Week of 11/24: 100 gecs, Chief Keef
Eli reflects on the experience of listening to new 100 gecs music and Michael gears up for 'Thot Breaker''s vinyl release by picking his favorite song from it.
Welcome to Endless Scroll, the brainchild of Eli Enis (he/him), Eric Bennett (they/them), Michael Brooks (he/him) and Miranda Reinert (she/her). Since Feb. 2019, we’ve been a weekly podcast about music, the internet, and where those two things intersect. On Substack, we’re also a weekly roundup of songs. Our format is simple: each of our four hosts picks a song they love and writes about it. There will be one free post every week, and more at the end of every month for paid subscribers. For the sake of your wallet, don’t start a paid subscription on Substack. Instead, sign up at the 2$ tier or higher on Patreon and we will gift you a subscription.
100 gecs - “mememe”
Eli Enis:
One of the last good things that happened before the world became irreparably worse in March 2020 was the rise of 100 gecs. When 1000 gecs started seeping out of the duo’s niche SoundCloud dimension in the first half of summer 2019, and then improbably rocketing to universal acclaim among critics and internet-nosed music nerds by the time the fall rolled around, I felt a sense of hope about culture and the overall state of society that I haven’t felt since. That sounds really melodramatic, and there are obviously several reasons why I have the connection with gecs that I do, and a lot of it is likely due to my own personal circumstances that happened to coincide with their breakout season.
But no, I also think that there was something in the air back when they took off, and I refuse to think that I’m the only mid-twenty-something or older who felt a way about gecs that we’re only supposed to feel when we’re teenagers. That sense that whatever silly collection of recordings we’re listening to could somehow change the world, or at least enhance the way we perceive it. I haven’t felt that way about a new artist since, and in their wake, there simply hasn’t been another artist with gecs’ eccentric sensibilities who came out of nowhere and quickly took over the broader underground music zeitgeist in the way they did. The sound of their music aside, I think their authentic rise that had everything to do with gleeful word-of-mouth praise and an exercise in musical curiosity by people who would’ve never previously considered sub-genres like dubstep, neon emo, ska, and/or garish auto-tune pop, was a rare blip in the rigid internet algorithm that actually united unlikely music fans rather than dividing us up into mood-based identity quadrants.
The joy of telling people about 100 gecs, seeing them crinkle their noses, and then watching them become rabidly won over by it by the end of the night felt like a fixture of my last few months before lockdown, and that’s most of the reason why listening to their long-awaited new song, “mememe,” makes me feel like I’m awaking from a fever dream. To be clear, 100 gecs are considerably more popular now than they were in the era I have acute nostalgic fondness for, so it’s not as if people have forgotten about them and their return is being met with a tepid, “oh yeah, these guys.” And crucially, despite the expansive hyperpop ecosystem that was codified on their coattails (that’s not even an insult, that’s just the nature of the path gecs blazed for artists who were otherwise cordoned off from most listeners — folks, I’m talking about straights like myself — outside of predominantly queer, SoundCloud-based pop and electronic micro-scenes) and the many dozens (hundreds?) of artists who quickly fashioned their own sound in their image, the songs on 1000 gecs still fucking slap. So hard. Like, if we’re talking down-the-middle Hyperpop — raw, uncut, unpasteurized Hyperpop — then sadly, no one has ever done it better than the eight actual songs (sorry interludes) on 1000 gecs.
And that’s OK, because like I was saying earlier, that album is a shooting star. Records that perfect, that sound that novel, that spearhead an entire musical movement, that alter the course of pop music, that get fucking Pitchfork and New York Times critics to glow over songs that sound like mid-afternoon Warped Tour pop from 2009 (in the best way possible) come around once in a generation. So putting up any of gecs’ future work alongside the songs on 1000 gecs is almost like setting their new material up to fail, because the standard not only has so much musical prestige, but so much cultural clout associated with it. That said, it’s impossible to listen to gecs’ new song, “mememe,” and not think back to the songs on 1000 gecs, because although it genuinely feels like a generation has passed, it’s only been two years, and when I listen a new piece of music by an artist, I naturally tend to compare it to whatever they did a couple years back.
