There’s so much going on in any given week in the music press/world of pop culture/the world at large that I can’t possibly keep up with it all. That being said, there are definitely things I see that I want to comment on and that being the case, I thought it would be fun to share some thoughts/anecdotes/snarky observations on a few things and get a little cheeky each week on things that I either liked or scoffed at that happened in the world of music/pop culture. I always love a chance to be sassy, sarcastic, and a bit over-the-top-gay, so here we are! Welcome to me serving up my aging punk nerd thoughts—not all of them polite—on some pop culture moments and music news from the preceding week. A little Sunday Brunch if you will.
In more exciting—and may I add very gay (insert heart eye emoji here)— boygenius news, it seems that sapphic heartthrob, Kristen Stewart, will be directing three videos for the holy trinity of indie rock, much to the rejoicing of queer women everywhere. While Rolling Stone did report it in a companion article to their recent cover story, they did not elaborate on any further details other than to mention it was happening. Nice tease, we see what you did there! Rolling Stone has been going hard on their boygenius coverage in general since they seem to be the only outlet that has thus far done a current interview with the band, so this selective parsing out of info is on track with that and I would expect yet another article with more fleshed out details on the videos is coming.
Without such details currently available, fans will most definitely be intensely debating and musing on what those videos will entail and for which songs, though the currently released ones seem like the most obvious choices.
And I’ll let you straights in on a little secret, lesbian/queer fandoms tend to be exceptionally rabid and unflinchingly loyal to their heroes, much more so than “regular” fandoms which can already be pretty ardent. This stems from the fact that we don’t get much that caters to us in popular media, so fans tend to cling to sapphic and queer characters/stories/artists/actors/musicians etc with a much more fervent grasp than their straight counterparts. Figures such as Stewart and “the Boys” (both as a collective unit and as individuals) are very hot discussion topics online in fan communities. I don’t tend to interact with any of that much at all other than to occasionally dip in and lurk once in a while on Twitter when big pop culture moments such as this happen, but I don’t need to even do that to know the bees are buzzing and speculation is flying! I guess we will just have to wait and see what this very gay partnership yields.
The companion article also had some fun and cute anecdotes from the band that didn’t make the full cover interview, so take a peak to find out about what they think about tarot, actual “boy geniuses,” what happens when you start eating meat again and more.
Fuck Phil Anselmo. Let me say it again in case you didn’t catch my drift, fuck Phil Anselmo. The racist lead singer of Pantera gets no sympathy from me after a number of European festival appearances were canceled this week over backlash concerning his bullshit of flashing Nazi salutes and yelling “white power” at a concert in 2016 which he claimed was a “joke about white wine”………..sure, yeah okay, I often scream racially motivated hate slogans about the beverages I partake in while displaying hateful gestures too and then pretend I don’t know what those words/gestures mean, doesn’t everyone?! It’s just a joke man, lighten up! (Cue tired middle aged gay eye roll please.)
The metal world was polarized over the return of the band in 2021, but to me it is astounding how this is even a question whether they should be playing or not. The answer is NO, they should not. Yes, Anselmo apologized and said he “owns” what he did, but forgive me for not buying it (because he has subsequently made statements to the effect of “it was one joke come on get over it!”). He was only sorry that he got caught. And unfortunately there are enough right leaning “it’s just free speech” bros in the metal world to let him continue to get away with this kind of stuff and have some semblance of a career. But it is definitely one of those “are you for fucking real right now?!” moments for me.
There is free speech and then there is hate speech and causing harm with your words. Screaming “white power” definitely falls under the latter category, no question about it. And either way you slice it, “free speech” only guarantees you won’t get arrested or imprisoned for saying it. It doesn’t guarantee you freedom from other consequences and being held accountable by non government actors up to and including not being allowed to bring your shitty metal bro attitude to a music festival and losing out on business opportunties. You’d think these fools would have grasped that by now. (Or better yet, evolved from being disgusting bigots/bigot enablers, but apparently that’s too much to ask.)
So far only a few dates have been canceled and everyone else seems content to let the “cowboys from hell” roll into town, as they are currently scheduled to complete dates throughout the year with Metallica and Lamb of God. While I’m not a fan of either (okay, I do like some old Metallica stuff from the 80s), it is extremely disappointing to see those bands looking the other way on this kind of behavior. One can hope they’ll wise up and address it but that remains to be seen (and I’m not going to hold my breath). There is no place in metal or otherwise for yelling racist language or displaying gestures that symbolize despicable genocidal maniacs, full stop.
Stereogum reported on the cancelations (as did many other outlets) and you can read more about the initial cancelations here or the subsequent ones here. Blabbermouth has a more nuanced article that includes some of the painful history in the locations that the events are being held and quotes Anselmo weakly defending himself in 2019 which was, to quote my favorite meme cat, “pathetic.”
Ummm what? Let me get this straight….you launched a cereal product at some point in the very recent past (aka 2022)…apparently without doing any research…or even a simple Google search…so you ended up naming it the same name as an already established musical artist who has used the name since the not very recent past (aka 1998)…and it turns out you actually previously collaborated with said musical artist on an ad campaign at another point in the not so recent past (aka 2011)…so you definitely knew about them…but apparently must have conveniently forgotten about it…and then when that musical artist sent you cease and desist letters you tried to dodge them…then buy them off…which they declined…leading to threat of a lawsuit from the band…which you then countered with your own suit…to try to steal the name that you already stole…rather than just admitting you fucked up and dropping the name that you’re trying to/already did steal…………………………………………..right! Got it!
Now that I’m up to speed here, damn, what an adventure in the theater of the capitalist absurd! The band commented to Billboard “A big corporation chose to steal the name of our band to market disposable plastic cups of sugar to children. That was an unwelcome surprise, to say the least,” they said. “But then they sue US about it? Presumably, the idea is that they can just bully us out of our own name, since they have so much more money to spend on lawyers? I guess that’s often how it works, but hopefully, we’ll be the exception.”
And Post’s lawyers countered with this snarky statement (which I swear I did not write!) “Given the length of time that has passed since that limited collaboration over a decade ago, the very small number of views indicated on the YouTube videos you referenced, and the general consuming public’s rather short attention span, it will also have absolutely no bearing on consumer perception of Post’s mark OK GO! used with cereal or cereal-based snacks, and will not lead to any mistaken association with OK Go.”
It remains to be seen how this Indie David vs. Cereal Goliath situation will play out but I really hope Ok Go (the real one) fights tooth and nail to defeat Ok Go (the soggy one). And as for the imposter cereal killer Ok Go and their behavior, let’s cue the cat meme again…
Read more about it on Consequence or the above linked Billboard article.
Last week, I mentioned a bit about conservatives raging at cartoon pieces of candy not being sexy enough and well…….now those cartoon pieces of candy are being dropped to avoid the controversy that has arisen over M&M’s changing their branding because right wing commentators screamed about them being “too woke.” I just don’t even know what to say about this. My eyes are bulging out of my head because wow. Just…wow. If ever it felt like the world is in flames and we are in a culture war, then this is the epitome of the clown car rhetoric that these people push on a daily basis. It’s literally cartoons…of pieces of candy…just say you hate anyone who isn’t a cis, straight, white Christian man and move on. Let’s be real that this isn’t about candy at all.
The ever fabulous and snarky queer Instagram personality Matt Bernstein weighed in on it with his typical razor sharp wit and hit the nail on the head, “remember what they took from you.” Remember indeed.