<ul class="summary-list"><li>Defense tapes played in court Thursday have been posted to SoundCloud by Law360.</li><li>They are recordings of 2018 phone calls between the two lawyers who struck the 2016 hush-money deal.</li></ul>On the witness stand Thursday, Stormy Daniels' lawyer, Keith Davidson, told jurors that it was easy to tell when Michael Cohen was recording their phone calls.Cohen would suddenly sound "very structured.""Ordinarily, he was sort of all over the place," Davidson testified of Donald Trump's fixer-turned-nemesis.Davidson's surmise — that Cohen was likely taping him at the time — makes a pair of newly-released defense tapes all the more compelling and perplexing.The tapes are from March of 2018. In them, the lawyer for then-President Trump chats with the former lawyer for a porn star.They rehash old times: that hush-money deal they hammered out together days before the 2016 presidential election, a deal now at the center of Trump's ongoing criminal trial.<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Seeking to drive home a defense narrative that the media attorney worked with Daniels to extort Trump before the election, Trump’s side played tapes where Keith Davidson hesitantly agreed he was talking about his client. <a href="https://t.co/ODuQQ4i1tg">https://t.co/ODuQQ4i1tg</a>— Frank G. Runyeon (@frankrunyeon) <a href="https://twitter.com/frankrunyeon/status/1786348765936263556?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 3, 2024</a></blockquote> "Sometimes people get settler's remorse, you know?" Davidson says on one tape, in what he hesitatingly admitted on the stand Thursday was a reference to Daniels."And other times, people think that, hey, I need to resolve this case before a date certain, because this is when I have the most" Davidson says.If Davidson really suspected he was being taped, that suspicion did not stop him from creating a record that, six years later, could damage not only his own credibility, but that of his porn star former client, and the prosecution.Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has spent two weeks so far presenting a case that describes Trump as the mastermind of an election interference conspiracy.Daniels, meanwhile, has portrayed herself as signing the hush-money deal in fear for her life.She wanted to create a paper trail linking her name to Trump's, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bombshells-in-stormy-documentary-have-trump-lawyers-raging-2024-3">she says in last month's documentary,</a> "so that he could not have me killed."The tapes show the case, and Daniels, in a different light. They raise the question of whether Daniels' agent and Davidson, eager for cash, "leveraged" her story of a tryst with Trump in the crucial waning days of the 2016 election.Trump's side is already pushing an "extortion" theory, using much of their cross-examination of Davidson Thursday to grill him on his past hush-money cases involving <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sex-tapes-celebrity-rehab-trump-trial-gets-even-more-tabloid-2024-5">celebrities and their scandals.</a>"I wouldn't be surprised if he comes out and says, you know what, Stormy Daniels, she wanted this money more than you could ever imagine," Davidson says on another tape.<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">In another Cohen-Davidson call, her attorney warns Trump’s fixer that a story may come out saying the porn star yelled at him that “if [Trump] loses this election, we lose all fucking leverage” <a href="https://t.co/89n0yKPqe3">https://t.co/89n0yKPqe3</a>— Frank G. Runyeon (@frankrunyeon) <a href="https://twitter.com/frankrunyeon/status/1786348768922632287?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 3, 2024</a></blockquote> Davidson said Thursday that he was talking about an upcoming TV interview, and was describing what he believed would be said during that interview by Anthony Kotzev, the then-boyfriend of Daniels' agent, Gina Rodriguez."I remember hearing her on the phone," Davidson says on tape, referring to Rodriguez."Saying, 'You fucking Keith Davidson. You better settle this goddamn story because if he loses this election — and he is going to lose — if he loses this election, we all lose all fucking leverage. This case is worth zero."Davidson was describing someone else's opinion, not necessarily his own. Still, as Davidson's angry words from 2018 played in the courtroom, they may have rang a bell that cannot be unrung in jurors' memories.Ultimately, whether Trump was the victim or mastermind of the hush-money deal may prove immaterial.Prosecutors say that throughout 2017, his first year in office, Trump falsified 34 business records, including nine checks to Cohen he signed personally.The falsifications are felonies because they hid an unlawful conspiracy to influence the 2016 election, the District Attorney alleges.Whether Trump was playing Daniels or she was playing him — or both, as is also possible — has no bearing on the lawfulness of the documents themselves, prosecutors have argued."This case is about a criminal conspiracy and a coverup," prosecutor Matthew Colangelo told jurors at the start of last week, in the opening assertion of his opening statements.And while Colangelo told jurors that prosecutors will prove Trump "orchestrated" an election-influencing hush-money conspiracy, the charges do not require proof of who played whom.

Hear the tapes: DA's theory of Trump as the hush-money mastermind takes a hit in newly-released defense recordings  

<ul><li>Elon Musk has written a new song called Don’t Doubt Yer Vibe.</li><li>The Tesla and SpaceX CEO plans to release the song on this SoundCloud channel, Emo G Records.</li><li>The announcement may signal the revival of Musk’s music record company.</li></ul>Elon Musk went on Twitter to share that he’s written a new song — and it’s called Don’t Doubt Yer Vibe. One of the line’s of the song goes, “Be.. cause... it’s... true...” 
	<div type="twitter" handle="elonmusk" handlename="E “D” M" image="http://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1223103898027585542/nitH0oAG_normal.jpg" favoritecount="149247" retweetcount="15046" status="Just wrote a song called “Don’t doubt yer vibe”" createdat="1580416897000" id="1222983224437035008"></div>



 The SpaceX and Tesla CEO didn’t share too many details aside from, “It’s a hard song” and that it will be released soon on Emo G Records. Emo G Records is Musk’s channel on SoundCloud. Last year in April, he debuted on the platform with his one and only song so far, RIP Harabme. The song featured rapper Yung Jake and Chairlift’s Caroline Polacheck. 
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 Fans have listened to RIP Harabme more than 2.5 million times. And with Musk’s announcement, Emo G Records might gain more prominence this year. Tequila and flamethrowers In the past, Musk has launched his own brand of tequila — Teslaquila — and sold flamethrowers through the Boring Company. Musk’s year so far has been a mixed bag of news. Tesla’s shares have more than doubled since the company reported its third-quarter profits and informed investors that construction of its factory in China is ahead of schedule. The gains could result in a compensation package of $50 billion. However, there are protests against his plans to setup a Tesla factory in Germany as well. See also: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/elon-musk-says-we-have-no-defence-against-asteroid-god-of-chaos/articleshow/70748251.cms">Elon Musk says we have no defence against asteroid ‘God of Chaos'</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/elon-musk-spacex-and-jeff-bezos-blue-origin-help-nasa-with-artemis-moon-mission/articleshow/70476800.cms">Elon Musk is going help NASA refuel in space and Bezos is going to help it land on the Moon</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/elon-musk-explains-why-tesla-isnt-in-india-yet/articleshow/64398873.cms">Elon Musk explains why Tesla isn’t in India yet</a>

