WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.480 Imagine, right, that you are an underground garage 00:00:03.480 --> 00:00:08.380 punk artist. OK. You play gritty, unpolished, 00:00:08.800 --> 00:00:11.080 totally anti -establishment music. You operate 00:00:11.080 --> 00:00:13.439 entirely outside of the mainstream pop machine. 00:00:13.580 --> 00:00:18.079 Right. The classic DIY ethos. Exactly. And you 00:00:18.079 --> 00:00:21.079 are about to release your brand new studio album. 00:00:21.379 --> 00:00:23.879 It's the follow -up to a solo debut that actually 00:00:23.879 --> 00:00:25.739 got some critical notice. And you have to decide 00:00:25.739 --> 00:00:28.239 what to call it. Always the hardest part. Right. 00:00:28.399 --> 00:00:31.260 So what do you choose? Do you go with like a 00:00:31.260 --> 00:00:34.679 brooding phrase, a sharp political statement? 00:00:34.759 --> 00:00:37.960 You'd think so. But no, you decide to name it 00:00:37.960 --> 00:00:41.020 after the ultimate literal symbol of corporate 00:00:41.020 --> 00:00:43.240 greed and mainstream commerce. The dollar sign. 00:00:43.420 --> 00:00:45.560 A dollar sign. Just the symbol itself, pronounced 00:00:45.560 --> 00:00:48.320 money. I mean, it is a phenomenal provocation 00:00:48.320 --> 00:00:50.539 before you even press play. Oh, totally. It's 00:00:50.539 --> 00:00:53.560 essentially, you know, daring the listener. and 00:00:53.560 --> 00:00:55.960 the critics, really, to figure out if you are 00:00:55.960 --> 00:00:58.100 joking. And spoiler alert, the internet still 00:00:58.100 --> 00:01:00.000 hasn't figured it out. Yeah, they really haven't. 00:01:00.119 --> 00:01:04.120 So today, we are taking a deep dive into a really 00:01:04.120 --> 00:01:07.200 weird digital artifact. I'm so excited for this 00:01:07.200 --> 00:01:10.430 one. We've got this Wikipedia article for a 2010 00:01:10.430 --> 00:01:13.269 studio album by the Canadian musician Mark Sultan. 00:01:13.930 --> 00:01:16.590 And the album is, as we just said, simply titled 00:01:16.590 --> 00:01:19.310 with the dollar sign. But there's a massive catch 00:01:19.310 --> 00:01:21.890 here. A huge catch. And really, this is the central 00:01:21.890 --> 00:01:24.930 mystery of our deep dive today. This article 00:01:24.930 --> 00:01:28.069 is officially classified by Wikipedia as a stub. 00:01:28.370 --> 00:01:31.069 Right. It's literally an incomplete page. It's 00:01:31.069 --> 00:01:33.709 like a digital ghost town. You go there and it 00:01:33.709 --> 00:01:37.260 has a track list, a few release details. some 00:01:37.260 --> 00:01:40.640 just wildly contradictory genre tags and a couple 00:01:40.640 --> 00:01:44.319 of heavily divided review scores. And that is 00:01:44.319 --> 00:01:46.340 it. It's so strange because the encyclopedia 00:01:46.340 --> 00:01:49.739 is fundamentally telling us we know this object 00:01:49.739 --> 00:01:51.859 exists, but we have absolutely no idea what it 00:01:51.859 --> 00:01:53.420 means or where to put it. They've just given 00:01:53.420 --> 00:01:56.079 up. Exactly. And that classification, that sort 00:01:56.079 --> 00:01:58.519 of digital surrender is what makes this so compelling. 00:01:58.659 --> 00:02:01.019 I mean, when a massive information database throws 00:02:01.019 --> 00:02:03.980 its hands up and explicitly ask for help, it's 00:02:03.980 --> 00:02:05.879 usually because the subject matter refuses to 00:02:05.879 --> 00:02:09.150 fit into a neat easily digestible box. OK, let's 00:02:09.150 --> 00:02:11.270 unpack this because that's exactly what we are 00:02:11.270 --> 00:02:14.409 going to do. We are going to decode the DNA of 00:02:14.409 --> 00:02:17.770 this album using only the raw data it left behind 00:02:17.770 --> 00:02:20.830 on this stub. I love this mission. Right. Whether 00:02:20.830 --> 00:02:23.449 you're a music nerd or just, you know, fascinated 00:02:23.449 --> 00:02:26.490 by how art is perceived, we're going to see why 00:02:26.490 --> 00:02:28.770 this specific record broke the Internet's ability 00:02:28.770 --> 00:02:32.610 to categorize it. So where do we start? The basic 00:02:32.610 --> 00:02:34.409 metadata. Yeah, let's start with the blueprint. 