Lessons on the posture of giving a shit
there is some power to be found in loudly and emphatically giving a shit where people can bear witness to it.
I learned to display giving a shit in the shade of an imperfect youth, over stolen cans of beer turned sour by the warmth of the day, borrowed cigarettes and hastily rolled joints. I was a punk rock teenager at the perfect time to be a punk rock kid — in the mid-1990s, as major labels were summoned like cartoon cats by the vaporous wafts of unspent money smell languishing in pockets trashed around in mosh pits. Southern California skate punk became an industry in short order, and bands that were once signed to upstart labels housed in garages became something new. Bigger, louder, crisper, cleaner. They were bands on MTV, or any TV at all. They dated people that put them in gossip columns in magazines stolen from the register. And so we loudly called them sellouts, a brand arbitrated by an imprecise metric, taking complex ideas and filtering them down to the base idea of commerce. This exercise allowed little room for nuance, but it taught something of value all the same. It became important to know what it was I believed in, to stand for it when it felt like it mattered, and to know the mark when a dollar sign precedes fuck you money.
This week, the long-running Californian indie/noise/everything/rock band, Deerhoof posted on Instagram their reasoning for removing their entire catalogue from Spotify. A simple statement, needing very few words to deliver what should be an uncomplicated sentiment.
Daniel Ek uses $700 million of his Spotify fortune to become chairman of AI battle tech company’ was not a headline we enjoyed reading this week,” the band said in a statement shared online. “We don’t want our music killing people. We don’t want our success being tied to AI battle tech >
It’s no secret that Ek has been invested in the military industrial complex for some time now. In 2021, he invested an initial $100 million in ai-based drone warfare company Helsing via his investment firm Prima Materia. This was the opening salvo of his stated intention of investing $1 billion of his personal wealth (estimated around $10 billion currently) to European deep tech projects. Personal wealth largely driven by his shares and status in Spotify. Ek and Prima Materia have gone on to invest significantly in Helsing, dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into a drone warfare company that states their technology will only be used by democratic countries in their efforts to preserve and protect “democratic values”.
It is hard to divorce the stated ideals held in scare quotes from democratic countries who fund and supply arms to allies who have been engaged and entrenched in ongoing conflicts to further their agendas and strengthen strategic alliances. Every day we are bombarded with news and photos of people who have been bombed and slaughtered where they stand, where they line up desperate for food, where they flee with children, elders, and loved ones. Genocides like the one enacted on Palestinians are actions taken in the stated name of “democratic values”, and in scare quotes they are impossible to deny.
Daniel Ek is a man made wealthy by the exploitation of art in the name of exponential growth, cashing out hundreds of millions of dollars on a yearly basis. He outearns even the outlandishly wealthy few who actually make money on streaming platform. Spotify has become the defecto brand of the streaming era, like BandAids, Aspirin, or calling all video games Game Boys. It has taken an artistic practice built of great and grand emotions and turned it into a product. A cheap and brittle reminder of what it once was. People take to it passively more than ever, AI-driven playlists deliver music based on what you listen to and shovels like minded slop to the top of the pile. Where even bands that aren’t even real are earning money that trades hands to some unseen face.
There is a cap of personal wealth that demands a burden, and by this I mean I believe people should face a moral responsibility to divest themselves of their wealth in the name of the public good. Hoarded wealth like a loaded pistol lying on the floor, the lingering idea of a threat that holds no morals until it is claimed and held. What people do with their money is their own business to a certain mark, but there is a line in the sand upon which very few have crossed, and increasingly the worldwide billionaire class has proven themselves untrustworthy of the responsibility their massive, untold, wealth affords them. They do and provide nothing of value and they care about little, choosing instead to wave the loaded gun in their hands wildly around the room, eager for a target that might make the dwindling flame in their heart feel righteous.
These people don’t care about anything, despite how often they will peacock and posture for the crowd and protest to the opposite. They maintain their status and the pistols of their wealth by virtue of relying on passive resignation to their brands. Spotify becomes Streaming, Streaming becomes Spotify, and endless amount of free marketing happens in its name. Wrapped and streaming number reports in Billboard and themed playlists from influencers peddling the value attached to a name. Despite the fact that their audio quality is less than their competitors, or that they pay the lowest-per-stream royalties to artists. Spotify is where people gather, borrowed cigarettes and skunk weed between them, and pretend to care about something that has been turned to a machine driven by the pockets of the wealthy few perched at the peak of it all.
I often think about the days after Steve Albini passed away. The outpouring of memorials noting his later-in-life tonal shift. How he owned up to the failures of his past and worked to make amends for prior words and actions. People spoke at length about how they admired that someone so stubbornly steadfast in his ideals could turn back time by apologizing and promising to do better. He spent the last years of his life standing up and fighting for people who the younger version of himself would have just as easily derided or worse. To many, he was proof that a man could change, but lost in this is the greater lesson of his life. That a man could believe in something and stand for it, regardless of the personal cost. Albini was a talented, hard-working man who was often abrasive, offensive, and wrong. But more than that even, he always believed in something beyond himself, something that felt real to him, and he stood by his ideals even if, and when, they hurt.