This is a reality that I accepted long before I pressed play on “mememe.” I knew that whatever they put out next was never going to have the same impact on me that songs like “money machine” and “ringtone” did, and I was right. My subjective opinion is that this song is kind of underwhelming. Enjoyable, 100% gecs, a clear evolution in their sound (specifically Laura Les removing the auto-tune and toying with her natural yelp), and certainly fun to blast out of good speakers. But I also think that from an objective standpoint, the song is a bit underwhelming. I have full faith that the ~industry hasn’t changed gecs~ since they signed with a major label and became the hottest kids on the block, and I’m still incredibly excited to hear the full album and hear how they navigated the incalculably challenging task of following up the gloriously happy accident that was 1000 gecs (a passion project that made them bigger than they could’ve ever imagined).
All that said, I do think that “mememe,” at least in the context of a standalone single, sounds kind of safe. It’s the first gecs track I’ve heard with a predictable structure, with no shocking twists and turns, with a chorus that’s catchy in a slightly boring way, and no little embellishments that make me laugh or tilt my eyebrow. I’ve been trying to think about how I would react if I first heard this song in 2019 without any context for what gecs were, and honestly, if I do a one-to-one with every song on 1000 gecs, it simply doesn’t sound as wily and clever and sonically interesting as any of them. It’s grown on me since I first heard it. The way the guitars explode during the chorus makes me jump a little like a cupboard door slamming shut. The hook is rattling around my head as I write this. It’s by all accounts an effective pop song, because gecs are pretty much incapable of writing ineffective pop songs. But while every song on 1000 gecs felt like the best Friday nights I can think of packed into one, “mememe” feels like the Saturday morning after. Sure, there’s still another evening of shenanigans left in the weekend, but I already can’t stop thinking about the night before. Man, I don’t think it can ever get any better than the night before.
Chief Keef - “Going Home”
Michael Brooks:
For those of you who don’t already know, I used to have a thread on Twitter where I would post pictures of different albums from my record collection on my turntable. Even before Adele started pressing a fuck-ton of vinyl and delays got to where they are now, I felt myself drifting away from the format a little bit. I grew up on CDs and in my late 20s I’ve already reached a point where I’m nostalgic for CDs again—my co-host Eric graciously gifted me a copy of Buzz Ballads earlier this year and it’s been a staple of my car’s CD player ever since, and my CD copy of Glow On by Turnstile sounds really good (and if we’re being honest, I’m not sure how many times I would spin that particular album on wax anyways). Don’t get me wrong, I’m still buying plenty of vinyl because I simply love to shop, but there really hasn’t been many vinyl releases that I’ve been super stoked on as of late.
That’s where Record Store Day Black Friday comes in, our prayers have finally been answered and we’re finally getting Thot Breaker by Chief Keef on vinyl. Aside from a promo version that came out back in 2017, this is the first time that the album is seeing a physical release of any kind. I don’t think many vinyl enthusiasts who search for the warmth and intimacy of analog recordings have been foaming at the mouth for the chance to get their hands on a copy of Thot Breake,r but knowing that I’ll soon be able to actually hold that incredible album cover in my hands has given me a reason to wake up in the morning. Thot Breaker is an outlier in a discography filled with outliers, a project that found Chief Keef diving headfirst into woozy R&B, resulting in some of his sweetest songs. Of all the songs on this tape my personal favorite would have to be “Going Home,” with all of its sugary synths and lyrics that sound like somebody reciting a dirty schoolyard chant. “Going Home” is Keef paying homage to the bop scene which was popular for a couple of years before Thot Breaker came out and it’s such an incredibly infectious track, every single time that I hear it I’m instantly in a better mood.