Day 1003: 10,000 gecs by 100 gecs
My opinion of this band's debut has not changed at all since initially reviewing it, no matter how many other zoomers tell me that I'm a boomer because I don't "get it" or whatever.
It's not a fully anti-hyperpop thing either, as I think that many other acts in that scene or adjacent to them have composed some great songs even if I have yet to be wowed by a full project.
SOPHIE (RIP),
Dorian Electra,
Alice Gas,
dltzk, all of these have produced songs in a similar style and vibe to cuts off that debut album that seemingly took the world by storm, but all of those are artists where I'd say they made actual good songs. And I've also been to several raves and parties where people played hyperpop including cuts from that album, and in that context I was having fun, but whenever I go back, sit down and listen to
Stupid Horse or
Money Machine I just think to myself "What a wonderful world!" ...Uh wait, sorry, what I meant to say is but whenever I go back, sit down and listen to
Stupid Horse or
Money Machine I just think to myself "is this supposed to be an irony thing? Am I really getting too old now?"
Well the answer to that second question is yes regardless of any musical opinions, but I have to admit, I came into this album expecting more meme-tier bullshit that would continue to bewilder me, but honestly this was a lot better than I could've possibly anticipated! People have made claims that they "ditched" hyperpop but this still has a lot of that vocal filtering and post-internet vibe to it, it's just less overt, and very slightly less at that. This is still more discernibly hyperpop in its sound than anything I've heard from
SOPHIE or
Charli XCX. Where it differs from the debut is that it seems less like "nightcore for people who hate anime" and it seems less desperate to deliberately annoy listeners with jarring pitched-up vocals, fuzzy low-fidelity instrumentals and generally bizarre production choices, and instead feels like a hyperpop-styled tribute to shitty mid-00s scene music, which is fairly fitting considering the fanbase this stuff tends to attract being is terminally online Gen Z LGBTQIA+ who wish they could've lived through the MySpace era but, unlike myself, weren't privy by their elementary school years to all the grooming, gross fetishization of mental illness, lame music and obnoxious capitalization gimmicks that were rampant in those years. Thanks fiffer!
I still can't call myself a fan of these guys, but I'm so impressed by how much I don't hate this that it makes it even funnier to me that there seems to be some backlash against this album for "selling out" according to some purists. Although it's still pretty annoying in it's terminally online abrasive production, a few of these songs are an actual blast of fun. This is certainly no masterpiece, as you can only go so far when you're aping music that already sucked 15-20 years ago and almost all of their best ideas are used up within the first half of this very short album, but it's not that bad! Sometimes, that's enough for me.
Best Track:
Doritos & Fritos
Rating: 6/10 (yup, better than that
Model/Actriz album)