I have survived a second week of a band-spotlight and this roughly wraps up the first month of this [I skipped a couple of days and weekends] so let’s get to the Durry Week finisher, “Dead Media“:

“Dead Media” started out a bit differently. It was originally a hidden track on their physical copies of This Movie Sucks: a celebration of “owning” songs and not just streaming them.

Now, of course, it has succumbed to the pressure of Spotify and the like, but for a brief-ish moment it was a testament to its own lyrics before it became a testament to its own lyrics:

I’m an addict
I admit it
But it’s how I
make a living
Selling cheap tricks
But I got it
A few more seconds
Of your life
I’m like a vampire
For your time

It is an odd moment for the more socially aware artists to realize that they are part of the noise that they often write against. In another Durry song, “Bully,” we hear the lyrics:

Greetings people of the internet
It’s your friend from the real world
I’ve been reaching out
trying to make contact
But all I’m getting back
Are really mean comments

Only Durry is not your friend from the real world. At least, not for the majority of us. For most of us, Durry is very much so a band we found through streaming sites and Youtube. Being addicted to the “cellphone light” is how we learned the joy of listening to Durry.

From a whole other artist, you could see Grandson’s “Brainrot,” a video that might feature in the next round so I won’t deep dive too hard. We get a lyric talking about people with their new smartphones having batteries “mined by a kid in a warzone.” Only, smartphone users are Grandson’s target audience.

It is a dissonance rampant in this current era. I can rant about The Algorithm™ all I want but without it, no one will find this blog. Without it, I would never have had Durry’s “Who’s Laughing Now?” or Grandson’s “Blood/Water” recommended to me.

I imagine I am a good bit below the average phone usage of many modern people — it’s not like being on a desktop all day really makes a huge difference, mind — but that phone which represents capitalism at its spikiest and the potential death of a future is also a gateway to a potential better future.

One where we own our own dead media before the AI chatbots buy it all up to consume it and destroy it. The bastards.

Also, Spotify sucks. I use Youtube Music (technically, more like I use Youtube [obvs] and some of the stuff is a byproduct of YTM) so I’m being a hypocrite but they mostly all suck. Pandora at least tried paying people. I…think…Qobuz is ok. Nice FLACs is the only way I use it.

For real, Space Pilgrims, go and buy your shit and then curate and show it off and share it and stuff. Stop letting AI-generated playlists replace your control over your own media. You’ll be dead soon enough.

We are being trained to listen to artists who are being trained to beg us for likes just to keep making art while AI-bros who own the platforms are shilling the heat death of the artistic universe.

My Music Video Picks [MVP] is a series of posts highlighting various music and dance videos from Youtube. No particular schedule (sometimes lots, sometimes little) though it started as “daily”. It might not even all be music or dance videos. Absolutely picked by me, though. Usually I have to like both the song and the video, but we’ll see.

You can see at least the most recent songs here: [Doug’s] Music Video Picks [Youtube Playlist]. Size of that list will change as the mood strikes. Playlist might contain spoilers for unpublished posts. Just enjoy.