Everything's a Single Now
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Some artists are releasing entire albums as singles now and clogging up streaming services as a result.
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The Uneasy Influence of TikTok (Sped Up Version)
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Let’s talk about TikTok.
The video-based social media app launched in 2016 but grew explosively and unexpectedly during 2020 when none of us had anything better to do than stay inside and stare at our phones. As social media networks tend to do, TikTok went from a semi-niche video repository to a necessity almost overnight. Brands flocked to the platform peddling their wares, influencers made accounts hoping to be the next social media star, and creatives begrudgingly scooped up their @’s on the off chance that their promotional efforts paid off.
Over the course of the last five years, TikTok has had an increasingly influential hand in the music industry and culture at large. The platform was initially designed around music, specifically goofy mouth-alongs and a unique duet feature called “stitching,” which relied on a split-screen retweet-type feature between two different accounts. If you’re on the app, none of this is revelatory, I just need to give some background info for anyone over 25 who happens to click on this article.
Over time, TikTok became less focused on music and now hosts a wide range of content on everything from cooking instructionals and comedy skits to whatever the hell this is. There are a few people dedicated to documenting the unique brand of insanity happening on TikTok (shoutout to @coldhealing on Twitter), but that’s mostly a discussion for another day. As with any social media platform, some of it’s good, some of it’s bad, and some of it is actively smothering your brain cells in a wash of flashy colors and vaguely horny brain rot.
But this is a music blog, so let’s talk about that.
The first time I noticed the influence of TikTok on music was a relatively positive example. Chicago indie rocker Lili Trifilio (aka Beach Bunny) had just released her 2018 EP Prom Queen and unknowingly tapped into a rich vein. Over the course of 2019, thousands of users deployed the EP’s title track in their videos, using the song’s talky intro as a way to criticize diet culture and embrace self-love. It was all very good-natured and communal; a positive message was being spread, and a talented, hard-working band was able to reach new listeners as a result. Beach Bunny had officially experienced the TikTok boost, just don’t call them a TikTok band.
As an increasing number of TikToks featured “Prom Queen,” the song itself slowly began to garner hundreds of thousands of streams on Spotify. This phenomenon rocketed Beach Bunny from a modest emo-adjacent DIY act to a fully-fledged indie rock success story. Over the next 1.5 years, the band went from opening for bands like Remo Drive and Field Medic to headlining nationwide tours of their own. The pandemic threw a wrench in things for 2020’s stellar Honeymoon, but that didn’t stop me from loving the album or stop the band from landing another megahit with “Cloud 9.” That song has since received a Tegan and Sara remix and now sits at just a few million streams behind the band’s first hit. Success begat more success, and at the time of writing, Beach Bunny currently has 6,704,409 monthly listeners on Spotify. Not bad for a band that started with Garageband recordings, shitty drums, and Audiotree performances.
Fast forward a few years, and TikTok’s influence on popular music has become much more complex.
TikTok, combined with the pandemic, essentially acted as an incubator for artists. We went into 2020 with a completely different set of stars than we have now, some of whom rose to prominence primarily because of their success on that platform. Olivia Rodrigo, PinkPantheress, Girl in Red, the success stories go on forever, even if some of them wind up just being a flash in the pan. Sometimes a song catches fire by design; other times, an obscure track gets a second wind thanks to some random gust of social media magic.
One of my favorite examples of algorithmic lightning striking is Pavement’s “Harness Your Hopes,” a relatively deep B-side that took on a life of its own midway through 2020. This song’s success led the band to reunite, tour, and film a brand new video for their decades-old viral hit. Just last year, the 90s slacker rockers opened their own museum, dropped a line of pierogies, and opened a broadway musical. As much as I hate to admit it, you gotta give credit where credit’s due: thank you, TikTok.
The examples are as countless as they are random. Long-hiatused emo legends Modern Baseball experienced a similar lift with “Tears Over Beers,” a song that has been rocking the ears of emo fans for 11 years at this point but now has a new lease on life thanks to Jake Ewald’s ultra-relatable lyricism. A TikTok search for the track will result in an endless scroll of dejected teens wallowing towards the camera as the lyric “he needed more than me” articulates their unrequited feelings to a tee. At the time of writing, “Tears Over Beers” is the most popular song on Modern Baseball’s Spotify, with about half as many streams as the genre-defining hit “Your Graduation.”
