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What is Blackfishing? How to find out if you’re a culture vulture

What is Blackfishing? If you don’t know, it’s time to read up on it.

It’s an old story– when white voices repeat what Black artists have been saying, their voices get amplified. This happens in all American cultures, but music has seen some of the most egregious examples.

Same old song..

Rock and Roll was pioneered by Black artists who were pushed out of the spotlight. Elvis Prestley’s early career saw him re-recording hits from Black artists, bringing accusations of theft and plagiarism.

But now that music-making has been inextricably tied with image, this imitation goes beyond the aural realm and into the physical. Some have argued that the recent body ideal of being “slim-thick” is an impossible standard that transplants Black features onto white bodies.

The sexuality of black women has always been a source of fascination in the music industry: consider the shock-based success of “WAP” or “Anaconda.”


Blackfishing hits the mainstream

Because black women have found such success using their bodies to bring more attention to their music, white artists are blackfishing, shifting their bodies to imitate those of Black women.

Though the lines are always blurry on matters of cultural appreciation versus appropriation, posing as another race for profit is egregious.

After collecting their paycheck, the white artist can shift back into their white persona whenever they like, sidestepping the daily racism that Black people cannot avoid.

With her single “I Am the Strip Club,” Iggy Azalea has faced accusations of blackfishing after appearing several shades darker than her natural skin tone.

Detractors also mentioned her brunette wig and her wearing a waist trainer, imitating the curvaceous body type more commonly seen in Black women.

She denied the allegations, saying on Twitter: “It’s the same makeup from every other part of the video just with a Smokey eye and different wig. Just ignore them. Who cares?”

Ariana Grande also comes to mind: though she is Italian American, in her single “7 Rings”, she sports a dark tan and fake hair, singing from a trap house about money and bitches.

All these things have ridiculed Black artists, but “7 Rings” turned out to be one of Grande’s biggest hits in recent years. Fans have also noted the gradual darkening of her skin throughout her career, though she appeared pale and freckled on the covers of magazines like Elle and Vogue.

How she’s spoken has also changed, with Grande adopting phrases and vocal mannerisms from the Black community. But Grande and Azalea are only two examples of a societal phenomenon spreading further and further.

Because of the proven marketability of Black aesthetics, many white influencers have subtly shifted their appearances into something more racially ambiguous to appeal to the widest possible audience.


Who gonna tell her?

Then, they leverage their larger audiences for more brand deals and sponsorships, and just like white musicians skimming off Black culture, make better profits than the vast majority of Black influencers.

This leads to a phenomenon some refer to as “Instagram face”: since most influencers are editing their photos to match the same idealized body type and face, there is an uncanny similarity from page to page.

Thick lips, big eyes, tan skin. An impossibly small waist is paired with a large ass. A strange amalgamation of ethnic features, carefully selected and placed onto white bodies.

When this is the standard that young white people see in their favorite musicians and on their social media, it can be hard to resist the urge to measure up.

Exhibit A… Jesy Nelson

jesy nelson blackfishing

You can stay up to date with all of Jesy Nelson’s blackfishing below via the Reddit thread.


Before trying on that waist trainer or getting a spray tan, consider how blackfishing impacts the Black community.

via GIPHY

Instead of perpetuating the beauty standards that capitalize on Black features while ignoring actual Black people, try embracing your features unapologetically so that Black peers might do the same.

It’s easier said than done, however. Young people of all races feel the pressure to change themselves. It’s a capitalist endeavor to the core, exploiting insecurities from all kinds of people to sell products promising a transformation.

While Black people struggle to wrestle their ethnic features into something palatable for white society, white people are profiting off those features with none of the same struggles. 

Beyond being exploitative to Black culture, consider that these changes are often fruitless in the face of a constantly-shifting body ideal. We are all chasing after the mirage of an ideal body, an image that always seems to be changing.

Many are forecasting the return of 90s heroin-chic skinny and the end of the slim thick reign, and things seem to be moving in that direction, as celebrities are beginning to remove lip injections and butt implants.

When you think about, ‘What is Blackfishing?’ think of it this way. Your body isn’t like a shirt you can take off at the end of the day: it’s your permanent home and something you’ll never be able to change completely.

Black people know this better than anyone, and until racial profiling and discrimination have been alleviated, white people should stop adopting and abandoning ethnic features whenever they find it convenient.

The only way to win the blackfishing game is to stop playing.

By supporting the natural appearances of people from all races, we can move towards a reality where white people no longer profit off Black aesthetics, and all kinds of people receive equal amounts of exposure and opportunity in the cultural sphere.

Overworked musicians and burnout: 5 ways fans can help

When the music industry decides an artist is valuable, they are expected to uphold their popularity with constant touring, promotion, interviews, and music-making.

From Britney Spears sporting a shaved head to Kanye West’s mental breakdowns on the web, the headlines regularly keep space for overworked musicians.

Doja Cat is just the most recent example of a musician going public with their burnout. Before now, she seemed invincible: her moves have been impossible to predict, bobbing and weaving from viral hit to viral hit, wearing bizarre outfits, and feeding goofy one-liners to her TikTok followers.

Her weirdness and her undeniable musical talent have proved hypnotic to fans. But even though she’s made a career out of toeing the line between conventional American beauty and weird sexy alien, with a recent Instagram live, some were concerned for her wellbeing.

A couple of weeks ago, with hundreds of fans watching, a gleeful Doja Cat shaved her head and eyebrows, joking that she “was never meant to have hair.” The Internet responded to this move with an eerie echo of the discourse surrounding Britney Spears shaving her head in 2007.

A mix of support and disgust poured onto Doja’s social media: some complimented her new look, and some called it ugly. Others suggested that we shouldn’t focus on her appearance and look into her mental state instead.

