The first time I felt like I was truly online was probably sometime around 2005-2007. I was nearing the end of my elementary school days, and I would often rush home to get on the computer. I wasn’t rushing to play a video game; I wanted to instead log on to a MapleStory fan-forum called MapleTip (a sad shell of what it was in its glory days). I had several friends on this forum, you see, and as a sixth-grader who loved computers and was just discovering the true potential of the Internet, to have “internet friends” was extremely cool (maybe just to me). They were scattered all over the world–London, Vietnam, all over the USA–and apparently across a wide spectrum of ages (but we probably all said we were a bit older than we were).
I’d log onto MSN, and talk to these friends for hours. About what, I have no actual recollection, but I remember having a great time and thinking, okay, the Internet is amazing. Here I was, a prepubescent kid in his bedroom talking about who knows what to friends across the world, all because we liked a free-to-play MMORPG that, frankly, was bad. That sweet joy of the early days of the Internet are gone now, replaced with an endless feed of TikTok dances and Instagram sunset stories (of which I admittedly contribute many to). I’ll often think to myself: Gen Z doesn’t know what it missed out on (after a few weeks in quarantine, though, I’ve decided that TikTok is amazing). Us millennials, we knew what it was like to explore the Internet in its wild west days. Maybe that’s why 26-year-old Dylan Brady and 25-year-old Laura Les (better known as the duo 100 gecs) created one of the best albums of 2019 with 1000 gecs; they tapped into that energy.
Listen: 100 gecs – 1000 gecs
Five years ago, well before 100 gecs burst onto the scene, the genre of “PC Music” started to shape with releases such as SOPHIE’s “Bipp”. To say that this basically created a genre is confounding; listening to this song, it’s hard to actually find a genre that accurately describes it’s overwhelming sound. A bounce-y track with vocals that nestled themselves into your ear like a too-sweet lollipop, there wasn’t much of an applicable genre that could apply to the actual music. There were some definite pop sensibilities, especially with the pitched-up female vocals. There were the stuttery synths and little bubble pops. Was it electronic, or pop, or some combination of both? SOPHIE’s other releases hinted at a rehash of genres discarded, like dubstep or sickly-sweet cheesy electropop. The songs were playful, hinting at a smirk beneath the over-produced and maximalist music.
Many thought that this was the future of pop music–a jarring, abrasive but still somehow pleasant, refusal of genre normalcy. A few years passed but SOPHIE made her statement with her debut album, OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES, in 2017. A stunning tour-de-force of beauty and sprawl with an excellent touch of subtlety, the album brings back the bubblegum-like production but holds back on the bombastic finishes. Many of the songs swell and build, but there is no ecstatic release that her earlier songs had (and the album is probably better for it). But what’s missing is that coy humor, that tongue-in-cheek rebuttal of mainstream pop.
Enter 100 gecs.
Can you get any more online than having your musical breakthrough moment on a Minecraft festival? I don’t think so (they just hosted their own quarantine-fueled Minecraft festival that was stacked, with acts like Charli XCX and Kero Kero Bonito contributing sets). Their debut album 1000 gecs is a sugar-coated 23-minute carousel ride in an abandoned theme park late at night. To put any genre label on this album is an exercise in stupidity, one that I think the duo probably laughs at music critics trying to do so. Every song combines a multitude of genres, from ska to punk to emo to metal to pop to indie rock. Much has been written about the album, but my favorite article is probably the aforelinked New Yorker article. First of all, the fact that a publication like the New Yorker is writing about what was first seen as a joke of an album; second of all, absolutely golden quotes like “to listen to this album is to have as much fun as one can possibly have while receiving an auditory flogging”. Just admit that you love it, New Yorker. We know you do.
There’s “money machine”, an amazing song, mostly because it starts with the line “Hey, little piss baby” before it launches into an electro-infused pop track with squelchy, distorted bass. To hear this song is to hear two people who grew up on the Internet (and they made this album via the Internet, sending Logic files back and forth across the US until they were pleased with the end result) looking at the algorithms that Spotify and Apple Music uses to try and placate the masses and stomping all over it.