00:02:34.590 --> 00:02:37.409 We know this is Mark Sultan's second solo studio 00:02:37.409 --> 00:02:41.129 album. Following his 2007 record, Sultanic Verses. 00:02:41.310 --> 00:02:43.789 Right. And this new one was recorded in 2009 00:02:43.789 --> 00:02:46.969 and released on April 13th, 2010. On Last Gang 00:02:46.969 --> 00:02:49.250 Records. Yes, Last Gang Records. But the data 00:02:49.250 --> 00:02:52.110 point that instantly derails any normal expectation, 00:02:52.370 --> 00:02:55.250 like immediately, is the list of genres. Oh, 00:02:55.289 --> 00:02:57.270 it's a total collision of worlds. It really is. 00:02:57.330 --> 00:02:59.689 The metadata tags it as rock and roll, garage 00:02:59.689 --> 00:03:02.729 rock, doo -wop, garage punk, and power pop. Okay, 00:03:02.830 --> 00:03:04.889 I have to stop you there because we need to interrogate 00:03:04.889 --> 00:03:07.009 that combination. Go for it. I mean rock and 00:03:07.009 --> 00:03:09.610 roll and garage rock, sure, that tracks, but 00:03:09.610 --> 00:03:11.969 doo -wop and garage puck. That's a lot to take 00:03:11.969 --> 00:03:14.849 in. I struggle to see how those even occupy the 00:03:14.849 --> 00:03:19.139 same universe. Doo -wop is like... 1950s street 00:03:19.139 --> 00:03:22.259 corner harmony. It's sweet, it's innocent, it's 00:03:22.259 --> 00:03:25.439 super vocal driven. Very vulnerable. Yeah. And 00:03:25.439 --> 00:03:29.539 garage punk is aggressive, distorted, loud, and 00:03:29.539 --> 00:03:32.840 frankly, often completely cynical. Right. Mixing 00:03:32.840 --> 00:03:35.780 sweet, harmonious do -walk with abrasive garage 00:03:35.780 --> 00:03:37.840 punk sounds like making a sandwich out of cotton 00:03:37.840 --> 00:03:41.000 candy and broken glass. That is, wow, what an 00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:42.860 image. But it shouldn't work. It's a bizarre 00:03:42.860 --> 00:03:45.439 psychological experiment. How does the, I don't 00:03:45.439 --> 00:03:48.180 know, the prom night vulnerability of the 1950s 00:03:48.180 --> 00:03:50.539 survive being shoved through a distortion pedal? 00:03:50.699 --> 00:03:52.479 Well, what's fascinating here is that it sounds 00:03:52.479 --> 00:03:55.080 impossible on paper, right? But if you look at 00:03:55.080 --> 00:03:57.520 the mechanics of both of those genres, they actually 00:03:57.520 --> 00:03:59.759 share a very sturdy foundation. Wait, really? 00:03:59.900 --> 00:04:02.819 How so? It all comes down to DIY culture, that 00:04:02.819 --> 00:04:05.500 do -it -yourself ethos. Oh, OK. Because traditional 00:04:05.500 --> 00:04:08.080 doo -wop, you have to remember, wasn't born in 00:04:08.080 --> 00:04:10.400 pristine million dollar recording studios. Right. 00:04:11.370 --> 00:04:14.469 Exactly. It was born on stoops and street corners 00:04:14.469 --> 00:04:16.750 by kids who couldn't afford instruments. They 00:04:16.750 --> 00:04:19.449 used their voices to create rhythm and melody 00:04:19.449 --> 00:04:23.029 because that's all they had. It was raw, unpolished, 00:04:23.209 --> 00:04:26.110 and completely emotionally naked. So it's stripped 00:04:26.110 --> 00:04:29.410 down by necessity. Exactly. And what is garage 00:04:29.410 --> 00:04:32.350 punk? Just kids in a garage? It is the exact 00:04:32.350 --> 00:04:35.430 same necessity, just channeled through a totally 00:04:35.430 --> 00:04:37.709 different emotional frequency. It's kids in a 00:04:37.709 --> 00:04:40.420 garage playing three chords loudly. Because that's 00:04:40.420 --> 00:04:42.600 all