♥☮☯♫ PC MUSIC ♫☯☮♥ ☺☺☺ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°✌

omg this is amazing!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6_ikWlJu_0

co-produced by SOPHIE and A.G. Cook

this whole aesthetic is so terrible sometimes but i occasionally like it. "hey qt" especially reminds me of some of the danish pop music from the late 90s that is probably not v socially acceptable to like these days (the kind that is sometimes termed bubblegum dance). but w/ a hip-'n'-decontextualized futuristic image i guess anything is okay.

this copycat label has, among other things, basically slapped the trendy imagery on top of some sped up teenpop songs that no one over the age of 13 has ever given a shit about but surprisingly the results are not bad at all. search this and especially this if you are so attuned.

That Ponibbi track is excellent. Am all up for this type of thing spreading wider.

Every generation gets the Aqua it deserves.

if this worthless shite was comparable to aqua it might actually succeed as actual pop rather than this contemptuous parodic approach

I don't think this is very contemptuous! I mean, obviously there is an element of idk commentary or detachment but I don't think there's any contempt

It's derived from the Happy House/Breakcore scene of the mid-00s and earlier. In that stuff there was definitely a disdain or playful disrespect for the sampled material and tracks they were mixing etc. But that has been removed here. As has most of the random, anarchic & offensive elements and overt expressions of hedonism. Here, the breakdowns and build-ups are highlighted and the beat almost never kicks in - then it's quickly removed again. That leaves some room for more emotional lyrics etc. I think Hannah Diamond's Attachment is a beautiful song and absolutely not cynical or contemptuous at all.

I do not think or expect this sound will blow up big though - like Happy House etc even the most commercial stuff has roadblocks for the general public - chipmunk vocals, denying the beat etc.

I don't see a way in which this *isn't* contemptuous, for what it's worth.

Yeah? No idea what you mean by that.

i'm not gonna pretend to understand the intentions of the people creating this music because i have no fucking clue, but based on what i know of the scenes from which this seems to have sprung i'd guess that a not-insignificant portion of ppl who like this stuff are probably disdainful of successful pop music, or they only show appreciation of such music if their enthusiasm will be read as somehow 'ironic'

Tell us more about yourself.

oh my gosh so much of my evil character has been revealed by my vague general statement about how a small subsection of people who like a genre seem to consume music

i'd guess that a not-insignificant portion of ppl who like this stuff are probably disdainful of successful pop music, or they only show appreciation of such music if their enthusiasm will be read as somehow 'ironic'

Really?? That is the total opposite of what I imagined this stuff was coming out of and it would really bum me out if all this stuff was just made by really smug assholes who hated tons of stuff

Exactly it's not. It's made by people who are deep into a wide range of "successful pop music" and all of the design and image tropes that go along with it. That's what's so great about (the best of) it - it highlights certain tropes, diminishes others and something new emerges.

The only people I know who are disdainful of successful pop music nowadays are really dullard indie-folk fans who I'm guessing think this is horrible saccharine unlistenable shit tbf.

But hey, wade into a thread and call people wankerz if u wanna

This is a bit like the "death to false metal" brigade hating on, I dunno, Dragonforce or whoever. Separating the fact that there is little in the music to suggest irony or contempt of anything, it's totally illogical that these people would spend this amount of care and attention on supposedly dissing something they hate via microscopically altering its elements.

basically, this sounds like some bad dave eggers "the circle" level satire of pop stars in 2014:

"So what, or who, is QT? She’s a sparkling future pop sensation - albeit one who is set to warp and stretch the notion of what a pop star actually is. It’s a drink, or more precisely a brand new Energy Elixir ("where organic and synthetic meet to stimulate an uplifting club sensation")."

Meanwhile Grimes tweets that she like a Supertramp song and the indie crew fall over themselves high-fiving each other about what a card she is.

There's the branding/aesthetic LOGO Magazine/Diamond Wright aspect which is common across all the PC Music roster, but that's just one aspect. This is more about demarcating a kind of pop futurism, everything super HD shiny and non-natural.

also if you want to find people disdainful of successful pop music look at any comments section of any article about pop music ever published, it's like shooting very indignant fish in an artisanal barrel. or pitchfork's facebook page/mentions etc.

"She’s a sparkling future pop sensation - albeit one who is set to warp and stretch the notion of what a pop star actually is."

hatsune miku vibes from this whole thing

xpost Posting an online comment = easy. Creating a super-cool range of songs with associated imagery, branding and marketing that all informs the aesthetic = hard. Also hard - keeping it positive and uncynical, which I believe all the acts mentioned so far on this thread do.

I guess that's where we disagree, then, because I can't help but see this entire enterprise as profoundly cynical. difficulty has nothing to do with that. it would help if the creators talked about hey qt et al as if they were actual people rather than pre-manufactured entities ("what is a solange" etc) and if I didn't get the sense that Hannah Diamond is going to turn out, if she isn't already, as far less famous/wealthy/on track for a career than the producer bros here. everyone went apeshit over that farrah abraham album and look what it did for her.

