seasons change and we all turn to dust eventually, so shall bad music disappear into the sands of time. And although Santogold, formerly a talentless industry scumbag and currently a talentless industry product, carries the namesake of a precious and durable metal, she has all the evanescent and valuable qualities of poop flushed down the drain of culture.
