Main argument

This public edit preserves the main argument. The complete transcript, including livestream chat and digressions, is available to paid members below.

And it's time for a let's argue where I come on here, I take your hot takes, your unpopular questions, your unpopular opinions. I take them. I take them and I give them a big old kiss. Takes, opinions, questions, I respond to the best ones and that is what we are going to do, right here, right now, so let's do it.

I think Freddie Gibbs is secretly super ticklish, especially on the bottom of his feet. What the hell is wrong with you? Why are we starting like this, and why are there 400 thumbs up on this? It's been a minute since we've done an argue. Can you guys not just be normal? Can you just be normal for a minute? And also, real Freddie Gibbs fans know that he is actually ticklish on the palms of his hands. Shut the hell up.

The existence of Tyga's Starface is a net positive in the long run because a relatively big release made with AI from an established artist getting mercilessly shit-canned by everyone is a sign that, generally speaking, that AI in music isn't going to be tolerated all that much by audiences in the grand scheme of things. I think that the reaction to the record is most definitely a positive in terms of like what people are willing to tolerate, and what's also been a net positive is kind of various live clips of Mr. Fenix Flexin kind of performing "Rubberz" out and about, and the performances suck. They are terrible. They are awful because the guy can't sing and obviously he didn't write and he did not perform the song in that recording. So, obviously, he's only going to be able to make so much money off of it because nobody's going to come out and see that garbage-ass track get played live. Who in their right mind is going to pay more than 10 bucks to see that? But still, I think the biggest issue and problem with AI music currently still looms, and that is that on streaming platforms and in playlists and in recommendation algorithms, the stuff is still getting covertly recommended and slid into the ear of unknowing listeners. And there are millions of untold streams going to these fake artists and songs every month, if not more. And the question is, how do we effectively nip that in the bud? We don't have the answer for that yet, but, you know, don't presume that just because everybody thought the Tyga album sucked, this AI music stuff is done right now. It's not. It's far from it.

The All-American Rejects getting kidnapped by the Piraka as a cross-promo of their record Move Along and Lego's Bionicle 2006 storyline is the best viral marketing stunt, and more artists should take themselves less seriously and do silly things like that. I mean, generally speaking, a company as big and as lucrative as the Lego corporation, frankly, should be working with more bands and artists to do cool shit, yes. But also, unfortunately right now, I think we're in a weird place culturally where a lot of artists are afraid of being seen as cringe. And obviously doing, you know, ad and promo and, you know, deals like that is still seen as kind of weird and questionable in the eyes of some, depending on the context, depending on the brand. I'm not coming on here to, you know, openly endorse the idea of completely selling out. As content creators of all stripes, you got to do whatever you got to do to like make ends meet sometimes, so I mean I get that and I echo the sentiment of what you're saying here. I feel like if there is a blockage to stuff like this happening, it's really a combination of artists being kind of self-conscious, marketing people not being creative enough, and maybe corporations not really quite knowing how exactly to advertise effectively in the music space and actually like, you know, plug into the fandom of a certain artist or a certain music act effectively.

Concept albums are just musicals for straight people. I don't know if it's just for straight people. It's really just for music nerds. And look, I am famously not somebody who's like really that big into musicals or Broadway, generally, but I mean, in a lot of ways, especially when it comes to concept albums that run along a linear storyline, because I mean let's be real, a concept album can be built around a lot of things and I don't think, you know, the musical label always applies. Like, you know, look at Matmos's Ultimate Care II. You're telling me that's a fucking musical? A sample-based, electronic music album that was built off of the cycle, the wash cycle, of a washing machine? Yeah, I'm sorry, that's not a musical. It's a concept album, and it's not anywhere near a musical. But, I mean, insofar as we are talking about albums like Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown, which in effect is a rock opera, yeah that's kind of like a pop-punk musical. And Green Day have literally had a hand in pop-punk musicals. Like, I get it, I get it. There's more overlap there than maybe some rockists and music nerds and even hip-hop heads would maybe like to admit. Like, for example, is clipping.'s Splendor & Misery a musical? Kind of is, honestly. Kind of a musical. And obviously, the album is performed by a man who was in Hamilton, so I don't know. Maybe we're all into musicals more than we think. Though, I don't know, I think there's a gap there that's difficult to define because imagine adapting good kid, m.A.A.d city like for the broadway stage. I don't think that would work.