A case like “Tears Over Beers” is funny because relating to lyrics like those is what made Modern Baseball a success in the first place. Back in the day, the group’s charismatic songs led to millions of Tumblr posts, record sales, and shitty stick-and-poke tattoos. Now a new generation of teens is discovering comfort in the exact same words over a decade later. In a way, it’s weirdly affirming. On the other hand, it makes me feel old as fuck.
Sometimes all it takes is one relatable lyric for a song to become a TikTok hit. At some point, it doesn’t matter what the genre is or how abrasive the snippet might sound; if a big enough audience finds relatability in your words, they just might glom onto them and make you a star. As pointed out by Endless Scroll host Miranda Reinert, in most of these cases, the lyrics are essentially just musical captions meant for the user to say, “this is how I’m feeling now.” Other times, the audio of a TikTok can soundtrack more literal trends that people want to participate in. Sometimes they’re just funny and stupid, and we grow to like the song by association and pure memery.
But how is this bad? If you ask some music fans, there’s a knee-jerk jokey reaction that “we should have gatekept harder.” I think this is unilaterally stupid. You can’t be mad that Turnstile has reached a new stratum of popularity and is selling out theaters just because a new audience has found them. Discovering a band five years earlier than a Gen Z-er on TikTok doesn’t make you any cooler or make your fandom any more valid. If anything, you should be happy a band you’ve liked for so long is finding success and can keep doing what they love. If you’re a fan, you should welcome more fans and find comfort in having more people to share this art with. If you are into a band for the “cred,” you’re even more of a cornball poser than the kids you’re trying to make fun of.
Sure, it’s bizarre to see a rush of new fans change the makeup of an artist’s Spotify page in real-time, but you can’t change what’s popular any more than you can reverse the pull of the Earth. In some of these cases, I’m sure the new listenership is a welcome boost; a minor gust of wind in an artist’s sails that makes an otherwise untenable career path feel a little more rewarding and financially viable. In other cases, an artist might grow an accidental audience they need to coach (like Mitski) or outright reject (like MGMT). Again, these are separate topics already covered by other outlets, as you can tell by my excessive linking.
In all of the above examples, fans discover an artist and bring an expected result of increased listenership and musical patronage. TikTok or not, there’s always been a precedent for people finding a song and making an artist popular. What I’d like to talk about is the reverse, when artists react to that surge in a novel way. In the past few months, I’ve noticed an increasing trend of artists chasing TikTok success in a way that feels unartistic and utterly desperate. And that’s what I’m most interested in right now.
Let’s talk about GAYLE. She’s an 18-year-old artist from Plano, TX, who rocketed to stardom thanks to the TikTok-fueled success of her song “abcdefu.” GAYLE has a nose ring, loves eyeliner, and (according to her Spotify bio) claims that having split dye hair is a personality trait. As you could probably guess from the cleverly-named song title, “abcdefu” is a little bit edgier than the alphabet you might be familiar with. Just a glimpse into her dark reality.
I’ll admit I’m being a little bitchy, but GAYLE is definitively not for me; this is music by a teenage girl made for other teenage girls. I am out of my element, but it’s worth establishing this background information because “abcdefu” represents a microcosm of a very specific TikTok trend I want to discuss.
Musically, “abcdefu” is a breakup song. It’s Olivia Rodrigo for people who are only recently allowed to buy tickets to an R-rated movie but will still probably get carded. The song is meaner, more vindictive, and less nuanced than your average breakup track, but it undeniably captures some teenage bitterness that is bound to materialize in the wake of heartbreak from some dude with a Zoomer Perm. Lyrically, “abcdefu” comes out of the gates absolutely swinging with an angry list of things that GAYLE has obviously become fed up with.
Fuck you and your mom and your sister and your job
And your broke-ass car and that shit you call art
Fuck you and your friends that I'll never see again
Everybody but your dog, you can all fuck off
The song hinges on a beat where our heroine sings, “I was into you, but I'm over it now / And I was tryin' to be nice / but nothing's getting through, so let me spell it out: A-B-C-D-E, F U!” While it’s not exactly subtle, that line is a pretty cute payoff that then segues right back to the same list of grievances that opens the song. It’s easy to see why millions of teenage girls would find some catharsis in this song and make it a success almost single-handedly through TikTok.