But there’s no need to speculate considering Doja has already addressed the state of her mental health in a series of now-deleted Tweets. “I’m just tired, and I don’t want to do anything,” she said. “I’m not happy. I’m done saying yes to motherfuckers cuz I can’t even have a week to just chill. I’m never not working. I’m fucking tired.”

Instead of pinning it on managers, a label, or the industry, she blamed the overworking on herself. “I just keep agreeing to shit I don’t wanna do in the future,” she said. “It’s my own dumb ass fault, and then I’m too tired to put any effort into this shit cuz I’m so run down from everything else.”

High expectations from labels mixed with overworked musicians is a recipe for burnout. But musicians rarely talk about it. They want to avoid damaging their brand or backlash: much of the public has no sympathy for the struggles of the rich and famous.

In some people’s eyes, the preconditions to fame are signing away free time and privacy in exchange for riches and popularity. But there are always exceptions.

Looking deeper into Doja Cat’s situation, she signed a joint contract with RCA Records and Kemosabe Records when she was only 17.

She had no idea how famous she was going to become.

Regardless of how an artist came into the spotlight, fans might feel guilty for enjoying their work when they mention their unhappiness or feelings of stress.

So, what can we do about these concerns around our favorite overworked musicians? As fans, there are some ways that we can help support.

1. Don’t engage with rumors.

This is a simple request since it doesn’t require any action on your part. Some well-meaning fans will pick through interview footage, paparazzi shots, and social media posts, looking for clues about their favorite musician’s mental health.

Try to avoid doing this. Even public figures who’ve chosen the spotlight deserve to have their health remain private and not used as a subject for debate.

If they choose to go public about their mental health to raise awareness or to connect with fans, that’s a different story. But until then, stop coming to conclusions based on what little information has been revealed to the public.

You will never know the whole story; these rumors often hurt more than they help.


2. Boost positivity on social media

If your favorite artists post something concerning, try to offer positivity instead of trying to diagnose or interrogate them.

Like this…

Not like this…

https://twitter.com/Zetumbo757/status/1556301873673551872?s=20&t=8SNcKMtE3y6ImHEzjNr5mQ

Unfortunately, fans cannot offer the kind of support that a close friend or family might be able to, but reminding the musician that their work is valued and appreciated can help combat feelings of burnout and remind them why they love making music in the first place.


3. Continue to support their music

This step applies more to independent artists or smaller, upcoming artists who might be balancing their music career between another job to pay the bills.

Streaming platforms garner the most listeners but pay peanuts to the artists, who might find it difficult to continue producing art under these conditions.

Try buying their songs on Bandcamp, buying their merch, or, best of all, buying tickets to see their live shows.

For fans interested in cryptocurrency, some musicians upload their songs as NFTs on websites like Zora and PHLOTE. These purchases can help support a smaller artist.

Money can’t buy happiness, but for these smaller artists, some financial support from fans can go a long way in lifting their music career to new heights, allowing these artists to focus on creating what they love.

4. Give music artists breathing room in digital and physical spaces

We’ve all seen it before: pop stars flanked by black-suited bodyguards, who have to fend back the pressing mobs of fans trying to touch their favorite musician.

The same thing happens online when die-hard fans overanalyze every action of their favorite overworked musicians, everything they say, every picture they post.

overworked musicians
Photo by Anna Shvets

This hyper-visibility reminds musicians they’re always in the public eye and can never slip up unless they want to be Twitter’s punching bag of the week.

Giving celebrities, especially overworked artists, a little breathing room would be healthy for both parties. The stars can reclaim a bit of privacy, and the fans will remember that musicians are just people, not gods.


5. Overworked musicians are human too

via GIPHY

Imagine something embarrassing you’ve done. Whether you like it or not, I’m sure these moments resurface occasionally. Everyone has slip-ups and bad hair days, moments they regret, and things they wish they hadn’t said.

But for someone in the public eye, these mistakes are discussed by the entire country. Embarrassing moments become permanent, humiliating on an unimaginable scale, and often career-ruining.

Instead of using a musician’s slip-ups to rip them apart, try to exercise some empathy in this regard. If you disagree with them or their actions, it’s much easier to quietly stop supporting them.

Don’t add to the stressful day of an overworked musician, artist, or celebrity.

Art d’Ecco invokes the past to create his future

For the past decade of his music career, Art d’Ecco has strutted through glossy rock productions in platform shoes, clad in white face makeup and a bobbed black wig.

He’s carried the mantle of 70s glam-rock greats, knowing that people listen with their eyes as much as their ears.

Refusing the bearded, rugged mold of a rockstar, he sang in an androgynous whisper and dared listeners to think strangely of it.

But with his newest release, “After the Head Rush”, he’s shed the glamorous, binary-bending regalia. d’Ecco now wears cropped blonde hair and his bare, natural face: a sharp departure from the eccentric look he’d cultivated for years.

By refusing to hold the pose he struck at the beginning of his career, his image has settled into something that feels more candid to him.

“I’ve been grinding away at this Art d’Ecco character for ten years, and times have changed. The grander statement of gender identity and being androgynous is not transgressive anymore, and I have no place to stick that claim.”

Art d’Ecco

“I thought it was time to pivot and do something more honest with my image. Obviously, I’m not a natural blonde, so there’s a little bit of fibbing going on!”

Art d’Ecco

“After the Head Rush” seems to mark a great deal of changes for d’Ecco, both musically and personally. When we spoke, he had recently moved into a new apartment.

The empty walls were the same bright white as his hair, both promising fresh beginnings. Through shedding the character, he is singing from a place closer to his authentic self, a place he’s felt more comfortable inhabiting lately.

“I had this whispering delivery on ‘Trespasser’, and I was doing a concept about the entertainment industry with ‘In Standard Definition.’ With this album I think I’m using my most natural singing voice. There’s a lot more confidence in the way I’m singing,” he said.