It should be punishable by law to have more than 5+ songwriters credited on a song and it still turned to shit. Hey, you know what, everybody's got to get paid, man. Everybody's got to get paid. People just should, you know, when it comes to those crap songs that a million people are involved in, put 20 songwriters on it. Put 30. Give 30, 40, 50 people credit on it. If some guy tweaks a single snare drum at the four minute mark of the track, give that guy credit. I think when it comes to a shit mainstream song like that, you should just put as many credits on it as possible to just kind of spread the blame around really far and really wide so really nobody knows who's at fault.

Radiohead's music is only as highly rated online as it is because it appeals perfectly to the demographic that rates music online. Yes, and this could literally be said for every single band, song, or artist that lands very high on these types of online rating charts, and that's not even just specific to music. I mean, that also works in the case of fucking Letterboxd, which sure does have like a little bit more of a casual appeal at the moment, considering like movies are really hip and cool right now, and you know, I myself like some movies, as well. I've watched a movie. I've seen a goddamn movie or two. But still, this is just a flaw inherent to any online community-based rating system for an artistic medium because the kind of people who are going to rate those things are self-selecting and it's a very specific kind of person. This can be drilled down into even further when it comes to genres or acts that are more obscure, and the people who are going to go out of their way to listen to and rate that sort of thing are most likely going to be fans of that genre or that sound and that's totally fine. There's nothing wrong with that. I guess, you know, when you see these ratings and you see these top lists on these websites where it's just kind of users rating this stuff, just be aware that the people who are judging that thing are people who are maybe fans of that thing or have a certain taste or perspective on music or whatever the medium is in mind when they go to rate it, and that's not necessarily indicative of that piece of art's overall true quality. It's more of an indicator of what that art's appeal is within a specific niche of people.

Post Malone is basically Dax now. I don't know if I would go that far, honestly, but I do feel like there are some things about Post Malone that we need to come to terms with ,and none of what i'm about to say is shade on him as a songwriter or a musician. I, myself, love some Post Malone songs. Beerbongs & Bentleys, I think, is a pretty solid record. But, I think at the end of the day, as music fans, as hip-hop fans, as whatever fans, like we should only get so mad at Post Malone for doing the country switch that he did. Because there's not a single moment in this man's career where what he was doing was not a LARP. Like please, be fucking for real. You're telling me we saw this man in in the Iverson jersey with the cornrows and the gold grills and we're like, "Yeah, that guy's not playing a character. That is that real man. That's his real true self." Give me a fucking break. Like, even if he only ever came out with hip-hop records and never changed genres, the way he presented himself was always a performance on some level. I don't even know if Post Malone knows who the fuck he is. So, again the start of Post Malone's breakout success was a LARP, was a character, was an impression of a vision of a person he had in his head and he is just doing that now, just the person he's impersonating or envisioning is different. Now, it's like some kind of weird glamorized version of a redneck. And I think that's all he's really truly capable of being successful at. Because those couple of albums where he was, I think, being a little bit more kind of straightforward, "This is the real me," Post Malone, singer-songwriter type-guy, those albums were not hitting. And what's clear is that the audience, whatever the audience is, wants to see him play up some kind of character, whether it's a rap guy, whether it's a country guy, and he more or less is happy to do it. So, while I wouldn't go as far as to say that he's Dax, he is pretending. He's just pretending to be a different type of guy than he pretended to be 10 years ago.