As a fun/cursed side note, the success of “abcdefu” led to a whole cottage industry of artists making angry “edgy” music based on interpolating children’s songs. One of my favorite examples is Leah Kate, a 30-year-old whose recent hit song revolves around a chorus of “twinkle twinkle little bitch” and contains about as much nuance as you would expect after an opening lyric like that. There’s a whole crop of artists like this, and I can’t wait to see what other children’s songs they try to make a perverse version out of next.
At the time of writing, GAYLE has 12.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify, and her hit song has garnered over 888 million streams. She is also set to open for Taylor Swift on a leg of her upcoming Eras Tour. Honestly? Good For her.
What I’m most interested in about GAYLE isn’t her look, or her lyricism, or her rise to fame; it’s how many times she’s released different versions of the same song. A search for “abcdefu” on Spotify will result in no fewer than seven versions of the track.
There’s “abcdefu,” the original song
“abc (nicer),” the clean version
“abcdefu (demo),” which is self-explanatory
“abcdefu (chill),” for all your mellow kick-backs
“abcdefu (angrier),” for when you’re extra pissed off
And finally, “abc (The Wild Mix)”
Jesus Christ.
Collectively, these songs add up to a shocking 19 minutes and 42 seconds, about as long as your favorite Joyce Manor album or fifth-wave folk punk release. I personally think it’s hilarious to release a song this many times; it’s the logical extension of Lil Nas X gaming the Billboard Numbers with endless remixes back in 2019, the difference being we were all kind of rooting for Lil Nas X because that was still a semi-original idea at the time.
To a certain extent, you can’t fault GAYLE for trying. If there’s an audience for a slower version of your hit song, why not release it? If people want to film even angrier TikToks to an even angrier version of your song, why not give it to them? If your music’s good enough, I don’t see any reason not to make a bunch of different versions of it, but it has to stop somewhere.
Okay, different tonal versions are one thing, but now let’s talk about a separate (but related) phenomenon: sped-up versions of songs.
This is exactly what it sounds like: a sped-up version of a song complete with pitched-up Alvin and The Chipmunks vocals and an uncanny warble. It’s like listening to a podcast on 1.5 speed, but for music. Seeing a song tacked with “sped up version” is rapid-fire attention-deficit consumption carried out to its logical extreme. In most cases, a song will get sped up within TikTok using the platform’s native editing tools. Once the sound is up on the app, any user can pull the audio to put it over a video of their own, and once enough people do, a trend is born!
I’ll admit that sometimes the sped-up version of a song captures the energy of a TikTok well, especially if it’s just a surface-level shitpost. At best, a sped-up track can be an off-kilter jolt that catches you by surprise and adds to the unique assemblage of pop culture that makes a meme funny. What baffles me is artists embracing this trend by releasing sped-up versions of their own songs.
Last week, SZA released a sped-up version of “Kill Bill,” the breakaway hit off her long-awaited second studio album SOS. This is nothing against SZA, she’s far from the first artist to embrace this tactic; Lana Del Rey, Steve Lacy, and Madonna have all dipped their toes into the waters of officially-sanctioned sped-up songs over the last year. The sped-up phenomenon has come for pop hits such as “Sweater Weather” and Taylor Swift’s “Anti Hero,” just to name a couple random examples. Often this will result in runoff streams and success for the original song, so it’s easy to see this trend as an artist and think, “why not release this officially and get some streams?”
Despite the thousands of words that preceded this, I’m not inherently anti-sped-up songs, I mainly want to document this phenomenon as it stands at the onset of 2023 because I don’t think it’s even closer to over.
I do think artists run the risk of diluting their brand or appearing desperate, but those are all optics and (to some extent) subjective. This phenomenon is mainly relegated to pop music, where these artists are overtly chasing numerical success on the Billboard charts. If TikTok can grab them more streams, that’s great. If releasing a slightly different version of a song gets them more plays, why not? I get the logic.
Based on recent sentiments I’ve seen online, it seems like public opinion is turning away from this phenomenon. Aside from screwing with the musicality of your original song, seeing “(sped up version)” can make a music listener feel exploited. It’s almost like a reminder that the artist is doing this for plays, and you’re only there to tick another number onto the stream count. Actually, it’s worse than that. The artist is not releasing a sped-up version of a song for plays; they’re releasing it for a very specific purpose on a separate platform entirely. Despite existing on Spotify, the sped-up renditions feel like a version of the song that you shouldn’t actively be listening to. Listening to a pop song is one thing; listening to a sped-up version of a pop song is some psychotic shit.