Must be hard for you to enjoy any female singers if you're going to wring your hands over the producers making $$$. Anyway, Hannah Diamond's music career looks to me to be her own thing - an accessory to her photography/design career. http://diamondwright.info/

So far on this thread we've had comparisons with Aqua, David Eggers and Farrah Abraham. And you're calling THIS cynical. LOL.

Contemptuous, cynical and disdainful has been done perfectly well already. It's played out in this scene. If anything this is a reaction against that.
eg.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR7m2asp09o

One of the GFOTY mixes includes a Toy-Box track, that's practically an endorsement of Aqua innit?

I didn't make the Aqua comparison, but I think it's generally fair given how un-seriously people take Lene Nystrøm's career. The Eggers comparison is fair in that he's also a generally talented and well-read guy (no one is saying these guys aren't either) who wrote one very bad book of obvious, surface-level satire, and Farrah Abraham is fair in that she is also someone who recorded a pop album (if perhaps under different circumstances) people got into for the ironic lulz -- which, as it turns out, doesn't actually help an artist make money or have a career.

as for the "hard for you to enjoy any female singers," that would be a valid argument if Taylor Swift or Ariana Grande or whoever released music and anyone outside the Cheiron Studios fan forums talked about the music like "yet another slam-dunk from Shellback!" that said, for rising pop singers this does tend to be the case (if they're talked about at all), and it bugs me then too -- and you know, it'd just be cool if people trying to create some kind of ironic/alternative version of the pop machine wouldn't replicate its worst traits.

basically, I just don't enjoy cynicism! it's possible for this to be done well and not be cynical -- the josie and the pussycats soundtrack, a lot of vocaloid, at least interpreted by fans (Miriam Stockley's a voice for one); it usually involve the songs still pretty much working as pop songs. it's even possible for this to be cynical as hell and still be OK (among the most probably-embarrassing tracks I think are kinda OK: Cora Corman's "Slam" from "Music and Lyrics") for me, this isn't either.

(also, before anyone accuses me of coming into a thread and shitting on everything, I gave "attachment" a 6/10 and "pink and blue" was OK too; it's just when these guys start getting into the faux-satirical fake-pop fake-teen stuff like Lipgloss Twins and Hey QT that it puts me off.)

'Pink and Blue' seems closer to satire than 'Hey QT' to me.

xpost. I dunno, I can barely connect any of that with the actual music we're discussing. There's no-one on this thread giving it a thumbs-up who says they are into for "the ironic lulz". I said I thought Attachment was beautiful and I mean it. This music is not supposed to be satirical. "Meta" maybe. There is playfulness but it's not disdainful of anything.

I mean, accusing pop music of authenticity is a classic rockist thing. Can hardly be bothered addressing that. You don't dig it, fine.

"lack of authenticity" rather.

it's less authenticity I care about (I just admitted to liking the deliberately shitty "pop" songs from music & lyrics fuck's sake) than... I guess we're right back to "contempt," because the more I hear and read the clearer that sense becomes for me.

Google tells me that you are talking about a Hugh Grant romantic comedy film. I don't think that's necessarily relevant.

I was suspicious only initially (with 'Pink and Blue' and the LOGO aesthetics) but the more I hear I go the other way. The $eriou$ Thug$ stuff you could probably go more that way with if you wanted, but probably for more white hipster rapper reasons.

are the vocalists on sophie's singles credited anywhere

the way his producer name invites casual listeners to think that "sophie" is the person in the press photos/singing the songs combined with the QT press release raving about the producers and speaking about the vocalist as if she is an inanimate object weirds me out

not hating just saying

feel a lot of katherine's points itt

I think Cornelius fans might find a lot to like here.

deeply sorry i called u all 'wankerz' even tho i was expressly not talking about the intentions of the creators of this music, who are surely very respectful of & passionately into the influences that they wear on their sleeves -- even if the writing used to market their music is a bit cynical as katherine pointed out. not that it matters but as i stated upthread i do like some of this music ('bipp' was my most-played track of last year) & i am a huge fan of a lot of the music in the aqua/toy-box/crispy/smile.dk/papaya/bambee vein that quite clearly seems to inform some of it.

Katherine I am disagreein' w you so hard but am enjoying yr contributions to this thread.

basically, this sounds like some bad dave eggers "the circle" level satire of pop stars in 2014:

"So what, or who, is QT? She’s a sparkling future pop sensation - albeit one who is set to warp and stretch the notion of what a pop star actually is. It’s a drink, or more precisely a brand new Energy Elixir ("where organic and synthetic meet to stimulate an uplifting club sensation")."

My best friend who was also my boyfriend for 10 months is v much into this stuff and would totally write something like this super earnestly w/o any cynicism. It's just weird and inaccessible but I think easily parsed as cynicism

xp to my post above, as a sidenote re: that particular segment of hyper-cute bubblegum pop, some of it actually was created with purely cynical intentions. one example:

In the meantime I had done an assignment on europop hits on the Conservatory. I had always been fascinated by hits. How come one song makes a hit single and another does not? As part of the assignment I had to try and write a europop hit sounding like Aqua, which became "Mr. Wam bam boogie". A very light pop tune with a clear irony towards europop. Nevertheless it was recorded and released by Norwegian singer Bambee on the album "On ice" (CNR/Arcade, 1999). My first official release, but very contrary to my agelong musical principles and ideas of good music in general.

