{"id":18665,"date":"2014-05-23T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-23T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/?p=18665"},"modified":"2014-05-22T16:51:42","modified_gmt":"2014-05-22T20:51:42","slug":"that-selfie-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2014\/05\/23\/that-selfie-song\/","title":{"rendered":"That “#Selfie” Song: but first, can we talk about the music?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a slightly expanded cross-post from Its Her Factory<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Chainsmokers\u2019 song \u201cSelfie\u201d is the new novelty song that everyone (or, almost everyone) loves to hate. In this<\/a> Fact Magazine critics roundup, the song is called everything from \u201ca low point…even for EDM,\u201d to the one thing worse than the \u201carena-bound, taurine-fuelled, optimised-for-raging EDM\u201d that the song nominally parodies. It seems like everyone hates it because they think it embodies what one might interpret as Tiqqun\u2019s \u201cYoung Girl,\u201d the ideal subject of neoliberal capitalism, human capital itself–or at least, the song gives voice to who we derisively imagine that ideal neoliberal subject to be: the vapid, selfie-obsessed young woman who is only concerned with amping up her value (her \u201clikes\u201d on Instagram) and her enjoyment (or her male\/bro equivalent).<\/p>\n

Is all the derision targeted at what the song\u2019s about? Or do people dislike it because of how it sounds? Or both?<\/p>\n

I want to leave aside, at least for a moment, what the song is about and focus on how it sounds, how it works as a piece of music. Maybe a better understanding of the music will give us a more nuanced grasp of \u201c#Selfie\u201d\u2019s lyrical and visual content, and people\u2019s reactions to that content.<\/p>\n

The song is basically a combination of (a) a ripoff of the treble synth riff, cued up here<\/a>, from LMFAO\u2019s 2011 \u201cParty Rock Anthem\u201d and (b) the soar from Psy\u2019s \u201cGangnam Style.\u201d The LMFAO rip is first audible in the very beginning of the song, and the Soar (the soar is: (1) the Zeno\u2019s-paradox style rhythmic intensification up to and past the limit of our ability to hear distinct rhythmic events + (2) the measure of instrumental silence with the \u201cbut first, let me take a selfie\u201d vocal + (3) the \u201chit\u201d or drop on the following downbeat) you hear starting here:<\/p>\n

\"YouTube<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So, musically, the song regurgitates two, well, old megahits. \u201cParty Rock Anthem\u201d and \u201cGangnam Style\u201d are not fresh or trendy–they\u2019re worn out, too young to be retro but too old to be hot. Though the song\u2019s soar would not have been out of place in, say 2012, most contemporary EDM pop uses a much more restrained, less exaggerated and crassly maximalist soar. (Think, for example, of the soar in Calvin Harris\u2019s most recent single, \u201cSummer.\u201d Compared to his 2012 \u201cWe Found Love,\u201d the soar in \u201cSummer\u201d sounds refined and demur.) Compared to its contemporaries on the pop and dance charts, \u201cSelfie\u201d sounds both backwards and vulgar (both excessive and common). But this is the point: it\u2019s a parody song. It\u2019s not designed to sound \u201cgood.\u201d It\u2019s presenting us a caricature of EDM at its supposed worst, much in the same way that \u201cSpaceballs\u201d parodies late 20th c space operas, or \u201cScream\u201d parodies horror films. This raises the question: if you\u2019re making a parody EDM track to skewer mainstream EDMC (EDM culture), why make that song about selfies? If the Chainsmokers were looking for some lyrical content to compliment their sonic caricature, why choose the so-called \u201cselfie\u201d as this compliment? Why is the selfie–or what the song presents as a selfie (which, like the musical content, is likely a caricature of \u2018selfie\u2019 practice)–the best content to compliment this sonic caricature?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll get back to that question later. For now, I want to stay focused on the music. First, it\u2019s interesting how the refrain \u201cbut first, let me take a selfie\u201d serves in place of the scream or silence or other sonic shock that precedes the drop. For example, in a lot of brosteppy songs, the drop is immediately preceded by some sort of distorted, disruptive vocal–\u201dbangarang\u201d in Skrillex\u2019s \u201cBangarang,\u201d \u201ctsunami\u201d in DVBBS\u2019s \u201cTusanmi,\u201d you get the idea. I like to think of that vocal disruption as analogous to the \u201cshock\u201d in shock capitalism: in the same way that a tsunami wipes out civilization and prepares it for redevelopment, the sonically distorted \u201ctsunami\u201d interrupts the flow of the song and prepares listeners to experience the reintroduction of order (the \u2018hit\u2019 on the next downbeat) as even more intensely pleasurable. The idea is that this apparent disruption isn\u2019t actually disruptive–the shock is not an end, but a necessary first step. Why, then, would a girl taking a selfie be so (apparently, but not actually) disruptive? Why does the girl selfie need to seem like a disruption? Who benefits from–where\u2019s the profit or surplus value in–the perception that girl selfies are disruptive?<\/p>\n