they know. Channeling frustration instead 00:04:42.600 --> 00:04:46.120 of sweet harmony. Precisely. Both genres reject 00:04:46.120 --> 00:04:49.600 heavy, slick production. Both rely entirely on 00:04:49.600 --> 00:04:52.769 direct, unfiltered human emotion. That actually 00:04:52.769 --> 00:04:55.069 frames the Power Pop tag in a new light, too. 00:04:55.209 --> 00:04:57.129 How so? Well, for anyone listening who might 00:04:57.129 --> 00:05:00.149 not be deep into indie subgenres, Power Pop is 00:05:00.149 --> 00:05:01.730 essentially what happens when you take those 00:05:01.730 --> 00:05:04.230 incredibly tight, infectious, Beatles -esque 00:05:04.230 --> 00:05:06.269 pop melodies. Right, the catchy stuff. Yeah, 00:05:06.370 --> 00:05:08.670 but you play them with the volume, speed, and 00:05:08.670 --> 00:05:11.399 attitude of a punk band. Oh, for sure. So if 00:05:11.399 --> 00:05:13.600 you combine all these tags, the data is basically 00:05:13.600 --> 00:05:16.339 telling us that Mark Sultan is stripping away 00:05:16.339 --> 00:05:19.399 the gloss, turning up the volume, and just oscillating 00:05:19.399 --> 00:05:23.100 between extreme aggressive chaos and total romantic 00:05:23.100 --> 00:05:25.720 vulnerability. And we really have to contextualize 00:05:25.720 --> 00:05:28.600 the era he's doing this in. 2009 and 2010. Yeah, 00:05:28.680 --> 00:05:31.779 the late 2000s indie music scene was heavily 00:05:31.779 --> 00:05:35.310 dominated by blog culture. Being authentic and 00:05:35.310 --> 00:05:38.329 underground was a massive, massive currency back 00:05:38.329 --> 00:05:40.810 then. Oh, the purity test. Exactly. There was 00:05:40.810 --> 00:05:43.490 this lingering purity test in indie music about 00:05:43.490 --> 00:05:46.050 not selling out. Which brings us right back to 00:05:46.050 --> 00:05:48.089 the title of the album. The dollar sign. Naming 00:05:48.089 --> 00:05:51.949 your gritty, emotionally raw, DIY garage punk 00:05:51.949 --> 00:05:54.870 doo -wop album with the universal symbol for 00:05:54.870 --> 00:05:57.410 money. It's a deliberate act of cognitive dissonance. 00:05:57.589 --> 00:05:59.550 I mean, he's operating in a space that prides 00:05:59.550 --> 00:06:02.149 itself on artistic purity, mixing genres that 00:06:02.149 --> 00:06:04.449 demand emotional nakedness, and then he slaps 00:06:04.449 --> 00:06:06.790 the icon for capitalism on the cover. It's so 00:06:06.790 --> 00:06:08.949 antagonistic. It forces the listener to question 00:06:08.949 --> 00:06:10.750 his motives immediately. Like, are you mocking 00:06:10.750 --> 00:06:13.189 the industry? Or is he mocking himself? Right. 00:06:13.589 --> 00:06:16.949 Or is he saying that even raw emotion is ultimately 00:06:16.949 --> 00:06:19.740 commodified? Or maybe it's just a defense mechanism. 00:06:19.879 --> 00:06:22.019 You know, like, I'm gonna put a giant dollar 00:06:22.019 --> 00:06:24.079 sign on this so you can't accuse me of taking 00:06:24.079 --> 00:06:27.459 myself too seriously. It could honestly be all 00:06:27.459 --> 00:06:30.939 of those things. But it proves that the metadata 00:06:30.939 --> 00:06:33.540 isn't just administrative detail. Right. The 00:06:33.540 --> 00:06:37.060 release date, the genre, the title. They're already 00:06:37.060 --> 00:06:39.779 establishing a narrative of deep contradiction. 