Hater's Delight – February 2023
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February kinda sucks. January may be the Monday of the year, but at least it represents the promise of a fresh start. I’ve found that February is usually the coldest, greyest, most miserable month of the year; the calendar equivalent of a big, slushy pile of days-old snow pushed to the back of a parking lot. Try as I might to be funny and cutting about the second month of the year, there’s no better coda to February than this video, so I’d recommend you just go watch that to get in the mood for this month’s edition of Hater’s Delight.
If you’re just catching up with us, Hater’s Delight is a micro-review column brought to you by Swim Into The Sound writers who want to vent about the things online and in music that have gotten under their skin over the past month. Each writer gets a paragraph or two to bitch about their chosen topic, then once we expel the Haterade from our systems, we all go back to loving music and enjoying art. Speaking of which, if you’re more in the mood for some positivity, here’s a playlist of all this month’s new releases that I enjoyed (or at least found notable) to help you keep up on everything that’s happened in February.
Without further ado, here’s some hater shit.
Pop Goes Punk
Right as the month began, Doja Cat revealed in an interview that she wants to make a transition into punk music. But not that soft “pop-punk” that Machine Gun Kelly and Olivia Rodrigo have been playing around with, the REAL “hardcore” stuff. Look, pop artists have been trying to go “punk” for years now with mixed results. Artists like Demi Lovato and Willow Smith have adopted the “dangerous” aesthetics of metal and punk music into their latest albums. There’s a crop of good songs amongst them all (yes, even the worldwide-hated, double-number-one-album-selling MGK has a couple of catchy ones), and I hope the best for Doja Cat if she means it. But at the end of the day, major label executives and A&R teams will skew the vision to ensure it turns a profit. Unless you’re recent Blink-182 support act Turnstile, that’s probably not going to happen. Still waiting patiently for the Charli XCX punk album, though.
Logan Archer Mounts – @VERTICALCOFFIN
The Internet and Hardcore Music
Probably prudent disclaimer– I am sorry. My tweet was bad.
Earlier this month, I tweeted a kind of mean thing about a hardcore band. This was shitty of me for various reasons, but I’m here to double down, not publish an apology. The truth is that the internet demands very little (at least in its current iteration) from artists– so long as a band caters to the aesthetic of a nebulous “scene” bound neither by genre or geography, the unwashed masses with their bad tattoos and patchy goatees can rest easy knowing that they are enjoying “the next big thing in hardcore/emo/punk/etc.” My recent brush with the hardcore scene proves their shallow digs at me (poser, unwelcome, rookie, tourist) more accurately describe themselves. Their music is neutered, their stage presence is listless, and their dance moves are ripped from Bruce Lee movies. Their politics are aimlessly liberal and center far more around retweets than rehabilitation when it comes to such nuanced issues as “community policing and accountability.” No matter how many cops in dress-punk streetwear you cram onstage with Marshall stacks, you’ll never be half as hardcore as that time back in New York when I broke a dude’s nose over a particularly distasteful tattoo. My address is included in my byline here. Mail me a pipe bomb if this makes you angry– I’m off Twitter these days. Peace and love, y’all.
Michaela Rowan Pearl Montoni, ** ******** Street, Apt. *, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 – @dumpsterbassist
Concertgoers Living In The Past/“I Liked Your Old Band Better” Syndrome
Go ahead, keep drunkenly screaming the name of some obscure Arrogant Sons Of Bitches song at the Jeff Rosenstock show, he’s not gonna play it. Since you’ve already decided to be an asshole, why not become the two hundredth person on this tour to ask him when there’s gonna be a Bomb The Music Industry reunion? You paid your own hard-earned money for that ticket to the Glitterer gig, why are you acting shocked when it isn’t Title Fight 2.0? It’s fine to like Modern Baseball more than Slaughter Beach, Dog (respectfully, I agree to disagree), but don’t go to an SBD show and get pissy when Jake Ewald doesn’t play any MoBo songs (though there’s a decent chance he’ll play “Intersection”). It’s insulting to treat an artist’s current project like a consolation prize that you’re settling for because their old band is no longer active. Don’t let your love of something that existed in the past get in the way of your ability to engage with the present. And don’t ask Augusta Koch to sign your years-old Cayetana merch after a Gladie show, that’s kind of a dick move.