Stripping back the theatrical image has brought a refreshing candor to “After the Head Rush,” with d’Ecco spinning his lived experience into song. This approach was inspired by a visit to his hometown of Victoria, BC, Canada, which he cites as the first spark of inspiration.

“I was inundated with a flow of memory going back to these old stomps. That’s the parking lot where I would sneak out on a Saturday night and drink with my friends. Oh, there’s the bush I puked in. It stirred up all these emotions in me.”

Art d’Ecco

These recollected scenes of youth became the well of inspiration he pulled from. While walking through the annals of his childhood and teenage years in Victoria, he reflected on the increasing distance between himself and those times.

“I’m at that part of my life where I look back on my teenage years and my adolescence and tap into a high of nostalgia. When you approach middle age, you realize that before the stress of taxes and mortgages, you felt an adolescent joy,” he said.

The entire album is infused with that intense rush of memory, a golden aura of nostalgia overlaying the music. The songs are full of tenderness for the past, written from the perspective of a sobering future, after youthful optimism has faded.

Beyond the play on Neil Young’s “After the Gold Rush”, the album title embodies that idea, with d’Ecco placing himself “after the head rush” of youth, entering a new era of his life and music.

The album’s title is also a cheeky reference to his biggest hit, “Head Rush”, delivering an answer to those wondering what would come afterwards.

If “Head Rush” is a rock anthem suited to dancing in a bar full of reckless bodies, “After the Head Rush” is the soundtrack for the hangover afterwards, waking up crusted in glitter and sorting through last night’s memories.

But don’t mistake it for thin, frivolous party music. “After the Head Rush” is full-bodied and maximalist, with complex instrumental layers breathing and moving together on each track.

Strong guitar lines drive the album forward, and d’Ecco deftly blends adjacent sub-genres of rock, pulling from new wave, funk, glam, and art rock influences that all “melt together in the pot”. Playful horns, vocals, and synths accent the consistent tethers of guitar and drum.

The tracklist strikes a balance between the glittering energy of youth and weary, time-worn pessimism.

“Get Loose” and “Until the Sun Comes Up” are exuberant danceable tracks, but these party anthems are threaded between “Midlife Crisis” and “Run Away”, much moodier tracks using dry wit to cope with middle-aged ennui.

D’Ecco keeps space for both of these contrasting mindsets on the album, running next to each other on parallel tracks, showing how one is created by the other.

“There’s a duality with this album. When you’re young, it’s all about the party, it’s about having fun and falling in love. When you’re much older, you’ve got baggage, you’ve got fatigue, you’ve got to adopt a cynical playfulness to survive. I want to write a timeline jumping back and forth. Half of the album is the upbeat party, and the other half is songs about being old and tired.”

Art d’Ecco

Working within an industry obsessed with youth and the next big thing, many musicians adopt a winking, hush-hush attitude towards their age. But d’Ecco tackles the topic fearlessly, with humor and finesse.

“I Was A Teenager” dances to the tune of its own wry angst. “I was a person / not yet in debt / not yet a citizen filled with panic and dread,” d’Ecco sings, setting existential fear against catchy call-and-response vocals and a hand-clapping groove.

“Midlife Crisis” puts forward a similar perspective: “Midlife so crushing I could move underground / but I just signed a lease for this / the penalty keeps me around.”

Given d’Ecco’s years of experience as a musician, this honesty is a way of striving for timelessness, having seen musical trends come and go. With the rise of streaming, and the viral hit machine churning out immense profits on TikTok, there’s a new pressure for artists to bend to the algorithm.

Yet despite this turn to digital music, d’Ecco remains fiercely analog, steadfast in his creative vision.

“I long for crafty songwriting and intelligent music production, not ephemera that comes and goes. I want my music to have staying power. The only way to combat it is to fight back, be yourself, and write good music.”

Art d’Ecco

On the album’s final, titular track, d’Ecco sings a repeating refrain: “Now that it’s all gone, gone, gone…”. At the climax of the song, his vocals are soaked in reverb, and we can hear each word echoing, already moving into the past, leaving afterimages of itself.

It’s a fitting way to close out an album that holds onto the past, reliving its beauty. But by heralding these memories of youth and sending them on their way, the future is opening up.

Art d’Ecco is poised to launch in a new direction, and as long as he continues performing, he’ll be tapping into a different kind of rush.

“At the end of the day, any musician that you talk to can stand by this statement: we just want our songs to be heard. Bringing that song to a live audience, nothing beats that. It’s a genuine high, it’s the ultimate head rush.”

Art d’Ecco

Art d’Ecco will be playing live shows through autumn 2022, tickets are purchasable here. You can find his music on all streaming platforms, and on Bandcamp.

banned books

7 banned books and where you should buy them

Led by conservative politicians and parents, a renewed wave of banned books has been raging through American school districts, washing away title after title.

Books dealing with LGBTQIA+ identities, racism, and historic atrocities have been challenged– most notably Art Spiegelman’s “Maus”, which grapples with his parents’ experience in the Holocaust.

If implemented, these book bans would create an artificial silence around issues of racism and LGBTQIA+ identities.

Educate Public School GIF by Creative Courage - Find & Share on GIPHY
GIPHY

The latter goes hand in hand with political moves like the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which prevents teachers from speaking about LGBTQIA+ topics (such as gender identity or sexual orientation) to schoolchildren.


Hard truth on banning books

Here’s a difficult truth: if a child is gifted an iPhone or iPad, as many American children are, it’s no longer possible to shield them from all forms of cruelty.

Even with parental controls, when the world is placed in a child’s palm, you can’t filter out the unsavory parts with complete accuracy.

When we remove these difficult topics from classrooms, we aren’t preventing our children from encountering them; we’re only taking away their space to discuss them with trusted adults and peers.