00:06:40.259 --> 00:06:43.800 He is setting up this intense push and pull dynamic 00:06:43.800 --> 00:06:46.360 before the music even starts. Okay. Well, here's 00:06:46.360 --> 00:06:48.319 where it gets really interesting. Oh, yeah. Because 00:06:48.319 --> 00:06:50.639 if you think the genre tags are a contradiction, 00:06:51.060 --> 00:06:53.180 wait until we look at how this album is physically 00:06:53.180 --> 00:06:55.839 built. Like a tracklist. The tracklist architecture 00:06:55.839 --> 00:06:58.019 is staggering. I mean, if you're an artist trying 00:06:58.019 --> 00:07:00.800 to fuse sweet pop melodies with fast paced punk, 00:07:01.180 --> 00:07:02.600 you'd think the structure of the album would 00:07:02.600 --> 00:07:04.420 reflect that speed, right? You'd expect short, 00:07:04.680 --> 00:07:08.120 punchy songs. Exactly. But that is not what the 00:07:08.120 --> 00:07:10.790 timestamps tell us at all. No, the timestamps 00:07:10.790 --> 00:07:14.170 are arguably the most aggressive artistic statement 00:07:14.170 --> 00:07:16.389 on the entire page. Let's look at the numbers. 00:07:16.529 --> 00:07:19.670 The album is 13 tracks long and the total runtime 00:07:19.670 --> 00:07:23.069 is 48 minutes and 56 seconds. That is a lot of 00:07:23.069 --> 00:07:26.009 garage punk. It's a massive commitment. Now, 00:07:26.189 --> 00:07:28.670 in the realm of progressive rock or heavy metal, 00:07:28.910 --> 00:07:31.970 48 minutes is standard. Sure. But for a garage 00:07:31.970 --> 00:07:35.850 punk or power pop album, that is incredibly hefty. 00:07:36.329 --> 00:07:40.040 The Ramones debut album is like... 29 minutes 00:07:40.040 --> 00:07:42.860 long? Pop punk relies on economy. And to be fair, 00:07:43.300 --> 00:07:45.379 the data shows that Mark Salton understands that 00:07:45.379 --> 00:07:48.079 economy. Nine of the 13 tracks on this record 00:07:48.079 --> 00:07:50.459 are exactly what you'd expect. The short bursts. 00:07:50.660 --> 00:07:52.899 Yeah. Short, punchy, two to three minute bursts. 00:07:53.399 --> 00:07:56.240 Track two, Don't Look Back, is 2 .31. Track four, 00:07:56.240 --> 00:07:59.480 Status, is 3 .12. Track 12, Catastrophe, is 2 00:07:59.480 --> 00:08:02.519 .46. That is the traditional tempo of a fast 00:08:02.519 --> 00:08:05.399 -paced garage record. Get in, deliver the hook, 00:08:05.519 --> 00:08:07.339 get out. But then you look at the anomalies. 00:08:07.379 --> 00:08:09.779 And they are huge anomalies. Track one, the very 00:08:09.779 --> 00:08:11.639 first thing a listener encounters when they hit 00:08:11.639 --> 00:08:14.639 play is a song called Icicles. And it is six 00:08:14.639 --> 00:08:17.699 minutes and 30 seconds. Wow. And the final track, 00:08:17.699 --> 00:08:20.819 track 13, Nobody But You, is six minutes and 00:08:20.819 --> 00:08:23.620 33 seconds long. This raises an important question. 00:08:23.839 --> 00:08:25.980 Because I have to push back on this as a creative 00:08:25.980 --> 00:08:27.459 choice. I know exactly what you're going to say. 00:08:27.500 --> 00:08:30.620 Like, is this supposed to be clever, structural 00:08:30.620 --> 00:08:33.620 framing, or is it just a punk artist being deeply 00:08:33.620 --> 00:08:36.419 arrogant? It's a fair question. Making your listener 00:08:36.419 --> 00:08:38.779 wait six and a half minutes to get to the actual 00:08:38.779 --> 00:08:42.120 fast -paced pop songs feels almost hostile to 00:08:42.120 --> 00:08:45.269 me. It defies every rule of convention. album 00:08:45.269 --> 00:08:48.169 sequencing. Usually you want to hook the listener 00:08:48.169 --> 00:08:50.769 immediately with your catchiest three -minute 00:08:50.769 --> 00:08:53.610 single. You're totally right to view it as hostile, 00:08:53.629 --> 00:08:55.450 or at least, you know, highly confrontational. 00:08:55.590 --> 00:08:58.090 Yeah. But I would argue that confrontational 00:08:58.090 --> 00:09:01.389 sequencing is a core tenet of the punk ethos. 00:09:01.690 --> 00:09:04.830 Really? How so? Think about how we consume music, 00:09:05.269 --> 00:09:07.950 especially as we transitioned into the digital 00:09:07.950 --> 00:09:11.409 iPod shuffle era of the late 2000s. Oh, right. 