“800 db cloud” bops along relatively normally, starting with sweet vocals and a triumphant distorted drum that could, with some argument, make its way onto a “genre-less” playlist that Spotify tries to push onto its listeners. But it’s almost as if Brady and Les sensed this, so they instead turned the track on its head, taking away the poppiness and replacing it with pig-like metal squeals and thrashing metal-like guitars. No, Spotify, your easy-listening playlist can’t have this one.
The album is full of twists and turns like this, and every time I listen to it, I’m almost always taken aback by the unpredictability. I hear SOPHIE’s early music here, the unabashed over-production and excessive use of auto-tune. “stupid horse” is another favorite, with an amazing first verse:
“Bet my money on a stupid horse, I lost that
So I ran out to the track to get my cash back
I just gotta leave this place with a big bag
So I ran out to the track to get my cash back
I just gotta leave this place with a big bag
So I found the fuckin’ jockey and I grabbed that (Pick it up!)
Pushed him down to the ground and I punched him in his face (In his face!)
Yeah, I stole his phone, that put him in his place (In his place!)
Me and the horse, we ran out of the place (The place!)
Then we took my Porsche back to my place”
And then comes a surf rock-like guitar before the drums pick up their pace, sounding like an actual horse galloping. It’s stupid, it shouldn’t work, with a chorus like “Stupid horse, I just fell out of the Porsche”, but it does.
What inspired me to write this post was the official remix of “ringtone”, one that features Charli XCX and Kero Kero Bonito and Rico Nasty, three artists who are probably somewhat 100 gecs-adjacent in their production and “online-ness”. The original song is one of my favorites, but the remix shows how good at their craft 100 gecs is. Its accessibility is through the roof (compared to the original, but maybe that bar is low) and I wouldn’t be surprised if I did see this on Spotify’s genre-less playlists. It’s joyous and exuberant, with a kid-like giddiness that gives it an earnest and innocent feeling. “Wait, Charli, can you sing the chorus again, please?” pleads Laura Les, as if she knows that Charli is what’s needed to make this song top the charts (I really really hope it does, but I have my doubts).
The rest of the album is stuffed with so many musical references. Soulja Boy and Skrillex make their influence known here. Those two artists that much of the musical community views as bygones of an era that is decidedly in the past, are brought back in a refreshing and unique way that is just so fun. “gecgecgec” is a ridiculous track, with a computer voice saying “gec” exactly 58 times before it breaks into a heartbreaking ballad with Laura singing about supporting someone, letting them know that they’re in it together but she might not be of much help. The lyrics on most of this album are not meant to be read too deeply, but a look at them reveals a genuine earnestness that’s missing in much of pop music.
The last song, “gec 2 Ü” touches on many of the themes present throughout the album: technology, phones, screens, and supporting one another. “I’m always looking at the phone/Waiting for your call”, sings Dylan, bringing back the theme of “ringtone” and always looking at screens, waiting for that special call from a special someone. “You’re sitting all alone, and you call me on the phone/And you say, “I need love, can you get to me now?” is repeated in the chorus, revealing a touching sensitivity that the duo clearly possesses and chooses to show only when they feel like it.
It’s almost as if Laura Les and Dylan Brady crave those early days of the Internet, where everything was taken at face value, and no one took themselves too seriously, and you could make friends on a MapleStory forum without having to worry about likes or views or crafted personas. They don’t care about what radio pop music says their music should be; they’re making pop for a generation that grew up on the Internet and for future generations that have known nothing but the Internet. Their rejection of what is normal is what hopefully will become the norm in music into the 2020s and beyond. Just like Laura Les says on “hand crushed by a mallet”: “You just copy everything we do/If I wasn’t me, I’d copy me too”. Let’s hope a lot of people try and copy 100 gecs; we could all use it in this new decade.