Hi, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, Internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for another Let's Argue. Going on the internet, accepting your hot takes, your unpopular opinions, your tough questions, responding to the best, the cream of the crop. No bad takes allowed in this video, that's for damn sure.

I'm so sick of people saying "Sabrina Carpenter is subversive and feminist." Sabrina Carpenter isn't doing anything "for the girls." Her entire brand is being soft and delicate and looking like the pin-up calendars our granddaddies shot ropes to. She can do whatever she wants, but there's nothing subversive about comparing herself to a dog. And her team knows what Bundy-esque comments they're going to attract from men by dressing her up like a sexy hitchhiker. I would like her music a lot more if people just had fun with it and stopped pretending it's high brow.

Yeah, I mean, personally, I don't think it's high brow. I don't find it to be high brow at all. I don't see a lot of that out there, but I don't know. That's just my own perception. That's my own algorithm. I do see people defending it, though, but it's mostly on the grounds of "just let her do what she wants." And while it's obviously not the most feminist thing in the world for her to be on all fours like a dog calling herself "man's best friend" and allowing her hair to be pulled, if it's all happening consensually and it's a choice that she is actively making, who are we to get in the way of her just doing what she wants to do as a full-grown adult woman who has complete autonomy. Beyond that, I do think that there is something to the juxtaposition that she has actively been engaging with in terms of, yes, you have made an accurate assessment here in in terms of how she presents herself.

She's got a bit of an old-school vintage flair, pin-up girl aesthetic to the way she dresses and does her makeup and so on and so forth. But I think that's what makes the fact that a lot of her songs are so much about how men are stupid and men are trash and guys are just dumb and useless and so on and so forth. There's clearly a juxtaposition there. For the most part, I think it's working because a lot of straight guys don't mess with Sabrina Carpenter. There aren't a lot of straight male, huge, over-the-top Sabrina Carpenter fans out there. Again, even with the hair pulling and the man's best friend thing, I don't think there's a a lot about her art that exists to necessarily make men comfortable or make men feel like they're welcome to come in this space and just do and say anything that they want. Now, that's not to say that her music exists to challenge or tear down the patriarchy. I mean, certainly it can sit somewhere in the middle where it's mostly like not pushing in either direction in the grander scheme of things. All I'm saying is that I personally don't get the read that she's making art and presenting herself in a way that is supposed to be, I guess, comforting or validating for men.

I think you see that bearing out in the lack of overall male support and interest in Sabrina and her music. Now, again, it's not perfect, it's not mind-blowing, it's not deep, it's not high-brow or anything like that. But I just don't really vibe with the assessment that off of the way that she presents herself and this album cover alone that Sabrina is against the girls or setting women back or whatever.

Coldplay is a much more important band than they get credit for.

They're undeniably a popular band. They've written some hits. Beyoncé likes them. But I feel like the word "important" is usually saved for groups that are highly influential to their fellow musicians or have innovated in some way creatively that has impacted a lot of popular or underground art for the better. I think there have been some artists out there who have certainly taken their lead in terms of like, Oh, that's a popular thing a band is doing. Maybe we should try to do that. I feel like I don't hear a lot of Coldplay influence out there across a lot of modern music. When I do, I feel like it doesn't manifest in the best way a lot of the time.

I would need a list of the artists and albums and songs of significant importance. Maybe you could put them in the comments that Coldplay has had a direct impact on.

I hate it when artists use the album art as the single art. I love when singles get their own cover. It makes it so much more fun.

I agree. It makes the rollout for the record so much more fun, especially when there's artistic consistency across all of the bits of single art and maybe they're connected in some way. I think that's very cool. Maybe leaves a bit of a breadcrumb thing. I like different bits of single art. I think different single arts make it fun. It makes it more fun. This person's on to something. All you marketing people, do more single art, okay? Do more single art.

"She's not gonna let you hit, bro" has become the most misogynistic argument used to hate on fans of female artists. Doechii is a perfect example of this. Any defense coming her way for the song "Anxiety" is met with this response as if people defend female artists in order to get something out of it for themselves, further, pushing the sexist concept of women being prizes.