After tequila and flamethrowers, Elon Musk is now writing a second song

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="12016075" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="billie-eilish" source="Orion">Billie Eilish</keyword> received an Academy Award for best original song for her <keyword id="11918058" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="james-bond" source="Orion">James Bond</keyword> theme.</li><li>A reporter inquired if she felt "better" than she did as a teenager in the spotlight.</li></ul>Billie Eilish responded to a question characterizing her as an "<keyword id="13489472" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="emo" source="Orion">emo</keyword> kind of sad-looking teenager" at the <keyword id="12988303" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="academy-awards" source="Orion">Academy Awards</keyword> on Sunday evening. Eilish and her brother-slash-collaborator Finneas Baird O'Connell took home the Academy Award for best original song for their James Bond <a href="https://www.insider.com/no-time-to-die-review-daniel-craig-best-james-bond-ending-2021-9">theme</a> in "<keyword id="11940308" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="no-time-to-die" source="Orion">No Time to Die</keyword>."The song previously earned <a href="https://www.insider.com/golden-globes-2022-complete-list-of-nominees">Golden Globe</a> and Grammy awards. In the <keyword id="12068839" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="oscars" source="Orion">Oscars</keyword> media room, Eilish was asked to comment on the process of experiencing her <a href="https://www.insider.com/billie-eilish-records-broken">teenage</a> years in the spotlight as well as what one reporter implied was a perceived shift in her public persona. <div type="image" title="Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell" height="3712" width="4949" msid="90505281" hostid="261"></div>"When you first came out, you were sort of like an emo kind of sad-looking teenager and now you are, like, laughing and having a good time and you look very happy, and it's so nice to see," the reporter told her. "I am glad," Eilish responded."Do you feel that you've had a change in your career as the last couple of years have gone along?" the reporter then asked. "I went from 14 to 20, so that will do it," Eilish replied. The singer recorded one of her hit songs — "Ocean Eyes" — <a href="https://www.insider.com/billie-eilish-songs-ranked-best-worst#6-ocean-eyes-put-eilish-on-the-map-for-a-reason-26">when she was 13 years old</a> and uploaded it to SoundCloud in November 2015. She also famously released her debut <a href="https://www.insider.com/olivia-rodrigo-ex-boyfriend-new-girlfriend-sour-inspiration-documentary-2022-3">album</a> in 2017 <a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/art-books-music/a13040159/billie-eilish-interview/">when she was 15</a> and <a href="https://www.insider.com/billie-eilish-records-broken#she-was-the-youngest-woman-to-have-a-no-1-album-last-decade-8">it topped the charts in 2019 when she was just 17 years old</a>."Do you feel a lot better now?" he asked. "Sure," she said, before reminding those in attendance that she was a "very young teenager" when she first stepped into the public eye. "It's just growth," Eilish continued. "I'm super happy. I think that I'm just coming into my being aware of what is good around me." "I was just a kid," she added.

Billie Eilish responds to a reporter who called her an 'an emo kind of sad-looking teenager': 'It's just growth'

<ul class="summary-list"><li>18-year-old New Jersey native Zeke has millions of streams and just put out an album, "Frailty."</li><li>They make emo <keyword id="12600533" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="electronic-music" source="Orion">electronic music</keyword> under the name dltzk and silly mashups under the name leroy.</li></ul>Zeke lives a double life online. The 18-year-old produces emo electronic compositions under one identity (dltzk) and goofy, genre-pulverizing mashups under another (leroy), reaching millions of streams across <keyword id="11911163" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="spotify" source="Orion">Spotify</keyword> and <keyword id="12278599" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="soundcloud" source="Orion">SoundCloud</keyword>.They've also coined a subgenre that's rising in popularity on SoundCloud and inspiring a wave of artists."I'm finally making the music I've wanted to make since I was 9," Zeke, a New Jersey native who doesn't disclose their last name because of privacy concerns, told Insider.Zeke released their debut album, "Frailty," on November 12 under the handle <a href="https://soundcloud.com/dltzk">dltzk</a> (pronounced "delete Zeke") to <a href="https://twitter.com/en_cohen/status/1459345125172121602">critical</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/lfitzmaurice/status/1460066922653966337">acclaim</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/underscoresplus/status/1459962976463736834">praise from peers</a>.Under their second pseudonym, <a href="https://soundcloud.com/c0ncernn">leroy</a>, they've just begun the third project for "dariacore," the eclectic microgenre they spearheaded from their childhood bedroom late last year.Dariacore is "pop music on steroids in the best way possible," Bill Bugara, a SoundCloud creative director and manager at Zeke's label, deadAir, told Insider.The sample-heavy subgenre revolves around "how one deconstructs pop and dance music into this amalgamation of controlled chaos," added Bugara, who released <a href="https://soundcloud.com/actuallynotbill/sets/daria-vs-core-1">a charity compilation on SoundCloud</a> on Sunday featuring dariacore songs from about a dozen musicians including Zeke.<div type="image" title="Zeke2" height="3024" width="4032" msid="87892670" hostid="261"></div>Zeke left for college near Philadelphia several months ago. (They said they hadn't yet chosen what to study.) Almost all the songs they make now are about "crossing the barrier between childhood and adulthood," they said.Zeke's influence among their peers in music hasn't fully translated to real-world self-confidence yet: The artist said they were too insecure to record music within earshot of their parents or bring a microphone to college, where prying roommates could hear them sing.<h2>Zeke has loved EDM since they were a kid</h2>Like <a href="https://www.insider.com/quinn-osquinn-hyperpop-digicore-tiktok-soundcloud-rap-2021-10">Quinn</a>, whom Zeke cited as an influence, Zeke is at the vanguard of a fast-rising group of Zoomers making intimate, nervy music from their computers.Zeke learned how to make <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/11/13/778532395/the-mainstreaming-of-edm-and-the-precipitous-drop-that-followed">electronic dance music</a> at 9 after fiddling with iMaschine, a basic iPhone songwriting app. "I fucked around and found out" how to produce music, they said.Zeke said they'd always loved loud, frenzied songs. "One of my most vivid memories from elementary school is asking my gym teacher to play <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR2XilcGYOo">Skrillex</a> in class while we were playing dodgeball," they recalled, adding that as a 9- or 10-year-old they would eagerly play homemade EDM mashups for kids and counselors at summer camp.As a teen, they began producing trap beats and, eventually, <keyword id="12600531" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="hyperpop" source="Orion">hyperpop</keyword> — a genre with experimental vocal techniques and chaotic beats that's sometimes called <a href="https://www.complex.com/pigeons-and-planes/life-cycle-of-internet-genres-scenes-hyperpop-digicore-cloud-rap">digicore</a> — around early 2020. Zeke's first major break was "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjLRRwd3g40">Teen Week</a>," an eight-track EP they self-released in March. Its electric anthem "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRA-lL2i_gE">homeswitcher</a>" amassed 100,000 plays on SoundCloud in its first two weeks.<h2>'Frailty' is inspired by video-game music and nostalgia</h2>Dltzk's debut record, "Frailty," released with <a href="https://twitter.com/deadAirrecords/status/1458847694336765960">deadAir</a>, is full of ultra-detailed and texturally cluttered electronic music that draws on hyperpop and other genres like indie rock. The songs are emo symphonies, putting listeners on a roller coaster of gentle guitars, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b46OnodEaOI">hazy distortion</a>, wistful vocals, and poignant synths.While many hyperpop musicians make one- to three-minute tracks, Zeke expands that hyperactive energy over four, five, or six minutes. Songs like "movies for guys," "eyes off the wheel," and "kodak moment," packed with beat switches and ambient interludes, burn with the intensity of dance-floor bangers before chilling into lullabies at the end.<div type="image" title="deadAir" height="631" width="842" msid="87892672" hostid="261"></div>Across the album, Zeke sings about the slipperiness of time and personal anxieties. Many of the songs address an unidentified "you," which Zeke told Insider was "current and past" versions of themselves as well as other unnamed people.A crucial inspiration for the record's dreamlike tone is video-game music, particularly the bucolic soundtracks from "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHPHqgweZ34">Pokémon Diamond and Pearl</a>" and "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbOaIrU-LWw">Pokémon Black and White</a>," which Zeke said reminded them "of being younger and having no responsibilities, of not even really having a conscience."Much of "Frailty" sounds pixelated or noisy like an old Nintendo DS game soundtrack, which Zeke said they accomplished with a <a href="https://soundbridge.io/bitcrusher/">bitcrusher</a>, an effect that lowers the audio resolution to become charmingly fuzzy.The video-game influence is especially apparent on tracks like "kodak moment." The outro's yearning piano notes and breezy electronic ambiance evoke the bittersweetness of the "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVeq5Vw0jc8">Emotion</a>" theme from "Black and White.""Emotion" was "one of the first songs I taught myself on the piano," Zeke said. "I remember when I was really little and I first heard that song I think I cried."The sentiment at the core of the album, Zeke said, is realizing that despite the pressure to become an adult when you turn 18, you still have so much time left — and you can still do the things you used to do, like play video games."If someone were to take something from 'Frailty,' I think it would be to appreciate the moment," Zeke said. "Adulthood is scary and inevitable, but it isn't something that I should be worrying about right now."<h2>Zeke is credited with starting a music microgenre</h2>Zeke has also gained traction with their wackier alias, leroy, under which they produce dariacore, weaving pop hits and meme sounds into a whirlwind of breakbeats, <a href="https://www.finals.blog/posts/Greetings-from-Planet-Newark:-An-Extensive-Look-at-the-New-Generation-of-Jersey-Club">Jersey club rhythms</a>, and <a href="https://monstercat.fandom.com/wiki/Dubstep">dubstep-like</a> noise explosions.<a href="https://soundcloud.com/c0ncernn/s3-e2">Hit play on a dariacore track</a>, and within two minutes <a href="https://soundcloud.com/c0ncernn/pizza-song">you might hear PinkPantheress</a>; a squeaky-bed sound effect; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwLBF2Tj8O0">the YouTuber Fred Figglehorn</a> hollering, "Hey, it's Fred!"; a dolphin squealing; Vanessa Carlton making her way downtown; police sirens; and Yeat rapping, "She eat me up like it's Benibachi." The basic template is a <a href="https://soundcloud.com/c0ncernn/snare-of-a-lifetime">breathless mishmash</a> of recognizable songs pitch-shifted and layered over each other.Dariacore is "electronic music that's been filtered through over a decade of the internet's love-hate relationship with big-stage EDM and dubstep," Jesse Taconelli, the founder of deadAir, told Insider. Taconelli said that Zeke had pioneered a subgenre that samples older genres and rewires them into something beyond "people's current understanding of them."While Zeke is credited with naming the subgenre "dariacore," the only aspect related to "Daria," the late-'90s animated TV show about an affectless teenage girl, is that every song's thumbnail is a screenshot from the cartoon. Zeke referred to the subgenre's name as "a joke that's been going on for too long."<div type="image" title="dariacore Bandcamp." height="720" width="960" msid="87892675" hostid="261"></div>Zeke said dariacore was musically inspired by the electronic artist Vektroid's song-production livestreams and her mega-glitchy track <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI67zJJpN-U">"Sick &amp; Panic,"</a> and <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/53aeb8/here-are-9-of-the-best-and-most-upsetting-soundclowns-we-could-find">SoundClown music</a>, an <a href="https://soundcloud.com/xarlable/final-soundclown-destination">internet remix fad</a> in the mid-2010s that featured artists combining disparate pop, rap, and video-game songs.The subgenre has spread across SoundCloud, with Zeke's leroy account — the only place they post dariacore tracks — amassing 800,000 plays.There's <a href="https://soundcloud.com/saoirsedream/pizza">already a crop</a> of <a href="https://soundcloud.com/saycarbine/good-time">new artists</a> making <a href="https://soundcloud.com/d1tto/d1tto-is-back-and-is-mean">diverse variations</a> of <a href="https://soundcloud.com/elxnce/whats-gen-z-doing-nowadays">the dariacore style</a> of spliced sounds and berserk beats; many stylize their cover art after a different children's cartoon ("The Amazing World of Gumball," "<a href="https://soundcloud.com/kosutwo/dariacore-is-cool">Rolie Polie Olie</a>") and tag it on SoundCloud as dariacore.Despite the scene's growing popularity, Zeke said they didn't feel any pressure to be its most visible or popular figure."The whole concept of leroy is doing whatever I want," they said. "If that means dismantling the dariacore agenda, so be it."