(that particular song was not a hit)

but in general i never felt uncomfortable w/ this music b/c it general was not marketed disdainfully or appreciated 'ironically' by the ppl who liked it

not exactly sold on a vaporwave/nightcore/girl talk-ified version of the popjustice aesthetic.

Funny thing is that Popjustice didn't like the track.

Maybe this is juvenilia or whatever from before they fully put together their style & design aesthetic (the fact that it's one of the only tracks not downloadable from their Soundcloud maybe bears this out? or maybe there's a hard limit on # of downloads and it's just been there the longest, I don't know) but <a href="http://brokenflowers.pcmusic.info/";>Broken Flowers</a> doesn't feel even a little bit insincere, mocking or cynical to me.

rgh
broken flowers

yeah some of the early stuff barely really fits in with what has actually gotten pc music to be (somewhat) popular

Liking fun pop music sure seems like a lot of work

Things were simpler when we were rockists.

what's the eggers book consisting "of obvious, surface-level satire"?

This is old (2014) but nobody has posted it before and I really fucking love it -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPlzeNXLFH4

Dreamtrak - Odyssey, Pt. 2 (A. G. Cook Remix)

New PC Music compilation announced: https://pcmusic.bandcamp.com/album/pc-music-volume-3-2

I'm pretty excited for this. IMO, the previous two volumes (especially Vol. 2) are some of the best bubblegum bass/hyperpop/etc. out there.

sweeeeet, stacked line up as expected
really enjoyed that tune hannah diamond dropped last week

cooooool! i've gotten DEEP into hyperpop this year, love PC music

prefer Wet Leg, PC Music aren't comely enough

now with added Scritti Politti! vibing 2 this <3

what are you talking about?

new Hannah Diamond!!

working with David Gamson an unbelievably great idea

oh wow i had no idea, gotta hear it then

gamson has had the weirdest career, he shows up in so many unexpected places

i wish he'd done a whole album with kesha

aw that would have been great

this is ample recompense tho. all fantastic but 'affirmations' is so, so good

gamson reminding mr tundra that perhaps he didn't quite invent hyperpop

oh lol kesha even has a writing credit on one track here

omg I didn't notice!

I'm still coming down from the release party last night. HD told us that Want You To Know was written from an unfinished outtake from a Kesha album that Gamson had worked on and it's a huge thrill to have it on her album having been obsessed with (the Kesha track) "Stephen" back in the day.

thought this place liked pop music. ah well

I do! Well I like PC anyway.

I like both. But don't like posting on here that much right now. And that's fine / and here's why

fair enough. this album is incredible anyway. great pop music. good job hannah diamond

Gorgeous record

yeah this is a really wonderful record. her human vocaloid schtick is still pretty goofy but she's making pure pop here, working with gamson was such a great move

my only complaint is i wish it were just the slightest bit bolder around the edges which is a funny complaint about a pc music album lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSpkrDDNM_Q

this is the kesha demo that became "want you to know"

haha, in a way i love that it's not adding much new but concentrating on just being an incredibly well-constructed and thoughtful labour of love, so much obviously went into this

the hannah diamond album is so wonderful

ivy on boooard

As someone who has only had a passing interest in PC Music over the years but has got more and more into the stuff I have heard, can I just say, “Wow” to most of this thread. What a wild and stupid ride full of dreadful opinions.

It's great, isn't it?

I mean, I would like to point out I probably said loads of daft rubbish myself in amongst generally being on the RIGHT SIDE OF MUSIC HISTORY, lol

I think I first started proplely posting on ILM to talk about Hey QT, it was a bit of a tough start!

*properly

Reading back to the start of the thread, the main problem is people assuming that the whole scene was based around multiple layers of irony, kind of a staggering misreading. Even in 2014 it should have been clear that the core of the movement was this love of the texture & feel of supposedly cheap late 90s pop and appreciating it in a playful, experimental way. The 90s were of course a time when everything was suffused with irony, usually in the most tedious way possible, so I guess it's understandable to be suspicious if that's where you started out, but if people can't give the benefit of the doubt to any new genre when it comes along, then that's just sad.

Think there was kind of a sea change when SOPHIE came out with It's OK To Cry.

Christ, I was an objectionable fucker back in the mid 10s. Not completely wrong but oh god

i think trap queen is awful & boring

this is the single worst and wrongest thing i posted itt tho

lesson: don't read old posts, ever

the thing about pc music is they put out brilliance and garbage in about equal measure so basically everyone was at least kinda right

like gfoty... lol

you leave my queen alone!!!

ufo otm
altho i liked both still lol

I will add I have definitely posted many of my own awful and bad opinions on this borad back in the day, hopefully not too many the older I’ve got :D

GFOTY is/was good, Secret Mix is a brilliant piece of music, and Don't Wanna/Let's Do It.

New A.G. Cook today, I love it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH2wQ5speuU