We risk raising a generation of children who develop their viewpoints on racism, LGBTQIA+ people, and atrocities on the Internet, where the outrage is social currency and nuance is lacking.

Tag Think It Up GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY
GIPHY

Those hoping to ban books should also consider that the practice can be counterintuitive. As humans, we have a burning curiosity to know the information deemed forbidden to us– we are all Bluebeard’s wife, wondering what is behind the door.

Ironically, sales of titles usually increase after they’ve been banned. Why not join in, and give banned books a try?

“Any book worth banning is a book worth reading.”

Isaac Asimov

Below is a list of 7 titles that have commonly been challenged, and the reasons why they were considered unsuitable– and afterward, places where you can buy them.


Maus” by Art Spiegelman

maus by Art Spiegelman

As previously mentioned, this graphic novel recounts the author’s parents’ experience during the Holocaust, and though the committee cited curse words as the reason for banning, it has sparked a national conversation about what topics are suitable for children to learn.


The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

“The Hate U Give” follows Starr, and her encounter with racially motivated police brutality when her friend is killed during a traffic stop.

The banning of the book was cited due to expletives, but the conservative backlash against teaching children the state of American race relations suggests an alternative motive.


All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson

All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson

This self-declared memoir-manifesto details the upbringing of a queer black boy in New Jersey. By telling the truthful story of his life, Johnson hopes to erase the distance that fictionalization can create between a story and its audience.

It is a frequent target of school boards, and opponents have concerns about mentions of masturbation and oral sex. 


Beloved” by Toni Morrison

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison books are frequent targets of banning– likely due to her frank, uncompromising handling of difficult subjects. Beloved, in specific, deals with slavery, infanticide, racism, and sexual abuse in no uncertain terms. Critics of censorship worry that banning these books will sanitize the history of American racism, but opponents say the content is too disturbing for children.


Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe

Maia Kobabe’s graphic memoir chronicles eir struggles with binary gender roles, growing up, and coming into one’s body. The banning of this book is part of the ongoing effort to censor gay literature and gay stories from children.


“To Kill A Mockingbird” by Harper Lee

This classic novel, dealing with a small town’s scapegoating of an innocent black man, is one of the most frequently banned titles in schools all over America. Like most truly great books, it makes the reader uncomfortable.

Many schools emphasize its teaching as an important example of the way outsiders are treated, but some schools still reject teaching this book on the grounds of sexual content and racial slurs.


The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood’s most prominent novel envisions a futuristic America where fertility rates have plummeted, and the remaining fertile women are kept as broodmares for wealthy men.

Though the story is fictional, Atwood continually reminds her readers that everything within the story has happened to women at some point in history. The book is most commonly banned for its explicit sexual content.


Where you can buy these banned books

If you can find these banned titles in your local library, give them a try.

Independent booksellers in your community would also appreciate the business, but a Barnes and Noble store work in a pinch. If you’re looking to buy online, dodge Amazon and try Bookshop.org, which supports local bookstores.

The musical escapism of pov playlists, your newest guilty pleasure

Nothing sets the mood better than good music, and with the TikTok-fueled ascent of POV playlists, the soundtracks have never been more specific.

Titled pov: ur slow dancing with your love at midnight, this playlist drifts through Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Hartman, and Julie London, nostalgic ballads full of old-world romance.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DWZcQCn3wRBSc

Each song was carefully chosen to evoke the quiet intimacy of dancing with a loved one, swaying around the kitchen late at night.

Another POV playlist, called pov: ur in an 80s film driving at night, features dark ambient instrumentals with 80s style synths. These pulsing, humming tracks capture the eerie intensity of driving late at night, with a twist of 80s flair.

The playlist pov: you are a hot single mom in the 90s took a different approach, collecting fun, upbeat female-led pop songs from the 90s, putting the listener in the POV of a “hot single mom in the 90s”.

These POV playlists have curated drastically different styles of music, but all have a similar goal: leading the listener into an immersive world of their imagination.


The rise of POV playlists

The POV playlist, or point-of-view playlist, is carefully arranged to evoke a certain scenario, character, or time.

It’s all about bringing the listener to an unfamiliar and exciting point of view through music.

PEXELS

The playlist titles give a brief description of the scenario, and there’s usually a picture accompanying the songs, a representation of the scene one might imagine alongside the music.

These situations can be entirely conventional, like pov: ur the hot ex, or delightfully bizarre and specific, like pov: u borrowed an alien’s headphones.

For all the daydreamers who need a soundtrack to their imagination, these playlists bring a cinematic appeal to music curation, giving listeners the chance to enter a parallel world through music.

Fandom-centric POV playlists are also popular for the same reason– with a subset of POV playlists set in fictional worlds, mixes for putting yourself in the Blade Runner universe, or dating Steve Harrington from Stranger Things.

No matter what floats your boat, there’s probably a POV playlist out there for it.


A new appetite for pov content

Before the rise of POV playlists, there were POV videos on TikTok, a comedy format that helped lay the groundwork for the current popularity of POV playlists.

The standard TikTok POV has creators filming short comedy sketches or skits from the first-person point of view as if the viewer was the one encountering the situation.

These POV videos typically deal with small social embarrassments, the minutiae of teenage life blown up to hyperbolic, hilarious extremes. For example, this skit pokes fun at classmates who pretend to be your friend to score a piece of gum from the pack you just opened.

They might also characterize certain types of people, like the ‘pick-me girl’: a girl who subtly puts other girls down to make herself seem more desirable.

Familiar, day-to-day encounters are satirized, allowing people to laugh at uncomfortable situations behind the safety of a screen.

POV videos have maintained steady popularity among TikTok users, even as dance trends rise and fall. 