It’s worth reiterating that I’m not “against” sped-up versions of songs, I just don’t want them to start clogging up streaming services under the guise of “new” music. There’s obviously enough money here that major artists are jumping on board, but seeing how people iterate on their own songs for the sake of streams is fascinating. Whether it’s recording the same song in different moods like GAYLE, speeding things up like SZA, or just releasing endless remixes, part of me can’t wait to see what other hair-brained schemes pop artists will use to gamify their music sales.
TikTok has brought this upon all of us, and for the time being, I’m just grateful these trends are mostly relegated to one specific (albeit very popular) genre. The problem is what happens in pop sometimes trickles down to other types of music. After all, it’s popular because it works, right? Whether this trend becomes fruitful enough to spread out to different genres of music remains to be seen, though a quarter million views on “Tears Over Beers {sped up}” signals something worrying to my brain.
Fans can only take what an artist gives us. If a musician releases things that they think their fans will want, that relationship works beautifully. I’d argue the best music is made by artists creating for themselves, making songs that they feel must exist regardless of how they’ll be received. Pop music already has an inherently commercial bent, but if musicians start actively chasing things because an algorithm says they’re popular, then we’ve all lost the plot.
Palette Knife – New Game+ | Album Review
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Take This to Heart Records
Palette Knife are an emo trio from Columbus, Ohio. If you don’t know what you’re getting into from that descriptor alone, there’s no better place to start than "Jelly Boi," the lead single off the band’s latest record. In one of the song's more open-hearted moments, lead singer Alec Licata belts out, “I don’t have sex anymore, I don’t feel sad anymore" at a near-scream. The lyrics shamelessly beacon out to emo/pop-punk fans sulking around corners of the internet and indicate the exact kind of confessional earnestness to expect from Palette Knife’s sophomore LP. The group draws clear influence from scene faithfuls such as Origami Angel, Commander Salamander, The Wonder Years, and Modern Baseball. The bits and pieces of these bands that Palette Knife used to craft New Game+ make for an extremely fun 35 minutes with seldom a boring moment.
While it may seem like the “I’m not sad anymore” era of pop-punk came and went with The Wonder Years’ conquering run in the scene, Palette Knife unearths this trope to kick off the LP in the previously mentioned track. The song slowly builds into a twinkle-led breakdown while detailing the need for Pabst Blue Ribbon and margaritas amidst a quarantine-fueled daze. The lyricism on New Game+ is quite straightforward, at times tongue-in-cheek, but works well within the context of the songs. The undemanding lyrics parallel the intricacies of Licata’s guitar playing, which knows exactly when to stand out in the mix.
One of the most impressive aspects of the songwriting on this LP is the consistent shifting of song structures. Track three, “Avatar the Last Cakebender,” hesitates to jump into the chorus until almost two minutes into the track, which is pretty remarkable restraint compared to the average emo band. Details like these keep the listener invested in each segment of the album, with the whole thing being broken up by three short interludes, “Death Screen,” “Pause Screen,” and “Fog Gate.” Some of those tracks lean into the video game theme of the release with 16-bit soundscapes, while others experiment with spoken word.
The songs following “Pause Screen” are some of the strongest on the album, “Weekend at Tony’s” starts with an extremely catchy and nostalgic intro riff followed by lyrics about cutting your hair in the summer and hating yourself. “Letters from Mom Town” features endearing guest vocals from Ceci Clark of Left Out, which provide a more mellow track at the midpoint of the album. “Damn, Son, Dim Sum” is the highlight of the album, and if there’s anything to take away from New Game+, it might be this track. Opening with tasteful and intricate guitar leads, the song uses D&D-themed lyrics to depict a friendship gone sour and had me coming back for more every listen. The track breaks down into a skramz-tinged apex towards the end of the song, capping off the powerful mid-section of the album.
“Fog Gate” leads the final stretch of songs in which Licata strays from the overt lyricism found on the rest of the album. In this spoken word track, he gives listeners the least amount of context yet encapsulates the theme of New Game+ when he says, “…I sat in my car while I was trying to cry for reasons unknown to me. God damn, I have everything I wanted and more…” These wistful sentiments crescendo into the final act of the LP, as frustration over trivial things such as D&D and fundamental particles put what’s really important into perspective. The final songs mostly blend together, with the exception of the last track, “...And That’s a Rock Fact,” which squeezes in tribute to the Cartoon Network cult classic, Over the Garden Wall. Additionally, it caps the album off with triumphant instrumentation paired with playful lyricism about Adderall and velociraptor sweaters.