An 18-year-old invented a new genre of meme-heavy music called 'dariacore' that's like 'pop music on steroids'

<ul class="summary-list"><li>In 2020, Quinn, 16, became the young face of the emergent <keyword id="11898471" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="music" source="Orion">music</keyword> genre hyperpop. </li><li>Quinn's genre-defying debut album "drive-by lullabies" shows her grappling with anxiety.</li></ul>Quinn became the face of a music genre before she was old enough to get a driver's license. Last year, the high school junior went viral on <keyword id="12278599" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="soundcloud" source="Orion">SoundCloud</keyword> and YouTube as a hyperpop prodigy, working in an emergent style of pop music that mixes futuristic vocals with chaotic synths and hard-hitting drums. She sang sincerely about personal humiliations (like<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfW8TjiZLdI&amp;ab_channel=p4rkr-Topicopic"> feeling left out of a friend group</a>) in a high-pitched voice or rapped over beats that oscillated between <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KljsSMNy5g&amp;ab_channel=p4rkr-Topicopic">manic</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AHlTIrW97g&amp;ab_channel=p4rkr-Topicopic">melancholic</a>.Releasing music under pseudonyms like <a href="https://open.spotify.com/artist/2lao8J9lU86rbk8doe2IE3">"cat mother"</a> and "osquinn," the artist has never revealed her full name due to privacy concerns, she told Insider over a call.In 2020, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/arts/music/hyperpop-spotify.html">The New York Times</a>, <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvx85v/this-is-hyperpop-a-genre-tag-for-genre-less-music">Vice</a>, and<a href="https://www.complex.com/pigeons-and-planes/2020/07/best-new-artists-july/"> Complex</a> wrote about Quinn, and Spotify used her image as the cover for its popular <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX7HOk71GPfSw">"hyperpop" playlist</a> (240,916 likes), which is the internet music scene's version of having your face plastered on a billboard in Times Square.But in March, half a year after Quinn's peak of fame, the 16-year-old <a href="https://twitter.com/clubpenquinn/status/1375448281195687936">deleted all of the hyperpop songs</a> from her<a href="https://soundcloud.com/catmom4"> SoundCloud page</a>, stopped collaborating with other artists, and opted instead to make foreboding <a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-twentytwo/ls-1">ambient</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-gWrYhzZbY&amp;ab_channel=catmother-Topicopic">video game-themed jungle music</a> featuring no vocals or lyrics.She told Insider she was tired of feeling pressured to please her fans and would rather just "make silly little songs" in her bedroom.Quinn comes off as ambivalent about <keyword id="6355064" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="celebrity" source="Orion">celebrity</keyword>. Despite claiming that she <a href="https://twitter.com/clubpenquinn/status/1392992337014439942">doesn't want fame and attention,</a> she griped that numerous former hyperpop friends copied her<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfW8TjiZLdI&amp;ab_channel=p4rkr-Topicopic"> emo-pop style</a> and went viral without crediting her."I'm very envious, it feels like I've been robbed," she said, adding that it felt like artists "took my influence and ran with it." Still, she's decided to make her name (and voice) known again.On September 17, Quinn, who has over 50 million plays on Spotify, self-released her debut album, <a href="https://soundcloud.com/p4rkr/sets/drive-by-lullabies">"drive-by lullabies."</a> Quinn said she's prouder of these 14 songs than any other music she's made. Fans and critics agree: the music website <a href="https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/quinn-drive-by-lullabies/">Pitchfork</a> gave the record a rave review and<a href="https://twitter.com/Tuxedoz7/status/1440399350463561728"> many</a><a href="https://twitter.com/__1naya/status/1440404391471685634"> listeners</a><a href="https://twitter.com/joebidensniff/status/1441081563903500309"> online</a> have called it her<a href="https://twitter.com/djraverobber/status/1438725520531861508"> best release</a> to date.<h2>Quinn took cues from internet <keyword id="11899151" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="culture" source="Orion">culture</keyword></h2>Quinn represents a new breed of self-conscious, experimental internet musicians who catapulted to viral fame during the early days of the pandemic and are now grappling with the perils of young stardom.She blew up in the summer of 2020 with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YWX4BmppGU&amp;ab_channel=p4rkr-Topicopic">"i don't want that many friends in the first place."</a> The angsty loner anthem full of snarled vocals and speaker-rattling bass exploded on <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/i-dont-want-that-many-friends-in-the-first-place-6828711597339314177?lang=en">TikTok</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YWX4BmppGU&amp;ab_channel=p4rkr-Topicopic">YouTube</a>. Around the same time, in July 2020, <a href="https://www.thefader.com/2020/07/31/5-fast-facts-with-osquinn-aka-p4rkr-hyperpops-once-and-future-queen">The Fader</a> crowned her hyperpop's "once and future queen."Growing up on the internet has heavily influenced her music style, the artist said. Her hobbies include trawling through <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/MixtapeMagic">obscure YouTube channels</a> to find long-forgotten rap and electronic mixtapes for inspiration and taking shots of <a href="https://trenchdog.me/photo-gallery-1">"liminal spaces,"</a> or eerie hallways and other in-between areas, a photography trend <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/liminalspace">popular on TikTok</a>. She also <a href="https://twitter.com/clubpenquinn/status/1432499756006248453">conducts live Q&amp;A sessions</a> with fans on Twitter.<div type="image" title="Osquinn." height="843" width="1124" msid="86892818" hostid="261"></div>Collaborating with people online is a core feature of Quinn's music. She used to work with <a href="https://soundcloud.com/gnde/cruel">loads</a> of<a href="https://soundcloud.com/ericdoa2/attitude-w-blackwinterwells-wido-grandee-osquinn-kurtains-glaive-and-chach"> other teenage</a><a href="https://soundcloud.com/midwxst/troopss"> artists</a> before she stopped producing hyperpop songs. She was also a member of several internet-based <a href="https://www.complex.com/pigeons-and-planes/2020/08/glitchcore-surge-rap-soundcloud">"collectives,"</a> which are music-making communities that function like different friend groups in a virtual high school that spans the planet. Many hyperpop collectives have their own <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-make-a-discord-server">Discord channels</a>, in which young people from all over the world work together on songs long-distance."Without Discord, I wouldn't have met the [friends] that I know now," she said. "So I think it impacted my music trajectory pretty heavily."Although she had no formal music training, Quinn said she taught herself to make hip-hop when she was 9 using an iPad and GarageBand. She experimented first with trap and <a href="https://amp.redbull.com/se-en/whatever-happened-to-hip-hop-sub-genre-cloud-rap">cloud rap</a>, then switched to<a href="https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/articles/features/top_5_trap_metal_artists_who_made_the_genre_explode-119975"> trap metal</a>, a darker, more menacing sound, she said.Around late 2019, she started making hyperpop music. The genre, which is sometimes called <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/08/09/the-brash-exuberant-sounds-of-hyperpop">"digicore,"</a> had already existed in various forms since <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RA-lXK0c0g&amp;ab_channel=EdBangerRecordsords">off-kilter pop pioneers such as Uffie</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MQUleX1PeA&amp;ab_channel=DrinkQTVEVOVEVO">the PC Music label</a>, but it didn't become a fully-fledged movement until the late 2010s, when artists like Quinn joined the scene.<blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@osquinnnn/video/6893481944563158277" data-video-id="6893481944563158277" style="max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px;"> <section> <a target="_blank" title="@osquinnnn" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@osquinnnn">@osquinnnn</a> cat <a target="_blank" title="♬ i dont want that many friends in the first place - p4rkr" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/i-dont-want-that-many-friends-in-the-first-place-6828711597339314177">♬ i dont want that many friends in the first place - p4rkr</a> </section> </blockquote> Her physical environment of Baltimore, Maryland inspired her as well. The city is one of several places she landed in while bouncing around with her military family as a kid, along with Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Virginia, where she's lived for the last few years.Baltimore has a long history of spawning creative movements, from the <a href="https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2017/03/the-baltimore-punk-scene-from-the-90s-to-today">wave of local hardcore punk groups</a> that rose in the '90s to the breakbeat-rap genre <a href="https://medium.com/@jakehenrysmith/its-baltimore-s-time-2941f4cf99c2">"Baltimore club."</a>"People think Baltimore is ugly, mainly because it's not modern and it's rundown, everything is breaking," Quinn said, referencing common <a href="https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/7/29/20746188/donald-trump-elijah-cummings-baltimore-rat-infested-racism">stereotypes</a> about the industrial city. "But people are still able to make communities and beauty out of it, which is what I like most about the city… I want to provide people the same comforting feeling [with my music] that Baltimore provided me."<h2>'Drive-by lullabies' encapsulates Quinn's real-life experiences</h2>"Drive-by lullabies" evokes Quinn's nomadic childhood through a dizzying tour of genres, vocal techniques, and emotions. There's<a href="https://soundcloud.com/p4rkr/from-paris-with-love"> industrial bass music,</a><a href="https://soundcloud.com/p4rkr/perfect-imperfection?in=p4rkr/sets/drive-by-lullabies"> glitched-out rap,</a> even<a href="https://soundcloud.com/p4rkr/change-that?in=p4rkr/sets/drive-by-lullabies"> dreamy noise-pop</a>. Many songs feature found sounds that she sampled and recorded at random points during the last few months: a water tap dripping, birds chirping, insects buzzing, a vehicle burning rubber.Quinn said this chaotic mixture of harsh and soft noises inspired the album's title, which calls to mind images of both violence and tenderness. "You got a combination, a beautiful disaster," she explained.Quinn, who is transgender, said she raised the pitch of her voice on almost every track on the album. "My voice is sort of deep," <a href="https://twitter.com/clubpenquinn/status/1408627844297732105?lang=en">she said in a tweet in June</a>. "I'm sure you don't want to hear fucking Morgan Freeman sing to you about dysphoria."She manipulated her voice with other effects, too, like bleeping it out with deafening and dissonant sounds (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQwsQh8_OZs&amp;list=OLAK5uy_l6OmY9QAJdI_c9GlD5h6j0VV1gQmBxHu8&amp;index=4&amp;ab_channel=p4rkr-Topic=p4rkr-Topic">"coping mechanism"</a>), layering several recordings at once so the words appear to trip over each other (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS9cGRsQfKM&amp;list=OLAK5uy_l6OmY9QAJdI_c9GlD5h6j0VV1gQmBxHu8&amp;index=6&amp;ab_channel=p4rkr-Topic=p4rkr-Topic">"silly"</a>), and adding cuts and breaks that shatter her sentences into fragmented syllables (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2psgMNSwec&amp;list=OLAK5uy_l6OmY9QAJdI_c9GlD5h6j0VV1gQmBxHu8&amp;index=14&amp;ab_channel=p4rkr-Topic=p4rkr-Topic">"i'm here for a good time"</a>). <h2>Paranoia and anxiety riddle the record</h2>Quinn said many of the song themes concern personal anxieties like dealing with enemies online or her constant paranoia about the world ending. <div type="image" title="Osquinn visualizer" height="1590" width="2121" msid="86892821" hostid="261"></div><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1Yri6_Mmrg&amp;list=OLAK5uy_l6OmY9QAJdI_c9GlD5h6j0VV1gQmBxHu8&amp;index=5&amp;ab_channel=p4rkr-Topic=p4rkr-Topic">"Birthday girl"</a> is about the time she ran away from home on her 16th birthday last December after conflict with her parents became too much to handle, she said.The song features a sampled audio of a man yelling at someone else. At certain points, the second person screams back in a hoarse, terrified voice. These voices represent Quinn's parents arguing over why she left, she said."I jumped out the second story window and sprinted to the woods and called an Uber," she recalled, adding that she ended up spending the night in the guest room at a fellow internet musician's place.<div type="image" title="Osquinn visualizer part two." height="1398" width="1865" msid="86892823" hostid="261"></div>Although she said she has since reunited with her parents and her family stress has subsided, Quinn pointed to other sources of anxiety, including the <a href="https://twitter.com/clubpenquinn/status/1372585772499492867">transphobia and harassment</a> she regularly experiences on social media."I'll be real, man, there are a lot of people out there who don't want me breathing," she said.Hyperpop was once defined by its<a href="https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/n7bw3z/digicore-music-scene-profile-hyperpop"> community spirit</a> and collaborative ethos, but as a result of in-fighting and the biggest artists signing to major labels while leaving others behind, the scene has "kind of crumbled," Quinn said.Although Quinn said she feels like "an outsider" nowadays, she retains over 74,000<a href="https://www.instagram.com/osquinn/?hl=en"> Instagram</a> followers and 600,000 monthly Spotify listeners. Her unapologetically earnest antics and experimental impulses have earned her a<a href="https://twitter.com/kaiwhiston/status/1439985908116242433"> fanbase</a> that <a href="https://twitter.com/redveil/status/1438891774861365250">sees her</a> as a<a href="https://twitter.com/Quadeca/status/1438733878630367232"> multidimensional</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/pspspswjt/status/1438907695319461888">innovator</a>.An artist caught between wanting it all and wanting to disappear, Quinn is nevertheless proud of what she's achieved and built from the ground up as a young Black trans musician."I don't need to get signed," she said adamantly. "I prefer to keep to myself, to be more of a side character type of person."