POV playlists caught a ride on the coattails of this trend, shifting the format from video to audio content. While the POV videos on TikTok usually have a narrative or characters, the experience of a POV playlist is far more diffuse and open to interpretation, but they come from a similar creative impulse.

In fact, many of the well-known POV playlists on Spotify gained traction on TikTok first.

Masked Mortal Music is an influencer on TikTok who posts playlists, often POV-themed playlists. His most popular playlist, POV I’m gonna fist fight a demon, has reached 135,000 followers at the time of writing.

Undoubtedly, many listeners came from the promotional video on his TikTok page. Other music influencers like him are starting to emerge on TikTok, forming an ecosystem for teens in need of a healthy dose of escapism.


The next generation of music curators

Cassette Tape Party Hard GIF by Dude Bro Party Massacre III - Find & Share on GIPHY
GIPHY

The instinct to collect and arrange music harkens back to the days of cassette tape mixes.

This is just the latest evolution of the mixtape and is aided by platforms like Spotify where users have access to unimaginable amounts of music, almost anyone can take part.

A personal and authentic listening experience


Playlists have proliferated, and part of their appeal is their approachability. The titles are usually written with anti-formal caps lock letters and abbreviated words, all popular vernacular among Gen-Z.

In the age of algorithmic music recommendations, listeners know that each song on a POV playlist was chosen for them by a peer, which can make the listening experience feel more authentic and personal. 

Though the majority of these playlists are made by regular people in an unofficial capacity, Spotify has released a few POV playlists of their own making.

They seem to have recognized the potential in this new form of music curation and are throwing their hat in the ring.

Since the waning of mixtape-sharing website 8tracks (which was cannibalized by Spotify’s emergence), there has yet to be another platform dedicated to playlist sharing and curation.

Season 5 Episode 3 GIF by Parks and Recreation - Find & Share on GIPHY

Still, these POV playlists prove there’s still an interest in homemade mixes, reminiscent of the times when peer-curated playlists were the coolest way to enjoy music.

For those who want to create these playlists, the barrier of entry is lower than ever. It can be a great way to showcase a certain subset of music you’re interested in and bring others into that world.

Below is a tasting menu of some fun, intriguing POV playlists to listen to.

Next time you find yourself in the mood to fist fight a demon, you’ll have the perfect songs to set the scene.





How Gen-Z is using sad music as a coping mechanism

Olivia Rodrigo’s debut album Sour brings breakup music to a fresh-faced audience.

In a world where adults scorn teenage relationships as shallow and impermanent, Gen-Z has embraced her pithy angst with enthusiasm.

Her hit single “good 4 u” was met with adoration from young people all over the country, singing to the tune of Rodrigo’s heartbreak.

Rodrigo was able to voice the younger generation’s pain in a way that many connected with, and her sales numbers prove the resonance of her voice.

But why are so many people drawn to breakup songs, music that reminds us of our own heartbreak? At moments in our lives when we’re feeling at our worst, wouldn’t it make sense to listen to happier music to cheer ourselves up?

Turns out, it’s helpful to dwell on negative emotions instead of trying to suppress them.

The first step to healing a wound is acknowledging that it exists

The first step to healing a wound is acknowledging that it exists, and music can be a great way to facilitate that emotional processing.

The listener experiences vicarious sorrow through a performer’s sad song, and by using this music as a mediary, they can release some of their own sadness.

This purging is also called catharsis, the purposeful indulgence of repressed emotions as a means of finding relief.


Catharsis through sad music

The benefits of catharsis through music can be traced all the way back to Ancient Greece: Greek philosopher Aristotle believed in catharsis through dramatic art.

He argued that full, intense immersion in the tragic forms of art would allow one to let personal emotions go.

Considering Olivia Rodrigo’s legions of fans, that claim still holds true today.

via GIPHY

But why does it help so much to hear someone else’s woes put to music, instead of directly acknowledging our own? Has the business of entertainment turned us all into voyeurs?

To find an answer, we should consider the sadness baked into the foundations of American music: the blues.

Blues music was one of the earliest and most influential genres to take shape in America, giving rise to jazz, R&B, soul, and funk later on.

It was a genre so synonymous with suffering that the ‘the blues’ was a shorthand phrase for someone feeling down, or catching a ‘case of the blues’.

For the African-American communities who invented it, expression through music was a way for them to give voice to their pain, and share it with sympathetic ears.

The blues ethos was a tough-as-nails spirit, a desire to sing at the times most people would be crying.

Live performances of blues music happened in juke joints, popular gathering places for black sharecroppers barred from white establishments, which set the tone for many of the songs performed there.

Chicago Blues Guitar GIF by Muddy Waters - Find & Share on GIPHY
GIPHY

It would have felt disingenuous to sing about sunshine and rainbows considering the social circumstances of the black community, so blues singers headed forwards with unflinching honesty about life.

These performances acted as a joint catharsis: the performer let loose their feelings through music, and if the song was any good, the listener was overwhelmed with their own emotions.

These musicians transformed sorrow into collective experiences of music and joy, connecting the community through shared pain and the desire to keep singing in the face of everything.


Sad music is honest about life’s ugliness

This honesty about life’s ugliness is a large part of what made blues music so appealing.

At grocery stores, restaurants, and shopping malls today, loudspeakers pump out danceable music about our big, beautiful world, full of possibilities.

Chirpy auto-tuned voices sing about loving yourself and loving others, while our phones are beaming a constant stream of Ukrainian refugees, mass shootings, and pandemic deaths. When we’re struggling through rough patches, this happy music can feel hollow instead of comforting.

No one wants to hear songs about how everything is wonderful when they see the world burning around them. Hearing sad music at these times can be like a breath of relief: relief that someone is feeling the same way as you.

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The magic of sad music is how it transforms sorrow and human suffering into a beautiful piece of art, worthy of appreciation.