New Game+ touches on everything one could possibly want or expect from an emo album in 2023—sound bites, weed edibles, nerdy gamer shit, PBR, anime, Adderall, and regrettable decisions, all with twinkle breakdowns in between. Palette Knife marvelously crafts an emo album for emo fans by emo fans. They know never to take themselves too seriously while playing to their strengths, offering up enough noodles to keep Midwest emo fans plugged-in and plenty of catchy choruses to keep pop-punk fans not sad anymore.
Brandon Cortez is a writer/musician residing in El Paso, Texas, with his girlfriend and two cats. When not playing in shitty local emo bands, you can find him grinding Elden Ring on his second cup of cold brew. Hit him up on Twitter @numetalrev.
Stress Fractures – Stress Fractures | Album Review
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Acrobat Unstable and Old Press Records
Stress Fractures is officially my first obsession of the year. You know, the first thing to come out in January that really hooks ya. The album that keeps pulling you back in. The one you just can’t get away from. Over the past couple of weeks, this has been an easy record for me to throw on whenever I can’t decide what I want to listen to, mainly because it has the exact kind of ingredients that I find endlessly satisfying.
Right up top, I’d like to clarify something important because there are technically three “Stress Fractures” here:
There’s Stress Fractures, the band from South Carolina.
There’s Stress Fractures, the self-titled album by Stress Fractures the band.
Then there’s “Stress Fractures,” the lead single off Stress Fractures by the band Stress Fractures.
Got all that? As a blanket statement, Stress Fractures is great, but I’d specifically recommend starting with “Stress Fractures,” the song.
The band’s eponymous single starts off with a drumroll that revs the track to life like someone yanking the chord on a chainsaw. One guitar power slide later, and the listener is thrust into an unrelenting torrent of anxious pop-punk energy. After a few moments of pit-churning riffage, lead singer Martin Hacker-Mullen approaches the mic and unleashes their distinct scream.
I ALWAYS FIND MYSELF
IN SITUATIONS THAT I
WOULD RATHER NOT BE IN
The words are belted out with the confidence of all the greatest DIY vocalists, landing somewhere between Starts Hollow and Ben Quad. On paper, the lyrics read like the spiritual successor to that one Kim Katral quote, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. There’s just something so universal about finding yourself in a “Situation,” and I’m glad we’re finally addressing that as a society.
After a second bellowed verse, the song drops out to just the drums and some arrant guitar noodles as Marty lists off a series of positive changes they’ve made in a monolog-ey delivery that sounds remarkably like Sorority Noise.
I’ve been doing better, I keep to myself.
I stopped being bitter, I started looking for help.
I stopped halting progress, I started accepting change.
I became comfortable with things not staying the same.
From here, Marty continues to shift gears, changing deliveries with each passage as they take the listener on a tour of all the different types of music that have been influential to this project. There’s some twinkly guitar tapping for all you midwest emo freaks, some impressive drum fills, and some hard-charging post-hardcore power chords. All the while, the verses deal in the extremes of life, not shying away from words like “love,” “hate,” and “losing control.”
With just a minute left, things crest to a halt just for a beat, only for a shreddy Guitar Hero solo to reinfuse the song with forward momentum, eventually making way for a phenomenal guest feature from Tyler Stodghill of Stars Hollow. It’s exhilarating, endearing, and ever-changing, and that’s the exact type of energy I want in my music right now.
The rest of the album sets up shop within a similar spectrum of emo and pop-punk. There’s an easycore breakdown on “It Could Be Better,” acoustic brilliance on “But It’s Good Enough,” and some instrumental riffage on “Cactus Street.” There are songs that transition into one another seamlessly (with song titles that link up in the same way), making the record feel like it’s in conversation with itself. From the opening whir of “Life Is Short...” to the emphatic closer “Rocket Ship To Heaven,” there’s hardly a dip in energy, and the whole thing feels remarkably self-contained. The lyrics wade into everything from tour life and poor health choices to more existential worries like disappointing your loved ones and pissing off your friends.