People don't discuss negative influence when they talk about an artist's impact. Nirvana, in particular, influence a lot of mid butt rock bands but that never gets brought up. People do talk about negative influence. I think it just sort of depends on the artist and depends on the relevancy of those terrible artists that kind of arrive in their wake. For one, I rarely see a discussion about Eminem's music online that does not also entail bringing up the dozens and dozens of lyrical miracle-type rappers that totally rip off his style. I mean Eminem, for as good as he is, he did kind of give us Tom MacDonald. We can't deny that, at least a little bit. But with that being said, a lot of those shitty post-grunge acts have mostly washed out with the tide. It is true Puddle of Mudd is most definitely a direct descendant of Nirvana, but again, they're gone. They're completely off the map, and I feel like we can't completely lay all of this on the artist, no matter who it is, because it is also the record industry that props these artists up. Because record labels know for a fact, because they run this play all the time, every generation, with a new wave, a new sound. "Here we have an artist that has a trademark style or aesthetic, and now we need to figure out a way to get other artists out there on the scene that essentially copy that sound, water it down, make it a little bit more commercial so it appeals outside of the niche of people that originally built this trend up." And that is a play we have seen with pretty much trap music, with grunge, with pop-punk, with various strains of electronic music too, jazz, it's like the record industry in a nutshell. What are you gonna do?

We need more short albums, like 20 to 30 minutes. They're so easy to listen to, but it also gives me a quick taste of what an artist is all about, like Don't Tap the Glass, ii, Daytona. IDK has a lot too, so does jev.. No, I mean a good 30-minute or sub-30 minute project can be really good and lots of classic albums are about that runtime, especially when it comes to punk music and indie music and genres like grindcore and death metal that would sort of overstay their welcome in a lot of cases if these records were spanning past 45 minutes or even an hour. Look, at the end of the day, artists, I think should come out with the albums that are whatever the length that they want to. What annoys me, though, is I feel like a lot of acts who should be making albums that are 20 or 30 minutes because they only really have 20 or 30 minutes of things to say are not making 20 or 30 minute albums they are instead the ones that are the most likely to pack their records with 22 to 30 tracks and then maybe throw a deluxe on top of that because nearly every song is filler and their fan base has little to no attention span and will mostly spend their time just like skipping around the album until they hear a single song that they like and then play that song ad nauseam.

And, you know, guilty as charged, I don't think I've heard a single Blue Man Group studio record, ever. So, I don't know, I'll probably have to go into hearing that. But, I mean, in live clips and performances that I've seen, they do seem to hit some good grooves. And obviously, with them kind of fashioning a lot of their own instrumentation, there's for sure some interesting timbres and tones in their work as well, that maybe you won't find on other albums. And overall, I feel like culturally, there is like less of an emphasis on their studio catalog because they are like such a visual act. I mean, they're the fucking Blue Man Group. So, I don't know, maybe we should all be giving the Blue Man Group a chance.

I mean, I will give it to you insofar as it's like one of the most unlikely collaborations ever, but I feel like to a degree the record also illustrates that as much as James Blake and Lil Yachty may be like mutual admirers of each other's work, there's only so far I feel like they can collaborate because I don't know if they sort of like play to each other's strengths all that well.

Some of his rap verses on the Czarface are not that bad. Guy clearly is a hardcore fan of the genre and has done the homework. I mean, as an actor, it does kind of feel like he's putting on a performance and really doing his like best '90s Brooklyn rap guy voice. But I mean, he is actually rapping-rapping on this new collab.

And it's sort of interesting that Czarface would give him the opportunity to do his thing. And I mean, who better to bring you on than Eso and also fucking Inspectah Deck? Who's going to like step in and be like, "Nah, man, you can't do that"? With that being said, I think Tom Hardy's rap career is probably not going to take off that far.

This collaboration is pretty cool, but I don't know how likely it is we're going to see Tom go out on his own and try to be like a solo artist or something like that.