It's just not fucking reality. It's such a stupid point. Let's say Doechii or even another artist who I've gotten this response for – I can actually name a few: Megan Thee Stallion, Sexyy Red. Even if they were actually out here, fucking people who came to their defense or just generally liked their music, they'd be really busy. Megan Thee Stallion's schedule would be so full, she would be able to sleep with all those people. Honestly, this argument just says more about the people making it than it does about the people it's being thrown at. Because you know every single motherfucker making this point online while, yes, while they're on Twitter, they'll say, "They're not going to let you hit. No way they're going to let you hit. Why are you even defending them? Why are you even saying their music's good? You're not going to lay up sex with them." Yeah, they play that way on social media, but anytime they're within the vicinity of a woman that they wish to sleep with, they themselves are going to be like, "Oh, please, you're great. I love you. You're so fantastic. Oh, I think the world of you. What can I say? How can I act? What can I do to get you to sleep with me? Please, please, please, please, please."

All these people are telling you is that in their mind, that is how the world works. So when it comes time for them to want to actually have some relations with a woman, that's how they're going to act. They're going to be desperate, they're going to be inauthentic, they're going to do and say anything that they can to trick this woman into having anything to do with them. They're total freaks just telling you that they're freaks and just ignore them.

It's not that deep, it's not that serious, etc. It is such a frustrating thing to hear basically anytime subtext is mentioned, like somebody worked hard on this, why is it so hard to believe that there's more to it? Give a little credit.

No, that is a pretty annoying argument, and I do think it is one drop in a larger bucket going on with a lot of music and media discourse these days. I feel like the way that social media works has poison people's brains in such a way to where any deep analysis of anything makes a lot of people just roll their eyes or just instantly start glazing over and their brains stop functioning because it requires them to actually pay attention to something for more than 300 characters or three sentences.

Once you're going into essay or paragraph territory, you're losing a lot of people just automatically because people don't want to think that there's more substance to the thing that they're consuming because it's too much thinking, it's too much effort, it's too much attention, it's too much focus. While people are entitled to feel that way, as somebody who literally has to analyze things for a living, that's a pretty sad state of affairs to see things in.

Kendrick being dead silent on all political issues is disappointing. I normally am not a proponent of celebrities getting involved in politics. However, it is sad to have someone as capable of making great socially aware art as he is to be nowhere to be found during these times. He accepted a bet award the other night in LA and said nothing about the protests. I don't know. It's just strange to me.

Yeah, it's a little annoying and upsetting because it just signifies a bit of a lack of consistency. I mean, I could see on some level, Kendrick thinking like, if he were to say something about either the no kings stuff or the Palestine stuff, that he would be preaching to the choir a little bit because, I don't know, the Venn diagram of Kendrick fans who are probably also sympathetic to what's going on in Palestine currently or just think Trump sucks – it's probably a circle. It's probably just a goddamn straight up circle, the circliest circle ever circle. And knowing that, you do have to wonder if he were to say something, like how much impact or significance would it actually have? Because it wouldn't necessarily change anybody's mind on anything per se.

You could also argue that part of the reason a lot of people feel these ways about these issues currently is that Kendrick's music, for many, has served as a bit of an artistic moral gateway to a lot of different issues that he has most definitely just changed minds on through his actual music. I don't know, maybe he's making a calculation that allowing people to enter into his philosophy and his politics on these issues by remaining approachable in the public eye and not necessarily as polarizing as he could be on a myriad of different issues allows people to approach his music with maybe a more open mind than they would if he was just like, merely branded as this type of guy who just is always constantly proselytizing and throwing his opinion out there. I mean, there's valid theories and arguments around all of this, such as these that I've just presented.

But with that being said, I mean, what really would Kendrick be risking by just like, supporting these issues that are most definitely in need of support, that there would be no greater harm in supporting in any way whatsoever? What's the downside? Why not? Even someone such as Doechii at a recent award acceptance with a much smaller career and way more to lose than Kendrick has, had something to say. Even if Kendrick stood up there and said something at BET wouldn't actually move the needle all that significantly. Again, I just fail to see what's the harm in doing it? What's the issue? What's the problem? Why not just do it for the sake of encouraging people who are out there actually on the street, making it happen, pushing the envelope, and making sure that fascism doesn't fully, completely take over every aspect of our lives? Why not encourage those people and tell them that they're doing a great job and just to keep it going?

Not as prevalent today, but the use of the word "Karen" got repurposed for the completely wrong reasons. It was originally spawned as a label for racist white women complaining about black people merely existing.