Meet Quinn, the 16-year-old internet musician who was the young face of hyperpop until she deleted everything and started over

<img src="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5e24b82bb6d52d38137fe799-2400/elon%20musk2.jpg" alt="Elon Musk" />REUTERS/Hannibal HanschkeSpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk arrives on the red carpet for the automobile awards "Das Goldene Lenkrad" (The golden steering wheel) given by a German newspaper in Berlin, Germany, November 12, 2019.<ul class="summary-list"><li>Elon Musk's song "Don't Doubt ur Vibe" made SoundCloud's top 10, joining the likes of Roddy Ricch and the late Juice WRLD.</li><li>The song has 2.6 million streams after being released on the platform less than a week ago.</li><li>In light of his new SoundCloud fame, the tech giant changed his Twitter bio to "SoundCloud Rock Star," then to emojis of a music note, a cloud, and a crown.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul>Tech billionaire Elon Musk is celebrating the success of his unusual EDM track after it reached the top 10 on the popular streaming site SoundCloud.Under the account name Emo G Records, Musk's "<a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-209448905/dont-doubt-ur-vibe">Don't Doubt ur Vibe</a>" has been streamed 2.6 million times in less than a week, <a href="https://soundcloud.com/charts/top?genre=all-music&amp;country=all-countries">coming in 8th place worldwide as of late Wednesday</a>.Ahead of Musk's song are popular artists like Roddy Ricch and the late Juice WRLD.In celebration of its success, Musk posted a screenshot of the chart, with a celebratory "8th hottest song on Soundcloud!!"In <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1225177296585330688">a follow-up message</a> he said "Putting that on my LinkedIn for sure."You can listen to the song here:When he released the track on January 31, Musk tweeted that he wrote the lyrics and performed the vocals himself. He also gave his followers a look inside the studio with pictures of him while he worked on it.The musician Grimes, who is dating Musk, posted a video of him rocking out to a track in the studio on her Instagram story.Although Musk's track is a success worldwide, it ranks lower on US views alone, with less than 50% of its total in the past week coming from Americans. <a href="https://soundcloud.com/charts/top?genre=all-music&amp;country=US">In the US-only charts</a>, "Don't Doubt ur Vibe" was 28th on Wednesday.The new track follows a rap song that Musk uploaded last year called "RIP Harambe," which has 2.8 million streams.In light of his new SoundCloud fame, the tech giant changed his Twitter bio to a series of emojis including a music note, a cloud, and a crown. He also briefly changed his Twitter name to "E 'D' M," a play on his initials EM and his newfound music genre.<ul class="read-more-links"><li>Read more:</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-hiring-at-spacex-jobs-career-day-open-positions-2020-2">Elon Musk says SpaceX is hiring and holding a career day this week - here's where to send your resume</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-net-worth-estimates-full-tesla-compensation-package-2020-2">Elon Musk is getting closer to a massive payday - here's how he could become Jeff Bezos-level wealthy</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-edm-music-soundcloud-song-dont-doubt-ur-vibe2020-1">Elon Musk is apparently making EDM songs now, because what has the tech billionaire not done yet?</a></li></ul><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">8th hottest song on Soundcloud!!<a href="https://t.co/5FJNJYc9kA">https://t.co/5FJNJYc9kA</a> <a href="https://t.co/PmoBYJL4in">pic.twitter.com/PmoBYJL4in</a>- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/1225177067618283521?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 5, 2020</a></blockquote><iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/752572219&amp;color=%23ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=true&amp;show_comments=false&amp;show_user=false&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=false"></iframe><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">Vibbbe <a href="https://t.co/21WKNOnMXZ">pic.twitter.com/21WKNOnMXZ</a>- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/1223133867772502019?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 31, 2020</a></blockquote><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><a href="https://t.co/6lz3prQ2pF">pic.twitter.com/6lz3prQ2pF</a>- Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/1223129492702425088?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 31, 2020</a></blockquote><blockquote class="reddit-card" data-card-created="1580952181"><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/elonmusk/comments/ewmipo/elon_musk_in_the_studio_video_posted_by_grimes/">Elon Musk in the studio (video posted by Grimes)</a> from <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/elonmusk">r/elonmusk</a></blockquote> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/airplane-food-tastes-different-explained-2020-1">Why food tastes different on planes</a></h3> <iframe class="bijwplayerclass" src="https://content.jwplatform.com/players/rq2oqFhR-CEZHWCBG.html" width="100%" height="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="auto" style="margin:0px;"></iframe>