Perhaps the answer to these questions is this: the devaluation of girl-selfies as disruptive is what makes other kinds of human capital appear both more valuable and less disruptive\/violent\/appropriative\/etc. In the same way that the song\u2019s hook and soar are too crass and unsophisticated for anything but the dumbest and most mainstream of EDM listeners, are selfies just too crass and unsophisticated a means of human-capital building? I mean, anyone can take a selfie, but not everyone can, say, take an unpaid internship, get plastic surgery, lose weight, quit smoking, etc. Or, perhaps in the same way gendered devaluations of pop music give \u201cclassic\u201d or \u201cintelligent\u201d music its (gendered) value, the devaluation of girl-selfie-capital gives more sophisticated kinds of human capital its worth. (As musicologist Susan Cook <\/span>argues<\/a>, \u201cthe \u2018popular\u2019 gives the \u2018classical\u2019 its worth; the \u2018classical\u2019 is worthwhile only if the \u2018popular\u2019 is worthless\u201d (141).)<\/span><\/p>\n

So, that\u2019s the song. But the video is also very interesting. It\u2019s basically a montage of fan selfies. That in itself isn\u2019t particularly noteworthy. However, the fans\u2019 participation in the video was an explicit and intentional marketing decision. As Liv Buli notes in her Forbes.com article, this participatory (what art historians and aestheticians would call \u201crelational\u201d) strategy<\/p>\n

\n

creates a personal connection between the video and the fan, ensuring that\u00a0not only would there a built-in audience for the video, but that there would be the added imperative to share. \u201cIt is social engineering to an effect,\u201d says Luckett. [one of the Chainsmokers]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Chainsmokers and their managers wanted to make a hit record; and, given the way the music industry measures hits, the best way to make a hit record, apparently, is to make a viral video. And the best way to make a viral video is to build in fan participation. [1] The article notes that the duo also take this approach to their music: they encourage remixes and samples because that contributes to the, erm, virality or clout, I guess, of their original. Thing is, it\u2019s a lot easier to take a selfie than it is to remix an entire pop song. So, it seems like the way to maximize fan participation is to find the media to which fans have the most mastery and access.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m obviously rather pleased that this seems to support my argument here<\/a> that music is coincidental to contemporary music industries and mainstream consumption practices. But at this point I also have a number of other questions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n

    What\u2019s the relationship between virality as an industry strategy (or a \u2018mode of production\u2019), on the one hand, and relational aesthetics or social practice, on the other? (Has anyone written on this?)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  2. Is listening as an aesthetic practice or leisure activity getting disarticulated from other aspects of mainstream music fandom and the music industry? Maybe not. But regardless, what\u2019s the role of listening in an aesthetic and an economy that de-centers the musical work and musical experience?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    [1] Buli\u2019s article begins by noting that \u201c#Selfie\u201d is the most viral of all viral music videos to date: \u201cThe EDM duo currently ranks as the most viral act on YouTube, both in terms of plays and new subscribers over the past 90 days. They are all over Soundcloud, trail 5 Seconds of Summer for most viral on Wikipedia in the past 90 days, and have the fifth largest percentage increase in US radio spins of all artists in the last month.\u201d So there\u2019s something measurably, perhaps even qualitatively different about the kind of virality it exhibits.<\/p>\n

    Robin is on Twitter as @doctaj<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This is a slightly expanded cross-post from Its Her Factory.\u00a0 The Chainsmokers\u2019 song \u201cSelfie\u201d is the new novelty song that everyone (or, almost everyone) loves to hate. In this Fact Magazine critics roundup, the song is called everything from \u201ca low point…even for EDM,\u201d to the one thing worse than the \u201carena-bound, taurine-fuelled, optimised-for-raging EDM\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1929,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9967],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1929"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18665"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18665\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18671,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18665\/revisions\/18671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}