It appeals to the unavoidable nature of sadness, or at the very least gives us the sense that someone else understands our pain.

Through sad music, we can acknowledge that negative emotions aren’t evil. They’re another part of the human experience, and something that we all must reckon with.

Fiona Apple

Fiona Apple speaks: Her searing statement on Roe v. Wade

Despite her aversion to the public eye, Fiona Apple speaks when she feels her voice is necessary – and with the recent Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe V. Wade, she is encouraging other women to do the same.

In a statement reposted on YouTube, she said,

“We have to talk about how we feel about this, how unacceptable this is. We have to keep on expressing ourselves because this is all about control,” she said in a video shared with fans. “It’s not about life, it’s all about control.”

Fiona Apple speaks and gives thoughts on YouTube

Fiona Apple is intimately familiar with the ways our society tries to control women’s behaviors: she has experienced it on the national scale. She first emerged in 1996 with her slinky, deeply felt debut, “Tidal”, followed by a 1997 music video for the runaway hit “Criminal”.

In the video, 18-year-old Apple skulks around a dimly lit basement, drapes her half-naked body across dirty furniture, and looks up at the camera with haunted, mascara-haloed eyes.

This provoked a modest backlash, with some viewers alarmed by the overt sexualization of a barely legal adult, but the reaction was broadly positive.

With the smash success of “Criminal”, abruptly, Apple had a new image to uphold. She was now the “bad, bad girl,” simultaneously the beguiler and the waifish victim.

It was not a role she was comfortable in, or one that she felt was particularly authentic. She described this in a written statement following her 1997 VMA speech.

“I had successfully created the illusion that I was perfect and pretty and rich… I’d saved myself from misfit status, but I’d betrayed my own kind by becoming a paper doll in order to be accepted,” she said.

Apple lashed out against this artificial image, as well as the industry propping up such images: the invisible teams of managers, makeup artists, and promoters who elevate celebrities into mythic beings.

The aforementioned VMA speech had her imploring girls and women to not “model your life about what you think that we think is cool and what we’re wearing and what we’re saying and everything.” Instead, she asked them to “Go with yourself. Go with yourself.”

Her speech was picked apart by the public, music critics, and gossip magazines alike, who pinned her as a rebellious ingrate. They didn’t disparage the content of her speech or claim that she was incorrect.

Her honesty was the issue and her expletive-ridden delivery. Essentially, her unwillingness to submit to control in an environment that had strict standards for women’s politeness.

Despite those trying to tear her down, Apple has continued to speak on issues that matter to her, leveraging the time and attention given to celebrities.

Alongside verbal statements, she uses the rhetorical power of her music to encourage other women to get angry and stay loud.

Her most recent album, “Fetch the Bolt Cutters”, was full of sharply feminist sentiment – “For Her” was recorded just after the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a scalding, indignant song telling the stories of female sexual assault victims.

“Ladies” encourages women to not let men turn them against each other. “Under the Table” has Apple declaring she will not be silenced even if she is “kicked under the table”, furthering the stance she took at the VMAs, an inability to spin false niceties despite social pressures to stay quiet.

All of these ideas lead to the same conclusion. “I’m just one of a lot of women who need to keep on expressing that we do not fucking accept this,” Apple said in her statement on Roe V. Wade.

She has encouraged her fans to call lawmakers. She has no plans to donate to politicians, instead choosing to donate to abortion funds all over the country. 

HERE’S WHERE YOU CAN DONATE TOO. (CLICK HERE)

Whenever Fiona Apple speaks, her doctrine of uncompromising honesty suggests that politeness has failed women. There is no way to remain palatable when fighting for bodily autonomy– women must speak their minds.

The best music moments and projects that came from grief

From Charli XCX and Fiona Apple to Run the Jewels and more, we are revisiting five of the best music moments that came from pandemic grief. And we’ll die on this hill.

The summer of 2020 came, and all across America, people were scratching concert dates off their calendars. Venues were shuttered, and as the country went into hibernation, musicians lost the ability to connect with their fans in live performances. 

This enforced hiatus, heavy with pandemic-era grief and loneliness, was the genesis of a distinct creative moment in the history of music. 

As all kinds of artists tend to do during the worst of times, musicians poured their energy into creation, an outpouring of work uniquely shaped by the ongoing crisis.

While some groups created songs to distract from the pandemic, others leaned into it for source material.

These five best music moments were formed during quarantine. The artists looked within for inspiration, but often nod to the turbulent social tides raging just outside the door.


Charli XCX: How I’m Feeling Now

Written in a creative blitz over the course of six weeks during quarantine, “How I’m Feeling Now” is a time capsule of Charli XCX’s shifting emotions during the pandemic.

Charli XCX and her songs range from a dark, stormy longing to ‘go hard’ in the club on “pink diamond”, quiet despair threatening to explode on “detonate”, and grasping at images of a future reunited with loved ones on “visions”. 

Best music moment:

The verse on “c2.0” where CharliXCX wistfully recollects golden days with her clique, reframing the brash confidence of the original “Click” with a touching fragility.


Sufjan Stevens: The Ascension

Laced with songs contemplating death and the impermanence of the body, this album was undoubtedly the product of an uncertain, isolated time with death lurking around the corner. Stevens is a self-confessed “pessimist”, and his worldview bleeds through into these hazy, anxious songs.

Best music moment:

The pulsing build of “Die Happy”, like the song has a heartbeat of its own, swelling to an emphatic, chest-bursting finale. 


Adrianne Lenker: songs

Feeling the weight of worldwide sickness and a recent breakup, Adrianne Lenker retreated to a small cabin in Pennsylvania during the pandemic to record an album.

Music has always acted like a relief valve for Lenker, who writes what she’s currently living through, resulting in music that is always pulsing with fresh emotion. 