There’s a lesson here to be absorbed by us all. What we stand for, what to believe in.
I don’t use Spotify and yes it’s a pain in the ass when someone wants to share a playlist with me and I say “Oh I use Apple Music actually” like I’m the one kid on the block with a TurboGrafix 16 trading games at recess but it’s by no means a barrier. You can manually make new playlists and libraries, you can start fresh, there are services that do this for you (every month I’m reminded that I subscribe to TuneYourMusic.com for like $2/month for this exact kind of data migration). I don’t use Spotify because I can’t imagine ever feeling good using it.
I know where the money goes. And this is a universal problem to be reckoned with. Apple’s Tim Cook donated $1 of his personal money to Trump's inauguration in what I’m sure was a desperate attempt to gain favour he never received. Tidal is majority owned by Jack Dorsey. I am not myself always perfect, but I make what little actions I can that mean something to me based on the values I hold that I know belong to me. Sometimes these values get in the way of financial or personal success and it’s a dice roll I have to make every time. I am not always good or clear of conscience as I have on occasion taken the money same as anyone, but I am constantly asking what I care about and if I am doing right by it.
Lately, I find myself looking around and wondering what all of this is for. What all the branding and attachment to names and things that once felt real still means in the face of so much doom and terror. How terrifying it is to read the news, to imagine an impossible future that is potentially worse than this one. I cling to hopeful ideas like a plastic bag in a swift river. I am not from NYC, but I read about Zohran Mamdani’s campaign with interest because here was someone who chose to loudly care in the face of so much apathy or worse still acquiescence to power. People will tell me that he did so as a marketing tactic, and to them I would point out that if one thing has become clear in recent days it’s that loudly caring about progressive ideas is not a Popular stance. Choosing to do so regardless or what it might achieve is an action that draws fresh air into tired lungs. That he chose to loudly care because it mattered to him to do so is a reminder that it is still possible to hold on to the belief in the truths of the heart.
I appreciated the same in Deerhoof’s post responding to Daniel Ek’s ongoing relationship with Helsing by pulling their catalogue off the platform because it mattered to them. They didn’t ask for comrades, didn’t demand anyone do the same. They acknowledged that this is a complicated idea that is different for everyone, and that they are lucky to afford to be so bold. I read about Bob Vylan being branded “high risk” because of their loud and vocal stance on Palestinian freedom on stage at Glastonbury, and Irish rap group Kneecap refusing to back away from their own shared ideals and watch as the mainstream press purchases endless fresh pearls in order to always have new and shiny ones to clutch at. It is heartening to see artists choose to take what time and spotlight they have to stand for something beyond themselves, at great personal cost and risk, in hope that it turns into inspired action.
On June 14th, while a sad and sparsely attended military parade ambled down the empty streets of DC, Dan Campbell of the Wonder Years stood on stage in the same city at the Warped Tour (a thing that is, shockingly, back) wearing a shirt emblazoned with the words FREE GAZA and spoke emphatically to the assembled masses. The pit in front of him one I would have found myself in when I was in the shade of youth and spoke directly to all who would listen.
I’m going to say three things: I’m going to say protect trans youth. I’m gonna say fuck ICE. And with my whole fucking chest, I’m going to say free Palestine >
And it reminds me that where we failed to call any truth to any kind of power as we swung brands like sellout around with abandon, there is some power to be found in loudly and emphatically giving a shit where people can bear witness to it. Not because it’s an idea for sale and not because it will slip money into your pockets but because it is what feels right in the moment, in the face of so much terror and doom. I know so many of us are sharing in those feelings right now and so I’m leading with the comfort that despite all odds and despite all enshitifications there are people still standing loud and tall and they are giving a shit about the things that threaten to crush us all in the name of capital. These are lessons I'm choosing to spend more time thinking about. What hope there still can be, if we choose to hold fast to the things we care about, and to know and care about where our fuck you money goes.
Reading Pile
Last weekend I sat down to read an advance copy of my friend Mattie Lubchansky's upcoming new book Simplicity, and without giving too much away I just think you should know that it will consume you the way it did me if you allow it into your life. We are so lucky to be so enthralled by a piece of work that it forces you to sit with it until it's done, and then wander the streets of a life aimlessly thinking through its theories and secrets so when you return to it once more there are layers that were unseen until it was the right time to envision them. Preorder it HERE
On the Table
Since they're on the table, I first heard Deerhoof in the early 2000s when someone made me a Mix CD for a road trip and front loaded it with "Giga Dance" from Milk Man and it set the tone for years to come, that there would always be something new around the corner I had never heard of, that would shatter the glass jar in my heart holding all the things I thought I knew and loved. They are a band of endless surprises, that continue to explore what and who they are and there is no better time to explore the breadth of their catalogue. Start where I did if you like, but go anywhere.
yeahf