Elon Musk took a victory lap after his weird EDM song broke the top 10 on SoundCloud

35 of the most influential hip-hop songs in music history

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The Tramp Stamps, a <keyword id="11131495" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="pop-punk">pop-punk</keyword> band, was accused online of being an "industry plant."</li><li>The group, made popular by <keyword id="6762469" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="TikTok">TikTok</keyword>'s algorithm, criticized the accusation in a tweet.</li><li><keyword id="22458" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="bands">Bands</keyword> assembled by record labels can be viewed as inauthentic in today's online world.</li></ul>The Tramp Stamps, a band consisting of lead singer Marisa Maino, drummer Paige Blue, and guitarist Caroline Baker, have been accused by some online of being "industry plants" - facing the negative connotations that come with the allegation. An industry plant, as <a href="https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Industry%20Plant">Urban Dictionary</a> defines the term, is an artist backed by a real label that "presents themselves as a homegrown start up label" in an effort to gain a "pseudo organic following." The Nashville-based group first popped up on TikTok in November 2020, posting covers of Blink 182 and videos about the band's members. One of the account's earliest videos says in a caption that the <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@trampstamps/video/6896556425917517061?is_copy_url=1&amp;is_from_webapp=v1p=v1">band started</a> after "3 girls got drunk at a bar and wrote a song." As the account started to post more, their pop-punk <keyword id="6354530" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="music">music</keyword> and matching aesthetic of brightly colored hair started to earn them fans. <blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@trampstamps/video/6897335264448908549" data-video-id="6897335264448908549" style="max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px;"> <section> <a target="_blank" title="@trampstamps" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@trampstamps">@trampstamps</a> soundcloud.com/tramp-stamps <a title="coversong" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/coversong">#coversong</a> <a title="blink182" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/blink182">#blink182</a> <a title="workingfromhome" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/workingfromhome">#workingfromhome</a> <a title="cover" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/cover">#cover</a> <a target="_blank" title="♬ ALL THE SMALL THINGS cover - TRAMP STAMPS" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/ALL-THE-SMALL-THINGS-cover-6897335293176105733">♬ ALL THE SMALL THINGS cover - TRAMP STAMPS</a> </section> </blockquote> But things changed with a January video, when the band members listed how many "emo" songs they knew. Two of the three members did not recognize the 2004 song "I'm Not Okay (I Promise)" by My Chemical Romance, a mainstay of the pop-punk genre and a <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4kFGLny1MoWOC7kyPgOg3w">Hot Topic anthem.</a><blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@trampstamps/video/6919147251755388165" data-video-id="6919147251755388165" style="max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px;"> <section> <a target="_blank" title="@trampstamps" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@trampstamps">@trampstamps</a> <a title="emothrowbacks" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/emothrowbacks">#emothrowbacks</a> <a title="2000s" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/2000s">#2000s</a> <a title="emochallege" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/emochallege">#emochallege</a> <a target="_blank" title="♬ emo edition pt1 - Ciara " href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/emo-edition-pt1-6782966859093297926">♬ emo edition pt1 - Ciara </a> </section> </blockquote> That video reached 10 million views and opened up the TikTok-criticism floodgates, as viewers began questioning the band's authenticity. The Tramp Stamps declined to comment for this article. <h2>The Tramp Stamps exploded on TikTok </h2>As their videos started to appear on more For You Pages, users digging into each member's past discovered that the group was not composed of three random friends, but rather a group of creatives with years-old industry affiliations. <a href="https://paigeblue.com/">Blue</a>, the drummer, had been producing music for years, with her songs having appeared on MTV, DirectTV, Sephora, the NFL, and Starz, according to her website. <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/tramp-stamps-dr-luke-tiktok-backlash-1156440/">Rolling Stone</a> reported that Baker and Maino, the guitarist and lead singer, respectively, both have deals with Prescription Songs, the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kesha-dr-luke-complaint-allegations-lukasz-gottwald-2016-2">publisher owned by Dr. Luke</a>.The band put out a statement on Saturday addressing some of the criticism they received online. They said that they were not signed to a "major label" and the songs were written entirely by them. The label they are producing their music under, "Make Tampons Free," is owned entirely by them because they wanted "full creative control," the tweet said. "We are 3 women who have been writing and producing music for many years, busting our asses in the music business while building our personal careers," the post says. "You have gone to the ends of the f--- earth to s---, have told us to kill ourselves, and have used conspiracy theories on tiktok as a trend to get more views on your own videos. F-- you." <blockquote class="twitter-tweet blockquote" data-lang="en" data-cards="" data-conversation="">-TRAMP STAMPS (@trampstamps) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/1383542609851805700?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 17, 2021</a></blockquote><h2>The band's music is also being mocked and criticized online </h2>In addition to the industry-plant allegations, TikTok users have called the band's aesthetic and sound inauthentic.Their latest single "I'd Rather Die" was teased in a TikTok video earlier in the month and was viewed over 5 million times, appearing on many users' For You Pages. The song was stitched by thousands of users who mocked the lyrics that include the lines, "I can't remember the last time I slept with someone I actually liked and he went down on me. I can't recall a memory of someone driving home and not asking for a blowjob." The sound was eventually removed from the app by the band, which prevents new stitches from being made. "This is the commodification of riot grrrl sh--," one TikTok user, <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@hard_cope/video/6950513867327851782?referer_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2F&amp;referer_video_id=6950516969971993861&amp;refer=embed&amp;is_copy_url=0&amp;is_from_webapp=v1&amp;sender_device=pc&amp;sender_web_id=6898779896622286342b_id=6898779896622286342">hard_cope,</a> said in a video. "Just a bunch of good-looking TikTok people with guitars and just hyper producing it with meaningless bulls---." The full music video for the song was released last Wednesday and has been widely panned online, with over 17,000 dislikes and thousands of comments on YouTube, including that the song "trash" and "this looks like trust fund kids perception of punk."<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/HsAnEP31N1Y" frameborder="0"></iframe><h2>'Industry plant' criticism isn't new, and oftentimes is unsubstantiated, but the internet views it as a career death sentence</h2>Labels have been forming groups of singers to capitalize on new trends since vinyl records were the main way to listen to music. The Monkees, a group of four singers with mop-top hair from the 1960s with classics like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvqeSJlgaNk">"Daydream Believer,"</a> the original <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcnsao7Y0gk">"I'm a Believer,"</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcXpKiY2MXE">"The Last Train to Clarksville,"</a> were manufactured entirely by executives. The group had an entirely inorganic origin story, according to the documentary "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6clYpKVk4g">Hey, Hey We're The Monkees</a>," each member was hired to fill a niche and appeal to the growing teenage demographic. From 1966 to 1971, they had their own television show, <a href="https://www.biography.com/news/the-monkees-origins">carefully curated</a> looks that capitalized off the appeal of The Beatles and a number of hits, all under three minutes in length. Some of the most popular music of the past few decades was carefully curated by boardrooms and label producers. The aforementioned Dr. Luke also worked with Katy Perry, transforming her from a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70AlxWcbWAc">Christian singer</a> to the "I Kissed a Girl" superstar after signing with Capitol Records in 2007. One of the breakout pop hits of the last year was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmDBbnmKpqQ">"driver's license"</a> by Olivia Rodrigo, who appeared on Disney Channel and Disney+ shows before signing with Interscope Records and Geffen Records. The lessons learned from the Monkees proto-plant still apply - keep your songs short and catchy, while also invoking some form of strong emotional response. While the Monkees experienced tremendous success, contemporary <keyword id="24504" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="culture">culture</keyword> has come to view industry plants as toxic following the era of the boyband. In a scene thirsty for anything "real," the accusation has almost become a trope in and of itself, used against any band that gives off the faintest whiff of suspicion. Frequently the allegations aren't substantiated, but they're nonetheless damaging. In The Tramp Stamps' case, their seeming preparedness for fame set them up for critique. Even if they weren't designed in a lab to appeal to "the youth," they've been perceived that way because of a constellation of factors including a website with manicured bios, merchandise ready to go in a professional shop, and their interactions with popular trends on social media platforms.The band's alternative clothes, lyrics, and methodology, coupled with the very specific pop-punk aesthetic that critics said appeared to be co-opted by outsiders, evoked, for some, the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiOMbqPHFwo">Steve Buscemi "how do you do fellow kids"</a> meme. For now, it's not clear how the scandal will affect the band. They've stopped publishing content during the scandal, but it's also thrust their name into mainstream internet discourse.