00:09:11.519 --> 00:09:14.120 Instant gratification. Exactly. People wanted 00:09:14.120 --> 00:09:16.679 instant gratification. Yeah. By opening a power 00:09:16.679 --> 00:09:18.720 pop album with a six and a half minute epic, 00:09:19.159 --> 00:09:21.419 Sultan is acting as a gatekeeper to his own art. 00:09:22.100 --> 00:09:24.720 He is actively filtering his audience. Oh, like 00:09:24.720 --> 00:09:26.940 a bouncer at the door of his own club. If you 00:09:26.940 --> 00:09:29.120 don't have the patience for this six minute track, 00:09:29.639 --> 00:09:31.799 you don't get to hear the catchy pop songs inside. 00:09:32.279 --> 00:09:35.740 Precisely. It demands that you opt in. He's telling 00:09:35.740 --> 00:09:38.039 the listener this is not background music for 00:09:38.039 --> 00:09:40.940 your commute. You have to endure something sprawling 00:09:40.940 --> 00:09:43.320 and heavy to earn the sugar rush of the power 00:09:43.320 --> 00:09:46.759 pop. That's fascinating. And by ending with another 00:09:46.759 --> 00:09:50.440 6 .33 track, he traps you at the exit too. You 00:09:50.440 --> 00:09:52.480 won't let you leave. It refuses to let you out 00:09:52.480 --> 00:09:55.539 the hook. Yeah. The short, chaotic, emotional 00:09:55.539 --> 00:09:58.360 bursts are safely contained within these two 00:09:58.360 --> 00:10:00.840 massive, imposing bookends. It's like a walled 00:10:00.840 --> 00:10:03.500 city. You have these huge, intimidating six -minute 00:10:03.500 --> 00:10:05.840 walls on the outside, and inside the walls, it 00:10:05.840 --> 00:10:08.960 is just total emotional whiplash. Yes. Whiplash 00:10:08.960 --> 00:10:10.919 is the perfect word for it. We can actually see 00:10:10.919 --> 00:10:12.720 that whiplash perfectly mapped out in the track 00:10:12.720 --> 00:10:14.940 titles. Like, if you just read these 13 titles 00:10:14.940 --> 00:10:17.139 in order, it reads like the diary of someone 00:10:17.139 --> 00:10:19.659 whose mind is fracturing in real time. The duality 00:10:19.659 --> 00:10:22.019 of the genres is mirrored perfectly in the text. 00:10:22.120 --> 00:10:25.720 Yes. You have these totally despairing, aggressive 00:10:25.720 --> 00:10:28.700 punk titles. Track six is literally go berserk. 00:10:29.179 --> 00:10:31.879 Track seven is I am the end. Track eight is misery 00:10:31.879 --> 00:10:35.259 is upon us. Dark. Very dark. You read that sequence 00:10:35.259 --> 00:10:37.820 and you think, OK, we are deeply entrenched in 00:10:37.820 --> 00:10:41.460 dark, nihilistic, abrasive garage punk territory. 00:10:41.759 --> 00:10:44.350 But then look at the pivot. Look at what happens 00:10:44.350 --> 00:10:47.090 immediately after a track called Misery's Upon 00:10:47.090 --> 00:10:50.269 Us. Literally the very next breath. Track 9 is 00:10:50.269 --> 00:10:53.169 I'll Be Loving You. It's so jarring. Followed 00:10:53.169 --> 00:10:56.470 by track 10, Waiting For Me. Followed by track 00:10:56.470 --> 00:10:59.370 11, Just To Hold You. Incredible. It goes straight 00:10:59.370 --> 00:11:02.029 from apocalyptic misery to the most classic, 00:11:02.389 --> 00:11:05.889 sweet, devoted do -wop tropes imaginable. The 00:11:05.889 --> 00:11:08.210 thematic pendulum just swings violently from 00:11:08.210 --> 00:11:10.330 one extreme to the other in a matter of minutes. 00:11:10.429 --> 00:11:12.830 Which really paints a vivid psychological portrait. 00:11:12.720 --> 00:11:15.299 Yeah, it does. This isn't just a random collection 00:11:15.299 --> 00:11:18.019 of songs thrown onto a CV. The track list is 00:11:18.019 --> 00:11:21.259 narrating a story of intense emotional volatility. 00:11:21.500 --> 00:11:23.879 It's an exploration of manic highs and depressive 00:11:23.879 --> 00:11:26.039 lows. And remember, all of this swinging from 00:11:26.039 --> 00:11:28.340 destruction to desperate affection is sitting 00:11:28.340 --> 00:11:30.820 under an album cover that just features a giant 00:11:30.820 --> 00:11:33.120 dollar sign. Right. Actually, you see that perfectly 00:11:33.120 --> 00:11:35.059 in the first half of the album. Smack in the 00:11:35.059 --> 00:11:38.059 middle of side A is track four, simply titled 00:11:38.059 --> 00:11:41.980 Status. Ah, tying it back to the title. It perfectly 00:11:41.980 --> 00:11:44.320 ties the emotional chaos back to the album's 00:11:44.320 --> 00:11:47.279 title. Money, status, misery and love. It's all 00:11:47.279 --> 00:11:49.000 right there in the metadata. It's brilliant. 