Ultimately, the record arrives at a pretty mature understanding of how these factors can compound to make each other worse. Just like The Wonder Years sang 13 years ago, our narrator realizes that there’s no combatting depression with video games, drugs, or surface-level distractions. On the penultimate track, Marty delivers a line that gives me goosebumps every time, capturing a hyper-self-aware moment of clarity.
I’m the only thing that’s ever been in my way
I’m the only one who can make things change
But it’s easier to fuck around and make a mess and whine and complain
Jesus Christ, I made a mistake
Man, if there is a verse that sums up the entire genre of emo music better, then I don’t know it. Despite the often-drastic all-or-nothing nature of the subject matter, the whole record has a relatively upbeat quasi-posi-punk quality. As shown in that quote above, what makes Stress Fractures different from other emo bands is that they’re not just whining; they already have their sights set on betterment. They see the big picture.
Throughout this album, Marty also displays a deft understanding of (and ode to) the music that shaped their taste. You can feel the excitement of a hundred basement shows lifting these instrumentals up. You can hear the earnestness of peers and the encouragement of friends bleeding through the lyrics. You can even hear the stylistic overlap between Marty and fellow Acrobat Unstable founder Eric Smeal’s grungy shoegaze project Clearbody (of which both are members). What’s impressive is how Stress Fractures takes all of these influences and makes them their own with a unifying sound.
The Bandcamp page for Stress Fractures describes the album as “A collection of songs regarding the loss of self” and memorializes the release as “The end of an era.” The description below that quote also gives some vital background information, explaining that the material on this LP was written between May 2015 and October 2020. That fact immediately casts the music in a new light. Stress Fractures is less like a debut record and more like a compilation. The songs were all recorded together with Marty on vocals, guitar, and bass and Caden Clinton (of Pool Kids) on drums, but they reflect back a half-decade of growth, knowledge, and personal development.
That five-year window of 2015 to 2020 immediately gives these songs a retrospective feel. The nearly-one-man nature of the crew performing these songs makes it feel like the band is packaging up some long-gone era of self and shipping it off into the world. The real heads might recognize some of these songs from old EPs and Bandcamp demos, but the new recordings have a singular front that makes everything feel seamless. This approach of cherry-picking past material means these songs have had plenty of time to marinate and tighten up. This benefits the release in a few ways: it means that Stress Fractures works as a greatest hits album, as a formal introduction to the project, and as a larger artistic statement for the band as a whole. What else could you possibly ask for in a self-titled record?
Given that five-year timeline, it’s also worth noting how little these songs feel dated or amateurish. Sure, there’s a youthful quality to the lyrics and their deliveries, but I listen to them now at the onset of 2023 and think, “hell fucking yeah.” The propulsion of these songs overrides any sense of longstanding narrative and keeps you from getting too lost in the timeline. When you throw this album on, the only thing that matters is whatever you’re listening to in that moment. For what could just be a simple 25-minute collection of songs, Stress Fractures possesses an overarching zeal that any listener with half a heart will undoubtedly absorb by the time the closing track rolls around.
I’m excited for everyone else to have this album. I’m excited for these songs to give some emotions and energy to other people’s January. I’ve been waiting for Stress Fractures to hit streaming just so I can share it with my friends and talk about it on Twitter. This record has already been a wonderful companion with me through those first few phantom days of 2023, and based on how much it’s been drawing me back throughout January, I bet I will keep returning to it all year long.
Your Life in a Grid: An Interview with the Owner of Tapmusic.net
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If you’re a music nerd on Twitter, you’re probably familiar with the deluge of images that get posted every Friday. A funky little 5x5 grid depicting the 25 albums that its owner listened to most over the last seven days. Sometimes people post a 3x3, other times a 4x4, but regardless of which combination they choose, the ritual and cadence are still the same; share what you’ve been listening to over the past week. It’s called 5x5 Friday.
There are a few different sites that can generate a collage like this, but the most popular is one called Tapmusic.net. The website is barebones, centered around a primary homepage with a singular function: to generate these charts.
When you visit the site, your eyes are most likely to be drawn towards the giant header near the top of the page proudly announcing “Last.fm collage generator” in big, 70-point font. Beneath it reads something of a mission statement: “Because what's the point in listening to music if you can't let others know?” The following sentence instructs the user what to do in a perfectly efficient way, with only one word of pride poking through the otherwise modest explanation. It reads, “Use our generator to create astonishing album collages based on your Last.fm charts!” And astonish us they do.