The term quickly became hijacked and repurposed to shut down any woman complaining about anything regardless of how legitimate the problem is. It's classic "women should keep their mouth shut" sexism. It's a little alarming how quickly everyone flocked to it because of "Ha ha Memes are funny." [It was] originally used to call out racism, and ultimately used to make casual sexism go mainstream. I'm actually unfamiliar with the full history of the term. I have seen it used in instances where, yes, it is a white woman harassing a black person and calling the police because they're just, I don't know, having a good time out in public, or they're just walking down the road or just in a neighborhood where white people don't want to see anybody who isn't white. But I have seen it used around that same time to just talk about women who are freaking out and are very rude toward service workers, usually service workers who themselves are not white. I feel like calling out those individuals who go out of their way to make service workers miserable just because, I don't know, their order is not 100% correct or they're not getting some benefit they're complaining for – some special treatment.

Even if there is a meaning for the term that precedes that, I do think that is a valid reason to call people out. I don't think customers should just be allowed to just totally freak out and just be absolutely nasty and treat with degradation. People are just working a counter and just trying to make minimum fucking wage. But it is true. Since then, outside of those contexts, the term does seemingly get used now at almost any single time. It doesn't even have to be a woman. When somebody's just freaking out in public about something and they're just being fucking irrational for some reason, and there's no real greater social context or significance to what's going on with the freak out. Unfortunately, terminology means Memes and the like are essentially like a giant game of telephone being played on the internet constantly. These terms and memes and phrases just end up getting shared and pushed and are just proliferated constantly and over and over and over again. With time, they all progressively lose their meaning until we forget about them and they get replaced with terms that have a bit more specificity and are new and shiny and interesting.

It's a wee bit obnoxious, but I suppose it is what it is. Hey, look, at the end of the day, even if Karen has lost a bit of its steam, we do still have terms for people who just can't allow those who aren't white to just be out in the world and exist innocently and normally. They're just called racists. We can just call them racists.

Fantano is afraid of video game music.

No, not the Mario soundtrack. No, my God, I'm going to die.

Aux inputs seriously need to make a return in cars and phones nowadays. For a country ass bumpkin like me who basically works in the middle of nowhere, downloaded music is just more convenient and reliable than streaming music. I shouldn't have to rely solely on an internet connection that is about as strong as an anorexic on a blood thinner just to listen to my favorite music in the car or on my phone.

I mean, most music streaming services allow you to download music ahead of time now. Are you saying you would instead be playing music off of a CD player or walk or something? Because I don't disagree with that.

In fact, I would even go back to the phone thing and say, especially when it comes to the Apple phones, they should have not fucking taken ,with the increasing popularity of Bluetooth and stuff like that, they should have not taken the goddamn headphone jack out of the goddamn phones. Leave the headphone jack in the phones. It's functional. It's a good thing. Why would you take out the damn headphone jack? Especially considering when you have the headphones in the phone with the dongle, you're taking up the port through which you would normally charge the damn thing. Sometimes you want to hear some music and be charging at the same time. No, I don't want to hear like, "well, you could be listening on Bluetooth headphones while the phone is charging." Fuck you. There are so many situations in which that is a pain in the ass and inconvenient. And who says it has to be either/or? I should have the ability and the capacity, if I so want to, to be either listening on headphones through an eighth inch jack or listening over Bluetooth with headphones or Airpods, and then also charging at the same time, too, if I want to.

But look, as a child of the '80s, I spent a lot of time in the car listening to tapes, listening to CDs, listening to my Walkman in the car through the aux port or one of those weird things where you would put the cassette in and there would be a wire coming out of the cassette, and then you would put it in the thing you were playing the music off of. No clue how that shit worked, but it was cool. And yeah, they should come back. I don't disagree.

King Gizzard plays the same shit every album just with different genre/color palette to make it seem different.

I know you are not in these comments here as a Converge fan, drawing similarities between each record of a band. You are a Converge fan. And look, and I love King Gizzard and I also love Converge, but you cannot be out here as a hardcore Converge fan just being like, "Oh, man, this band just does the same shit every album and they just change it around a little bit." Look, King Gizzard has their sound and they have the thing that they do. I'll be honest, while yes, there are a lot of similarities that you could draw between each King Gizzard album, I think they themselves have shown a lot more versatility and variety among their catalog than many artists have.

For example, despite the orchestrations being packed into their latest LP, are their two latest albums similar musically and aesthetically in a lot of ways? Yeah, they are, but also they were recorded at the same damn time. And both albums, in my opinion, sound wildly different from, I don't know, Infest the Rats Nest, Changes, Sketches of Brunswick East. Also, they're acoustic folksy Paper Mâché Dream Balloon album. I mean, the band definitely has their core sound that you can pick up notes of on most of their records for sure. But I don't think it's a case of them just writing the same crap over and over and over again. I think that's being a little disingenuous, honestly.

Anthony Fantano, let's argue.... forever.