Grace Robins-Somerville – @grace_roso
Spotify’s AI DJ
Never before have four characters struck fear into my heart quite like “AI DJ.” Actually? It’s not even fear. More like anger, confusion, and resignation. Of course this is happening; it’s the logical conclusion to everything Spotify has been building toward lately, but with the added fun of everyone’s favorite dystopian technology. Over the past few months, I’ve written quite a bit about how Spotify has been shifting music consumption and how we approach art. Whether it’s single rollouts, algorithmically-generated playlists, or backend licensing nonsense, Spotify has long been at the forefront of annoying extra-musical trends, the latest of which is this AI DJ, as shown in this video spot. After introducing himself and throwing to music with a robotically emphatic “let’s go,” the DJ narrates our hero's journey from one song to the next, including the phrase “let’s get you out of your feels and switch up the vibe.” ugh.
This feels like a combination of multiple things I hate. First, there’s Spotify’s ongoing approach of “corporate relatability,” deploying common vernacular and AAVE for their playlist and collection names. Second, there’s the flashy addition of AI, a technology I unilaterally hate and believe is more powerful and sinister than we give it credit for. Third, and most pertinent to music fans, this just feels like Spotify continuing to wrestle control and autonomy from its users. As I talk about in this article, Spotify has a vested interest in keeping you listening to what they want you to listen to. Even better if they can pad out those songs with Microsoft Sam speaking in between each track. An AI DJ is the perfect storm of shit that makes my skin crawl in 2023.
Taylor Grimes – @GeorgeTaylorG
Main Character Syndrome at the Rock Show
This is probably symptomatic of being stuck inside at the beginning of the pandemic or the hyper-commodification of music in the streaming age (or some combination of both), but people have leaned in a little too hard on that whole “main character syndrome” meme in regards to being at concerts. You would think people would be super appreciative after not having the privilege of watching live music with a crowd of others for a while, but lo and behold, some of us have committed to showing our asses instead. When did it become so acceptable to treat someone performing on stage like shit because you paid for a ticket? Why do they have to say hi to someone they don’t know during a performance so you can send a shaky video to your friend? How come everyone’s talking during an opening act’s set-or worse, just straight up being hostile to them? I had some dude-who-peaked-during-highschool yelling at a band to hurry up and finish their set so they “could see who they actually came to see.” Yikes! Those are people with feelings up there, buddy! Toss in the exuberant costs of touring, and it feels almost surreal that any artist would be willing to step within 50 feet of a stage. Someone make a viral TikTok about concert etiquette- at this point, it’s probably our only hope.
Nick Sackett – @DJQuicknut
The Swiftification of The National
Taylor Swift has a feature on The National’s new album, and I’m annoyed about it. I like some of her music, so I’m not a unilateral hater, but her unavoidability drives me insane. Surely not everything is Swift-able?! It feels like so many artists I care about bring her into stuff to get popularity points. Like, literally—not even streams, which I’d maybe understand in the right circumstance, but social cred. Taylor Swift always gives me these uncanny high school time-warps (so, yes, this is a me problem; I’m aware) to the blonde, thin, cheerleader/volleyball types who would descend on the alt friend group because they’re bored of the football players and they know they’ll be fawned over among new blood. I’m not super happy about this. **Unless, of course, I end up loving this song, in which I reserve, as a therapist once assured me was my due, the right to change my mind. In any case, I clearly need some therapy over this.
Katie Wojciechowski – @ktewoj
Firebreathing Gargoyles of the Night
I don’t fully understand why, but I despise the New York “classic” rock band KISS (also spelled “KIϟϟ” for some godforsaken reason). I’m sure at least part of my hatred is borne of residual disdain from working at a record store where KISS diehards were some of our most consistently insufferable regulars. I never want to hear a man in his 40s explain to me why KISS’ live output surpasses their work in the studio.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with songs like “Rock and Roll All Nite.” I’m not so self-obsessed that I can’t see the appeal of such a simple, hooky pop song. But I see it in the same way that I see the theoretical draw of the Republican National Convention or moving to Wisconsin. It couldn’t be further from what I would ever enjoy, but I guess they’ve been successful for long enough that they must be onto something. That being said, this rotating quartet of trickle-down pyrotechnics and absurdist vanity has never risen above being a corporate joke. How delusional do you have to be to expect to be taken seriously when you’re pretending to be a cat-man? I grew up reading the Warrior cat books, and I still don’t get it.
The schlock-rock novelty is enough to convert some, but it’s nefarious hypnosis at best. Destroyer isn’t “secretly a good album.” KISS isn’t “underrated” or “actually incredibly talented.” They serve their function as well as any past-the-point-of-mockery band of the past. That hardly justifies their induction into the upper echelons of enjoyable music, nevertheless what could be defined as rock history. Let KISS drift away into the landfill of the past and seek better listening habits.
Sidenote: the only positive contribution that Gene Simmons has ever made to society is the Kiss Kasket — unintentional comedic genius.
Wes Muilenburg – @purity0lympics