Every week, thousands of users flock to this website to type in their last.fm username and watch as Tapmusic renders an image that feels like a musical summation of their week. Sometimes the results surprise us; other times, they're perfectly on-brand. Either way, for a certain type of music geek, this weekly repetition has become a sort of hypnotic ritual. You made it to Friday? Time to celebrate with a chart! End of the month? Make a chart for the last 30 days! Trying to claw your way through the dregs of December? No better way to kill some time and send off the year than a big chart depicting the last 12 months!
There’s something endlessly fulfilling about this practice. If you listen to enough music, seeing the results of your listening habits splayed out in a perfectly lined-up little grid every week is practically guaranteed to release a splash of serotonin in your brain. And when people “like” your chart? Forget about it. Sometimes they spark discussion, sometimes an artist will retweet it, and sometimes your friends will clown on you for a bizarre record that made its way onto the last row. Anything can happen on 5x5 Friday.
At the beginning of 2022, I committed myself to a year-long Twitter thread dedicated to housing my monthly charts. There’s something incredibly satisfying about scrolling through that thread and seeing my own little year-in-review broken down month-by-month like that. To see my music journey over the past year on little squares all lined up like toy soldiers in a box. To see my life in a grid.
Tapmusic.net is a vital cornerstone of the online music community. An endlessly-renewable resource that allows anyone with the right accounts linked up to see their music taste in an instant snapshot. Weekly charts are a fast way to sing the praises of the artists and albums you like, transparently showing what the user has spent the most time listening to over the past week. It’s a celebration of music and a visually appealing way to show people what you like.
These grids also allow one to engage with other music fans almost instantly. Oh, you post your weekly chart on Twitter too? Odds are we could kill a good 10 to 30 minutes talking about music together if we ever met in real life. Odds are you’re a pretty solid follow. Even if we run in completely different circles, you’re probably at least a little bit of a music nerd like me.
The very first iteration of Tapmusic, circa 2011
Since 2010, Tapmusic has served a growing userbase, helping people share their listening habits in ways that few other platforms do. And all of this is free, funded mainly off a pay-if-you-want donation system.
The About page describes Tapmusic as “the web's premiere site for generating collages based on last.fm user history” and credits exactly three people. Or should I say three usernames. It lists, “The core team is comprised of silverhawk79 (administration, generator), AntaresMHD (generator), and xzwqt (design).” Each name links out to a corresponding last.fm page and nothing more. That’s how you know you’re dealing with real-deal music fans.
Tapmusic is a part of so many people’s weekly music routine, yet little is known about it other than the occasional update pinned to the top of the home page. I recently reached out via Tapmusic’s contact form to see if any of the creators would be interested in talking to me about the site’s history. The owner of Tapmusic, Aaron Hudspeth, quickly responded and was happy to sit down with me to discuss everything from his own music taste to what possible things lie ahead for the site. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like behind the scenes of a niche online music fan fixture, then you’ve come to the right place.
SWIM: First off, how would you describe your music fandom? What kind of music are you into?
AARON HUDSPETH: I’m kind of all over the place, but I tend towards the heavier side of things. Thrice and Gojira top my charts, but I’ve also got a soft spot for Modest Mouse and The Cure. I try not to be a music snob, but I can be extraordinarily picky about finding new music to listen to.
SWIM: You’ve been using last.fm since 2006, what’s your history with that platform?
HUDSPETH: Honestly, I signed up because of 4chan. Back in the day, I was very active on the /mu/ (music) board under the name ‘Wait, what?’ (some people may still recognize that name!). I kept seeing threads posted about a site called last.fm and how it could track your music and give you recommendations, so I was intrigued. It did help me discover new music and make quite a few friends, and I’m glad I found it.
SWIM: The “About Us” page says you started Tapmusic back in 2010. What were the early days of this project like?
HUDSPETH: The early days were about as barebones as it could get. I was in an IRC chat with some other folks from 4chan, where I ended up meeting the creator of the original 3x3 script, Daniel (credited as AntaresMHD on the site). I offered to host the script on my server, which was otherwise sitting unused, and I created a quick n’ dirty interface for it. It was extremely basic, literally only an option to choose the time range and enter your username. The name Tapmusic actually came from a failed project from my early college days, where me and some friends thought we could create the next big music-based social media site. It ultimately went nowhere, but I kept the domain name for a few years juuust in case and ended up using it for this new collage site.