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<ul class="summary-list"><li>Filipino post-punk artist Eyedress released his new album "Mulholland Drive" in August.</li><li>His track "Jealous" has 100 million streams, 1 million videos on <keyword id="11894125" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="tiktok" source="Orion">TikTok</keyword>, and is RIAA gold-certified.</li></ul>Filipino multi-instrumentalist known under the moniker Eyedress has had a busy last few years, dictated in large part by the pace of the pandemic, becoming a father, and the thrill of TikTok.Born in Makati, Philippines, Idris Vicuña is a musical journeyman. He has played in a variety of rock and crust-punk bands globally, infusing synthy, hip-hop flair into his formula.His track "Jealous," from his 2020 album "Let's Skip to the Wedding," became a TikTok sensation in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, mainly among members of Gen Z. The song, recorded in Eyedress' bedroom at the time, is an angsty rumination on solace, and it resonated with millions cooped up at home."Jealous" now has over a hundred million streams on Spotify, over a million videos using the track on TikTok, and is Recording Industry Association of America gold-certified. "Something About You," a bright, joyfully adventurous love song on his fourth and latest album "Mulholland Drive," released in August, has also gone viral and is replicating "Jealous's" success. For his 2 million TikTok followers, Eyedress has started doing "how-to" videos, sharing some secret sauce with the fans.<blockquote class="tiktok-embed" cite="https://www.tiktok.com/@eyedress.tv/video/7017812262136155398" data-video-id="7017812262136155398" style="max-width: 605px;min-width: 325px;"> <section> <a target="_blank" title="@eyedress.tv" href="https://www.tiktok.com/@eyedress.tv">@eyedress.tv</a> today me &amp; @dentmay will be teaching u how to play our song “something about you” comment if u want us to make a part 2 <a title="somethingaboutyou" target="_blank" href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/somethingaboutyou">#somethingaboutyou</a> <a target="_blank" title="♬ Something About You (feat. Dent May) - Eyedress" href="https://www.tiktok.com/music/Something-About-You-feat-Dent-May-6962068142092732418">♬ Something About You (feat. Dent May) - Eyedress</a> </section> </blockquote> Across Eyedress's new album, he croons in a whisper or low register, over hazy drums, distorted riffs or twisting guitar countermelodies, fluctuating stylistically between moody soul, energetic rock, and late-night eighties slow jams.In his growing catalog, there's something for everyone - from fans of psychedelic SoundCloud rap, to macabre moshers, and daydreaming lovers.Insider spoke to Eyedress about what inspired the new album and the pieces that make up his kaleidoscopic sound.It seems you're always working on something, <keyword id="11898471" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="music" source="Orion">music</keyword> videos included.I mean, I kind of look up to Drake. It's weird I don't make that kind of music, but I kind of follow in their footsteps on how they are so constant with their releases and consistent. I always... saw a lot of my favorite bands kind of fall off and I never really wanted that to happen to me because I don't know. It's so weird. How could you just stop creating honest music? I don't know.Do you feel like now with the kind of music landscape and streaming services, there's a bigger pressure to put out a lot of music all the time?I'm always working. I'm always just recording. So for me, there's no pressure really. But I know what you mean though. We do live in fast times. We consume everything so fast and people's attention spans seem to be a lot shorter, but I don't know. I feel like I'm also working at that same pace where my attention span is short and I get over things quickly. I put in effort to make something that's going to be timeless. Despite how fast the world is moving I'm not going to put out something that I'm going to regret. So I always try to keep that in mind because I don't want to be no one hit wonder kind of guy. I want people look back on my music even 20, 50 years from now and they're like, "Oh, this is so cool." Because I mean, my music's not that deep. There's not too much behind it. It's just really simple. But I feel like that's what sticks anyways. A lot of my favorite songs growing up are really simple, two to three chords. So I just try to keep it in that same vein.<div type="image" title="Mulholland Drive by Eyedress" height="2249" width="3000" msid="87531604" hostid="261"></div>And what would you say were the things happening in your life and some of the themes that you were trying to get into on "Mulholland Drive"? Well, there's one song called "Brain Dead." I made that during the stop Asian hate and Black Lives Matter movements. And I just felt as a person of color to speak up about these issues because I'm a socially aware artist. I'm not just in Lala land thinking that there's no crazy thing going on. There's so much crazy stuff going on. I try to inject that into my music and at the same time that album was really just about being happy, loving myself because it's a milestone for me to be able to work with such artists that are on that record. And for me, it was just a happy album. I wanted to follow up my success with "Jealous," and I just wanted to keep that momentum going without it being some like, "I'm trying to make more money." So I worked really hard on the songs, but they're just simple songs. Smoked a lot of weed and pressed record.And the pandemic is pretty dark, so I wanted to make a bright record because it was like the future was looking pretty grim when I made all the songs. I have a baby, so I try to keep an overall positive outlook as lame as that sounds. But I have to do it because I don't want my son to grow up into this dark depressing world.A lot of my old stuff is pretty depressing. So this album I was like, "Well my girl loves me, and my son's a ball of joy, why would I make any miserable songs?" Yeah. It's, it's just the timing of everything I just... it felt right.For sure. And I wanted to ask you more generally how the pandemic has been for you and your family?The pandemic is, I think collectively, it was really difficult for a lot of people. And a lot of the times I felt uncertain about every day, but luckily this is the one blessing that happened is that my songs started going viral during the pandemic. That kept me grounded and kept me feeling grateful. Because I know a lot of people are suffering during that time and I was, I mean I wasn't living it up but I was okay. And now that everyone's vaxed and shows are coming back, I'm feeling all of that is true. And world's not ending anytime soon, but…It had me focusing on being positive because overall it was a very negative experience for everybody. Everyone was out of work and couldn't do much.It just forced me to keep it real with myself. Having a baby it's like being in the hospital during that time was so scary. We even had to wear masks. Even when my girl was giving birth, she had her mask on. They only let me in until she was just about to pop. I was worried my baby could get COVID.What was your reaction when you saw your song "Jealous" explode on TikTok and rake in over a hundred million streams? It made me want to cry. For so long in my life, I wanted some sort of moment like this, and I couldn't have asked for it for a better time. And yeah, I just felt really grateful because I went through a lot before, I was just trying to always believe in myself. And I always felt like that one day something would happen as long as I kept trying. And when it happened, I didn't even see it coming. And my friends were like, yeah, it's going to get bigger. You're going to get a gold plaque. And I'm like, yeah right. And then when that happened, I was like, what the fuck? That was my reaction, like I was super in my feelings. It feels like pure bliss. It was better than any drug because it was real. I'm glad all the kids are connecting with my music because I've put in work for so long. I started working in the industry when I was 22. And I was learning a lot, like playing with bigger bands, not being a bigger band. I was trying to figure out how I could fit into this world. So I'm glad it all worked out because it couldn't have happened at a better time. Because I would have been fucked because it didn't happen that way.And in some of your recent shows in the last few weeks or months, do you feel like there's like a new extension of your base, of people that have found your music over the last year or