Best music moment:

The airy sibilance on “anything”, lyrics like “shining with the sheen of a shotgun” or “shoulder of your shirt sleeve slipping”. The words glide over the guitar like a small bird darting through streams of wind. 


Run The Jewels: RTJ4

Instead of pushing back their albums for a post-pandemic release like many musicians, hip hop duo EI-P and Killer Mike pushed the release date forward upon the death of George Floyd and the surge of protests across America.

Stunningly witty and packed with both humor and adrenaline, Run The Jewels uses forceful but catchy beats to capture the pressing social concerns of 2020. 

Best music moment: 

The beat switch in “holy calamafuck”, and the absurd, hilarious detour where EI-P licks a psychedelic toad, hallucinates time elves living outside our reality and struggles to explain the pitfalls of our society to them. 


Fiona Apple: Fetch the Bolt Cutters

Fiona Apple returned after one of her customary periods of creative hibernation, pandemic grief aside, and gave us songs that both caress and bite.

The title track, “Fetch the Bolt Cutters”, captures Apple’s desire to break free from the cramped behavioral expectations of a woman in the spotlight, but it takes on an extra layer of meaning during quarantine.

Best music moment: 

In the round at the end of “Under the Table”, as Apple insists that begging disagrees with her, voices stack into a chanting, chaotic chorus.

Do posthumous albums exploit or celebrate an artist’s legacy?

Riding a wave of controversy and die-hard fans to the top, XXXTentacion’s sophomore album ‘?‘ hit number one on the Billboard charts in 2018; in the very same year, he was shot and killed.

His previous scandals evaporated as the public grieved over the young, untimely death of an artist, mourning his promising career, which had ended as quickly as it began.

Except, it hadn’t really ended. Skins, his posthumous album was released in the months following, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200. Though he wasn’t around to see it, XXXTentacion’s death had increased his sales numbers by 1,603%.

The posthumous effect

After an artist dies, their work enjoys a surge of attention. This isn’t anything new. Think of Michael Jackson, David Bowie, or Prince, and the period of reverence that came after their deaths.

Messages of grief and appreciation pour out over social media, and music sales reliably spike. This effect is a tricky combination of nostalgia and remembered mortality: a regular, beloved fixture in one’s life has died, and that can be upsetting to long-time fans.

These unpleasant reminders of life’s impermanence can cause fans to cling to commemorative pieces of an artist’s legacy, an impulse to “keep the memory alive”.

Music companies are aware of this desire and leverage it to sell lucrative posthumous albums, merchandise, and collectibles. Modern jazz legend Chick Corea passed away on February 9th, 2021, and since then, my inbox has been flooded with emails advertising commemorative CD bundles, tribute concerts, and quote books.

These purchases are framed in terms of legacy and memory: “Where Chick Corea becomes Eternal!” “Don’t miss this tribute to Chick!” “The Chick Corea Legacy CD Bundle Sale!” We devour every piece of an artist offered to us, and memorialize them with our wallets.


Tarnishing a legacy?

But these vault-emptying posthumous releases often fail to meet the artistic standards of the musician, who never intended for their drafts to be published.

Releasing these unformed works might tarnish their legacy and disrespect their artistic vision, rather than celebrating their life’s work.

Some musicians have started to take precautions against this kind of exploitation.

R&B crooner Anderson .Paak went so far as to tattoo part of his will on his forearm, ensuring it would be seen by fans, and eventually, his coroner.

It reads: “When I’m gone, please don’t release any posthumous albums or songs with my name attached. Those were just demos and never intended to be heard by the public”.

While Anderson .Paak made his wishes undeniably clear, other artists didn’t have the foresight, especially those who died young.

To this point, emerging rappers have been dying at alarming rates, many of them barely into adulthood.


Losing our youth

Lil Peep, Pop Smoke, and Juice WRLD all passed away before their 22nd birthday, and all three have since had posthumous work released by their labels.

Very few 20 or 21-year-olds are concerned with writing a will, so it’s impossible to know if any of them would have wanted this. Though some fans were grateful to have another piece of their favorite musician, others considered these releases to be exploitative cash grabs.

Both viewpoints can be understood. The lost beauty these artists might have created is upsetting to consider; unreleased demos take on the tragic aura of unfinished masterpieces.

Furthermore, sometimes posthumous albums really do cement a legacy. The Notorious B.I.G.’s posthumous album Life After Death received wide critical acclaim and secured his position as one of the rap greats.

On the other hand, 2 Pac has had seven albums released after his death, and some of them are so rough around the edges that they fail to reach the standards set during his life.

It’s a complicated, case-by-case matter, especially when the artist’s family gets involved. 


The case of Amy Winehouse

The production of Amy Winehouse’s posthumous album, Lioness: Hidden Treasures, was composed of scrapped-together material from her emerging days as an artist.

Her father, Mitch Winehouse, worked to restore corrupted files with the goal of celebrating his daughter’s musical beginnings. “I want Amy’s fans to hear all this stuff so they can see she started there and she ended up here,” he said to the BBC.

He was concerned with his daughter’s legacy, and wanted her to be remembered for “her talent, her generosity and the love she showed us all” and “not just her troubles with addiction”.

When questioned about the money he might stand to make from this release, he said while it was true that “her music still makes a lot of money”, he would “give up every penny just to have [his] daughter back”.

David Joseph, the Chairman/CEO of Winehouse’s label, Universal Music UK, had a different stance on her posthumous releases.

Winehouse’s third studio album was in the works when she passed away, but instead of dredging up half-finished songs for a posthumous release, he deleted the demos.

“It was a moral thing. Taking a stem or a vocal is not ­something that would ever happen on my watch. It now can’t happen on anyone else’s.” 

David Joseph, Chairman/CEO Universal Music UK

How do we consume posthumous music?

