I like to think about things. I like driving cause it gives me time to think. I was driving with family one day listening to music on shuffle when brutal by Olivia Rodrigo was followed with Salute by Westside Gunn. It was a funny contrast.
brutal is all about dissatisfaction and unhappiness. I won't say too much about it since it's well known and seems kinda shallow, not much to read into.
Salute is about celebration and paying homage. It opens with the first 5 lines containing 3 references to high fashion designers, one mention of cocaine use, and a shout out to firearms trainer/dealer Robert Keller (had to do some research for this one). As with any Westside Gunn track the lyrics are mostly just avarice and arrogance, but it takes a stark turn at the end of the verse. It sounds dramatic, but I remember the first time I heard it I was genuinely taken aback and have seen similar reactions when showing it to others: the rest of the song is Gunn listing sixteen people he knows and probably grew up with who were shot, and a further ten serving time in prison. Twenty-six total. Listed off without pause, regret or remorse. It's jarring how casually he can list these things and likely have more unmentioned. The track closes with a sample from Hitler's famous 1934 Nuremburg speech.
I thought more about the discographies of the two artists, especially what they tend to discuss and the sound they aim for. I found it really funny how Olivia Rodrigo, a young, pretty, popular, rich, talented woman focuses most of her art on her plights, disappointments and how terrible her life is, while Westside Gunn, a middle-aged man with an ugly voice who grew up surrounded by violence and loss, raps about extravagance, beauty and how great his life is. Obviously these are simplifications: art can always be interpreted as complex and subtle. And I don't mean to be bashing Olivia Rodrigo here. But I spent a lot of time during and after that ride thinking about this contrast, and I have to say it's really left a sour taste in my mouth.
(All this thinking about it also made it feel really coincidental when Your Old Droog, who I associate closely with Westside Gunn, said "I'll go on tour with Olivia Rodrigo" on YOD Body)
Recently brutal came on for me again and I was thinking about how it made me sad, but not in a damn that's so real way, instead a I wish I was sad like that instead way. I wondered what my equivalent of Olivia Rodrigo to a teenage girl was, and I came up with MIKE. I've mentioned him previously on 010 as one of the artists I found because of Earl Sweatshirt (he's even mentioned on SRS, on Nowhere2go), which makes sense cause he's one of my go-to artists to listen to when I'm feeling down.
A couple years ago one of my go-to things to think about was how I would shoot a music video for songs I really liked. The only ones I remember thinking about this way now were Sugar & Diesel by Ecco2k, mary magdelene by FKA twigs, 35.31 by Childish Gambino and GREEDY by MIKE. The concepts weren't always fleshed out very well, but I remember for GREEDY the plan was a shot from the inside of dark freight train carriage, with the cart's door open (like this, but with a very square angle, kinda Wes Anderson-esque). The view out the door would be a blue sky over flat fields of wheat, somewhere in the Canadian praries. The only real subject in the shot would be a shadowed figure doing (something, I never quite decided on this. Sometimes I thought they should be dancing/walking around, other times just sitting and looking out the door). At the end of the first verse, they would jump out the door, but the camera would remain stationary watching the yellow grass fly by for the rest of the track.
Here's the first verse of GREEDY (you can click it to play it) (also these aren't the lyrics the way you'll find them online, I've changed some parts to be how I hear it):
Today I went for a long drive again. Came across the 100 gecs ringtone remix with Charli XCX, Kero Kero Bonito, and Rico Nasty and realized it was another song I'd planned a music video for in my head. The Charli XCX parts would be her in an academic setting like a classroom or pricipal's office. I think like a preppy private school thing but the room is decorated monochromatically. I forget why this was but I'm pretty sure there was a reason. The KKB part is what I thought least about (it's my least favourite part of the song which I always feel weird about because I remember reading discussion about it online and a lot of people had it as the song's greatest highlight) but I think it was something animated and mostly literal. Rico Nasty's verse is my favourite and what I spent the most time thinking about: set outdoors in a big city but with no people around, just a bunch of clones of her interacting. I had a few specific shots planned out in my head too, maybe even written down, but I accidentally deleted the .txt file I was keeping track of all this in. Good song.
