Lana Del Rey- “Video Games”
From her single of the same name

Some context:

1. Beginning last summer, the hip-hop collective Odd Future ascended to some type of stardom on the strength of a tumblr page. Led by Tyler, the Creator, the crew released confrontational, free music with abandon. The hype-cycle provoked a Pitchfork feature, a Jimmy Fallon appearance, and enough industry attention to get them a record deal with complete creative control. When I heard the first mixtapes, I was throwing out exuberant Sex Pistols comparisons; over the summer, I began apologizing for them and talked myself into Goblin; this month, almost a year after their rise began, I can’t be bothered to show up to a festival they’re playing. I begrudgingly watched Tyler’s new video, wondering why I was twenty-seven and listening to someone shout “bitch suck dick” over and over. I expected Tyler, the Creator to develop his raw, promising voice into something more nuanced and articulate. And, hey, in all fairness, he’s twenty years old, and I gave him an entire year to mature.

2. In February, most music critics—myself included—hailed James Blake’s soulful debut album as one of the year’s best. Paste magazine called him “something new, balancing his understated vocals with funky dub beats, synthesizers and a vocoder.” The LP was praised as the landmark crossover that took dubstep influences and brought them both down to earth and up to the heavens. In recent months, however, the “wrong types of people” have started listening to dubstep, and the blogosphere is sweeping any mentions of its coolness away. Blake dropped a new EP last week, with very little alteration to his style, and Paste mused that it was “hard work wading through the awkward muck.”* Blake was chewed up and spit out in eight months.

3. In May, Bay Area White rapstress Kreayshawn released the energetic verite-style video for “Gucci Gucci.” While the song was unflappable and studied, it was her misguided (?) appropriation of the n-word that launched 22 million YouTube views and critical debate. Before the song was ever on radio, before Kreayshawn even recorded a follow-up single, it felt as if the book already was closed on her. The critical community had its definitive say two months before any commercial entity picked up the song, and it felt like a novelty by then. She still hasn’t begun recording an album on which to stamp “Gucci Gucci”. Even the periphery of Kreayshawn’s hype-cycle seemed accelerated: You have to wait at least six months before the leaked cell phone nudie pics, bb! I will admit, however, that the girl’s got style. Still, two months to irrelevancy?

4. In September, Lana Del Rey, a damaged-sounding, pouty singer, started picking up steam with the single posted above. Her beestung lips, wavy hair, and dusty, filtered photos seemed just important to the package as the music itself. A month after the single appeared, reports began to circulate of her earlier, failed career as Lizzy Grant, a mass-marketed mainstream bubble-gummer. (Her lips were noticeably thinner in the early photos.) To many, the carefully-cultivated revivalist brand of Lana Del Rey now meant nothing.

5. In July, heady new wave artist John Maus released We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves, which was way more catchy than the title would imply. Synth-pop circles fawned all over him, and Pitchfork gave him the coveted Best New Music tag. I can’t go on much more about the development of his hype though, since it screeched to a halt three weeks later when he gave the most douchebag, “I-don’t-even-own-a-TV” interview in the history of Pitchfork, a publication notorious for such interviews. He instantly became the butt of jokes.

At this rate, music that leaks on Christmas will be digested and spit up by New Year’s. The hype-cycle has become volatile to the point of absurdity.

The Internet, ground zero for this cycle, has a way of reminding us of how small we make our lives. If you’re one of the paltry group who follows my writing, you probably know all or some of the information I’ve recounted above, if only because we’re part of an arcane band of people who care too much about it. If you have not constructed that world for yourself, none of the critical consensus matters. Again and again, I’ve followed a music project from beginning to end, only to see the final product released to mainstream indifference, shouting back at me that no one who really matters cares. Oh, right. I guess the only people invested in band X are the people who read the same five hip-hop blogs that I do, and that doesn’t amount to much. But it’s easy to forget that.

So we’re left with a few choices. One would be hiding in a cave—okay, a different part of the Internet—for two years and sorting through the rubble to find what will actually last after the fact. If this is you, don’t feel bad: most people listen to music this way—enjoy Phoenix. These people might not be missing much, actually. After all, if someone’s career can be forgotten, or at least irrevocably changed, in a month, is it worth it to follow him or her in the first place? Why not just spend your time finally getting around to that Radiohead band you’ve heard so much about instead?

While this attitude is logical, these people miss out on the ineffably alive moment of something just coming into focus. They will never be at a concert with ten people. They will never form a personal opinion that supersedes and preempts a universal opinion. They will never make a pure connection to something before it has been processed. But, in acknowledging that process, they can stay above it and armor themselves against disappointment.

The other choice is to take a step back. Tastemakers serve their purpose, but we shouldn’t get caught up in the old indie ideals that the Internet has broken. Indie is not a level playing field that is all about the music; it is a machine that has replaced ten-fold the machine to which it used to be an alternative. Obviously, I’ve commented very little on these case studies’ actual musical ability—for now, they’re defined by the superficial. If and when they matter in the long run, they won’t be.

Does this sound frustrated? Do I sound as if I’m entering the middle-age retreat of listening to the songs I grew up with over and over, rather than challenging myself with new sounds and new contexts? I don’t think so. But I am evolving by the minute—we all are. And the way we consume music is evolving just as fast. Because this cycle isn’t an incontrovertible force; it’s us, and it needs to evolve with us.

*- I loved the album and the EP, in case you were wondering. I still think he’s a major talent.