two and now are coming out to your shows?Yeah. There's just way more people there. I remember I played Riotfest in Chicago. I couldn't even see how many people were there. I was like, Jesus Christ. Like y'all are all watching this right now? I played the Roxy in LA and it sold out and fucking kids went crazy. They let me stage dive. And it's crazy when you're doing those things because I'm like a really negative person. And I wanted to ask you about your musical ventures in Manila and about your inspirations at an early age. You were involved in different music scenes out there, too, between the US and the Philippines, what was that experience like?I was born in the Philippines and then I moved to America when I was six. So I was in America basically until I was like 14, but before I left America, I was playing in bands in California. The first band I joined was like a crust punk band. And we covered like, Rudimentary, and Crass. And all our songs were like one minute and really fast. That was cool. But then I met these like indie kids and I was kind of like "you guys are weird and stuff." So I started hanging out with them and they were making soft music, but it sounded really beautiful. A band that I joined was trying to do Modest Mouse-type stuff.But then, moved to Manila and I was like 15, and I didn't know anyone, but I met my best friend who became my bandmate on Myspace because I saw that he liked Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine. And then ever since we've been in a band together and in Manila. I come from that band background, but my best friend put me onto like hip hop beats, weird left-field stuff, like Prefuse 73 and J Dilla and like DJ Shadow. I feel like it was the most futuristic thing. Because they're like sampling old songs and playing synths on top of it, adding different drums, I just felt like that whole style of production was so different compared to playing in a band and doing everything on tape. So that's kind of how it started, I was like, how do I do this rock shit, but in that manner. So I would basically sample myself playing. And I think that's like what Eyedress music is now. It's like I'm approaching it from a hip-hop producer's point of view, but making rock shit. Well not even rock because rock is so heavy. I think I have some heavy songs too, but I don't ever want to sound rock, like a macho buff guy. I'm the skinny kids who are like, "I'm trying to figure out where I fit."That's amazing. And how was performing in the Philippines? My first band in the Philippines opened for Mac DeMarco in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Beforehand we were playing in the Philippines for free at bars. Once we did that show with Mac that was the first time I saw someone living my dream, like Mac was doing. And at the time Homeshake was his guitarist. So I also saw Homeshake leave Mac's band and then pursue his own thing, which really motivated me to really do this. And when I was in Manila, I eventually got signed to a label in the UK called XL Recordings. And they flew me out to London and I was living out there for like a year or two. And that's how I met King Krule and all those guys.So that got me even more motivated to really do this because when they signed me, I was just taking over computer-made music. But once I started going to London, I started playing with these other bands who had full-on bands, like two drummers, three backup singers. I was like, how the fuck do I do that? Yeah. It took me a while. This shit took years.Eventually, I moved to America in 2018, like all that stuff in London happened in like 2013, 2014. And then I got dropped by that label. So I made an album while I wasn't signed. And that got me signed to the label I'm on right now, Lex Records.What was your mindset like when you got signed to Lex Records and moved to the US?That period where I wasn't signed that like was really like a defining moment for me because I knew I had to do something. Because I was like, shit, I'm still going to be a musician even without a label. Once I got to America, I was already ready. When I got to America, I was playing everything. I was playing for like 500 bucks, I didn't give a shit. When I moved to LA, it was the first time I lived on my own for real. So I started paying rent and I was sheesh, I can barely afford to live after I pay rent. And then eventually like two years later, that's when "Jealous" started taking off. That's why I was really grateful when "Jealous" took off because I was in LA. Me and my girl, she was pregnant, we were living in a studio apartment. Thank you "Jealous," and cool kids.I wanted to ask you too about some of the people that you've worked with on the latest album, like <a href="https://www.insider.com/modern-funk-dam-funk-new-album-staying-above-the-fray-2021-7">Dâm-Funk</a>, King Krule, and Vex Ruffin, and you mentioned they have been people that you've looked up to. How has it been collaborating with some of your favorite artists?Well, say, the Vex Ruffin thing, we connected because he's Filipino and he's signed to a label that I'm a fan of. He's signed to Stones Throw. We just, we got together for the Filipinos. We were like, "Yeah, let's do this. All the Filipinos are going to be stoked."That's what we were trying to lead, the example we're trying to take, because I feel like a lot of Filipinos are actually against each other. So we wanted to represent a new kind of Filipino that isn't trying to fucking destroy each other. And then the stuff with Dâm-Funk. He's been following me on Twitter since I lived in the Philippines. And I guess when "Jealous: started blowing up, he was like, "It's time. Brother, let's go." I was like, "Bro, I love you." It came to that right time and I've been looking up to Dâm and he's always doing this nostalgic G-funk like me, keeping the funk alive. And I always waited for, hopefully, that I'd be able to work with him and that time came when we made "Keep it Real With You." Now we're trying to make a music video for that song.And I'm curious too, in terms of the recording process for "Mulholland Drive," were you producing everything or did you have some key collaborators?So yeah the Dâm-Funk song, that was entirely produced by Dâm. I just sang, my girlfriend sings on it. The King Krule song is all produced by him. That album was basically carried by just the features and the guest producers. Because when I had thought of dropping this album, I only had seven songs that I made myself. So having all these other featured artists, they already had these songs, all I had to do was sing on it. So having them give me these instrumentals just made my life a lot easier and it made sense with my situation too because I was having a baby. But now I'm collaborating more with other artists. They just make the instrumental. And I just sing, because that helps. And I'm also brushing up on my own shit. I've just been kind of re-planning my stuff. I've been buying gear.Do you have a busy few months of touring ahead, or shows, or are you, back in the studio?I'm back in the studio, because I declined a tour that was going to be from October to December. So yeah, I'm just working on the future because all I do is worry about how my son's going to be living in the next five, 10 years.Do you have an idea of what you want to embody on the next album?"Mulholland Drive" sounds like all the bands I listened to growing up. So, I feel like I'm just revisiting because I feel a lot of those bands don't even make this style of music anymore. So, I'm just trying to keep that alive. All the shit I made, I was trying to sound like old stuff, because that to me, is the most timeless stuff. Now, a lot of the music we consume is about infidelity and being this demon.I'm like, sheesh, I hope this is not what all the kids are like. I'm pretty sure there's still people who want to get married and stuff, in the world. I just try to make the opposite of that because the funny thing is I consume all that music too.Yeah, you can hear that range on your new album and in general, it seems like you genuinely make a lot of what you've enjoyed listening to.Yeah, because a lot of my peers were purists and they're like, "Oh we can only make this stuff." Because that other shit is corny. I'm like, "What do you mean? I like this stuff too." So I feel like, you know how the old head mentality is, "Oh I hate mumble rap." But I like Playboy Carti, what are you talking about? I like it all, because I grew up on TRL, and I feel like the countdown always had a mixture of like different genres. So I feel like, I'm just trying to make everything I like in one album.

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