When seeking to decide the morality of a posthumous release, the waters are muddy.

Massive profits incentivize the release of unpolished music, but despite the whirlpool of money-complicating intentions, there are undoubtedly some who set out with the goal of preserving a beloved artist’s life work.

Where do we draw the line? Should only intentional, completed works be included in a musician’s body of work? Or should Picasso’s grocery lists be considered art, enjoyed alongside his paintings?

Musicians should be able to decide for themselves. They might consider taking a note from Anderson .Paak, and define that intention before it’s too late.

LGBTQ rap collectives are here to stay – and we couldn’t be more proud

Something close to alchemy happens when rap collectives make music together. Differing voices, perspectives, and styles collide over the beat, materializing in fresh, exciting musical ideas.

Often, the work done in rap collectives invents new horizons for the genre. Many forward-thinking artists of our current time have emerged from the collective melting pot: Kendrick had his beginnings in Black Hippy, ASAP Rocky in the ASAP Mob, Tyler, the Creator in Odd Future. 

Foundations for this kind of music-making were built long ago. Groups from the 80s-90s like Wu-Tang Clan, N.W.A, and A Tribe Called Quest proved the strength of a collective approach.

Yet, the boundary-pushing sounds of the collective are at odds with rap’s strict ideas of black masculinity, steeped in homophobia.

Homophobia in rap

Hip-hop from this time displays a deep uneasiness with queerness. These earlier songs are lined with perennial, reflexive defenses of ‘no homo’.

There was a necessity for rappers to appear masculine, which was measured by the amount of women they could get. The credibility of their music rested on this x-factor: the rapper needed to project the image of a player or a baller, someone with an enviable position in society.

Conversely, gay men were at the bottom of the pecking order. No one wanted to be associated with the stain of queerness, even indirectly through music, given the chance it might rub off on them.

Well-documented and often blatant instances of homophobia come from these older records. Beastie Boys wanted to name their first album Don’t Be A F****t, a move that was rejected by their record company, who instead titled the record Licensed to III.

A Tribe Called Quest, though considered more progressive by contemporary standards, still included explicitly homophobic lyrics in their music. In “Georgie Porgie” off the album The Low End Theory, Phife Dawg raps,

“In the beginning, there was Adam and Eve / But some try to make it look like Adam and Steve […] Oh my God how gross can one be”.

Phife Dawg, “Georgie Porgie”

Q-Tip takes this further at the end of the song, openly admitting his homophobia and daring the listener to do something about it:

“Call me homophobic but I know it and you know it / You’re filthy and funny to the utmost exponent”.

Q-Tip, “Georgie Porgie”

Rappers breaking barriers

In recent years, rap has seen a steady trickle of mainstream artists willing to embrace their queer identities.

Frank Ocean of prominent collective Odd Future broke into the commercial mainstream with his albums “Channel Orange” and “Blonde”. In “Bad Religion”, he laments his unrequited love for another man.

“I can never make him love me / Never make him love me / It’s a bad religion / To be in love with someone who could never love you”.

Frank Ocean, “Bad Religion”

Over time, other members of Odd Future joined the wave of rappers coming out. Tyler, The Creator, once a braggadocious upcomer hurling gay slurs, has gestured towards his own possible queerness in several lyrics on Flower Boy and IGOR.

The song “Garden Shed” is an extended metaphor for living inside of the closet, but he uses far more direct language on “I Ain’t Got Time”, saying “I’ve been kissing white boys since 2004”. Syd, another member, has openly embraced her queer identity.

In an interview with LA Weekly, she said “The world is just now starting to become open about homosexuality. I can’t really say I’ve contributed to that, and I’m grateful to the people who have set a path for me to be who I am today. And I guess in that sense I want to return the favor.” 

Flood Magazine

Makkonen Sheran, better known by his stage name ILoveMakkonen, came out as gay in 2017. He cut his teeth in the Phantom Posse, an NYC-based collective, and soon gained renown in his solo career with the 2014 breakout single “Tuesday”, featuring Drake.

He announced on a now-deleted Twitter account that he was gay: “As a fashion icon, I can’t tell u about everybody else’s closet, I can only tell u about mine, and it’s time I’ve come out. And since y’all love breaking news, here’s some old news to break, I’m gay. And now I’ve told u about my life, maybe u can go [live] yours.”

These trailblazers have played important parts in shifting the culture towards more mainstream acceptance of queerness. Both the Beastie Boys and A Tribe Called Quest have pivoted away from their prior homophobic stances.

Ad-rock apologized to fans in a letter apologizing for “the shitty and ignorant things we said on our first record”. A Tribe Called Quest released a track called “We the People…” in 2016, criticizing Trump’s treatment of minorities, including LGBTQ people.

More and more prominent allies are emerging with time, and hopefully opening a space for all voices to be heard in rap.


The queer future of rap

More than ever, young collectives are embracing queer voices. The pressures to maintain a masculine image have lessened among many, leading the way toward more honest expression in rap. 

Brockhampton is also a notable example. The 13 member group has become one of the most popular rap collectives in recent years, hitting number one on the Billboard 200 with their album Iridescence.

They insist on calling themselves a boyband, a term is usually reserved for groups of floppy-haired, dimpled heartthrobs. Boybands have a distinct effeminate association which they embrace with glee, a drastic departure from the hyper-masculine culture of prior collectives.

Lead man Kevin Abstract is openly, boldly gay, and makes it known through his music. When talking with Shortlist, he said: “I’d see negative comments and forget [being gay] was a big deal to some people, that some people hadn’t heard it before. My goal is just to normalize it. I have to express myself and who I am.”

The future of rap includes diverse perspectives, and this future will be planted in young collectives.

Rap, at its core, has always been a collaborative genre. It’s about improv, expression, and telling a story through words and beats. Shouldn’t all stories be welcome?