SWIM: How many charts does Tapmusic generate in an average week?
HUDSPETH: As a conservative estimate, I would say anywhere between 40,000 to 50,000, though that number spikes very heavily near the end of the year – on Dec 31st, there were over 28,000 generated in one day!
SWIM: What’s your day-to-day interaction with the site (if at all)?
HUDSPETH: The site itself is mostly self-sufficient, but I check in on the server at least once a day to see if any updates need to be installed or to check if anything looks like it is out of whack. Downtime for the site is extremely limited, as I keep a close eye on any potential problems and try to mitigate them before they become any bigger.
SWIM: How much music do you listen to, and how often do you use Tapmusic to generate your own charts?
HUDSPETH: I listen to music constantly in one form or another, but admittedly I don’t generate many collages of my own through Tapmusic – maybe once a month, just to get a broad overview of what I’ve been obsessing over.
SWIM: From the outside, you seemingly run this entire thing by yourself with minimal outside support or influence. Do you consider yourself DIY?
HUDSPETH: I would say so, yeah. I have resisted running ads for pretty much the entire life of the site, and only very recently decided to partner with an ad company to help with costs. I am very vigilant about making the site as user-friendly as possible, so I want to make sure any advertising is unobtrusive.
SWIM: Back in November, you posted a message that you were taking a break from monitoring the site for your wedding. How’s married life treating you?
HUDSPETH: Honestly, it’s been about the same as pre-married life! Not that that’s a bad thing – we had been together for nine years before deciding to finally tie the knot, so not much changed in terms of our relationship.
SWIM: When did you first decide to add a donation button to the site, and what have the results been like over time?
HUDSPETH: I believe it was about 7 or 8 years ago, and it was around the time I was able to modify the basic 3x3 script into a larger 10x10 version. At the time, our server was not nearly powerful enough to handle everyone generating a large collage like that constantly, so I decided I would make it a somewhat more exclusive feature to avoid overloading the site. Over time, donations have allowed me to upgrade the server to be more and more powerful.
SWIM: You recently made some Premium-only features like 10x10’s available to all users, so it seems Tapmusic is growing and “performing” well. When did you guys decide to implement this change, and why?
HUDSPETH: After discussing it a bit with Daniel and evaluating the performance of our current server, I decided that it would be able to handle the increased load. It was a fairly recent decision, put into place at the end of November 2022, actually. On top of that, I had recently acquired a (much) higher-paying job and didn’t feel right continuing to ask people for money to help with server costs. I’m not in this for any sort of profit, I just like providing a service for people to enjoy.
SWIM: Are you aware of the Topster Guy? In the past year, he’s posted some questionable conspiracy theorist messaging in the sidebar of his site, which, when contrasted with weddings and adding features, has led some people to some people consider him your “Wario.” Do all you music website guys know each other in real life?
HUDSPETH: I’m aware of him but don’t know much about him aside from his views – I very purposefully avoid using Tapmusic as any kind of a platform for my views because it doesn’t seem like the time or place to try and force it on anyone else. I have been contacted a few times in the past by people who are building their own collage sites, and I have helped them with advice or bits of code, but other than that, I don’t think I’ve been in contact with any other music website folks.
SWIM: The site is charmingly barebones, but a recent update claimed that you’ve been improving the service and plan on rolling out new features soon. Anything you can tease or let us know at this point? Will the site be getting updated more regularly in the future?
HUDSPETH: Yes! We are planning to make the collage page a bit more feature-rich, with integrated sharing tools and easier downloading. We also aim to implement a feature that will generate a text-based list of the albums in the collage as well, similar to Topster. We are also looking into bringing back artist-based collages, as, unfortunately, I had to remove that functionality a few years back due to changes on last.fm’s end. It may be making a return at some point!
SWIM: Do you view the site’s current straightforwardness as a design principle or just a byproduct of when and how it was created?
HUDSPETH: I view it as a design principle – I want it to be as easy to use as possible, with a very quick load time. People get frustrated if a site takes too long to load or has loads of popups or other distractions, so I like to keep Tapmusic clean and fairly sparse.
SWIM: What’s the long-term plan for Tapmusic? Any final thoughts? Charts forever.
HUDSPETH: Perhaps an app! Or a Discord bot? I plan to keep the site running for as long as humanly possible. I also want to thank everyone who has used the site over the years and shown their support – I literally could not have done it without you. Thanks!