00:11:49.240 --> 00:11:51.220 We haven't heard a single note of this music 00:11:51.220 --> 00:11:53.460 and we already know we are dealing with a complex 00:11:53.460 --> 00:11:55.879 narrative of an artist wrestling with commerce, 00:11:56.460 --> 00:11:59.000 demanding extreme patience from his audience 00:11:59.000 --> 00:12:02.720 and swinging wildly between aggression and romance. 00:12:02.899 --> 00:12:04.580 Which naturally begs the question. Oh, I know 00:12:04.580 --> 00:12:08.000 where you're going. How on earth does an audience 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:10.919 or a professional critic grade an experience 00:12:10.919 --> 00:12:13.379 like that? I mean, if you are a music journalist 00:12:13.379 --> 00:12:16.940 in 2010 sitting down to review this, what metric 00:12:16.940 --> 00:12:19.740 do you even use? So what does this all mean for 00:12:19.740 --> 00:12:22.139 the critical reception? That is the perfect question, 00:12:22.179 --> 00:12:25.080 because the Wikipedia stub gives us three professional 00:12:25.080 --> 00:12:27.240 review scores. And they tell a story all on their 00:12:27.240 --> 00:12:29.500 own. They really do. We have a review from Pitchfork 00:12:29.500 --> 00:12:32.269 Media written by by Stephen M. Duesner, and they 00:12:32.269 --> 00:12:35.789 gave the album a 6 .8 out of 10. A 6 .8. Now, 00:12:35.789 --> 00:12:39.610 I look at a 6 .8, and to me, that is the ultimate 00:12:39.610 --> 00:12:43.250 fence -sitting score. Oh, absolutely. It's basically 00:12:43.250 --> 00:12:45.389 a polite failure. It's not a total disaster, 00:12:45.429 --> 00:12:48.470 but it's clearly a critic saying, this is flawed, 00:12:48.509 --> 00:12:51.029 or I didn't really get what he was going for. 00:12:51.129 --> 00:12:53.009 See, I wouldn't call it a polite failure, but 00:12:53.009 --> 00:12:55.830 I would call it institutional confusion. Institutional 00:12:55.830 --> 00:12:58.710 confusion. Yeah, because if we connect this to 00:12:58.710 --> 00:13:01.320 the bigger picture, Pitchfork, especially in 00:13:01.320 --> 00:13:05.200 2010, was a massive, highly influential indie 00:13:05.200 --> 00:13:07.980 tastemaker. Huge. When they review an album, 00:13:08.340 --> 00:13:11.039 they are evaluating it against the entire broad 00:13:11.039 --> 00:13:13.820 landscape of contemporary music. They're asking, 00:13:14.240 --> 00:13:17.000 does this work as a cohesive, accessible piece 00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:19.779 of art for the general indie consumer? And this 00:13:19.779 --> 00:13:21.799 album clearly doesn't care about being cohesive. 00:13:22.100 --> 00:13:24.299 Exactly. An album that forces you through a six 00:13:24.299 --> 00:13:26.299 minute punk opener just to get to a two minute 00:13:26.299 --> 00:13:29.100 doo wop song is fundamentally uneven. Right. 00:13:29.240 --> 00:13:31.840 So 6 .8 suggests they recognized the ambition, 00:13:32.120 --> 00:13:34.340 they maybe even respected the effort, but the 00:13:34.340 --> 00:13:36.519 sheer contradiction of the project kept them 00:13:36.519 --> 00:13:38.600 at arm's length. They couldn't reconcile the 00:13:38.600 --> 00:13:40.779 cotton candy and the broken glass. That makes 00:13:40.779 --> 00:13:43.039 a lot of sense. But then you look at the second 00:13:43.039 --> 00:13:45.559 score. And this is where it gets crazy. A niche 00:13:45.559 --> 00:13:48.259 publication called Kids Like You and Me, reviewed 00:13:48.259 --> 00:13:51.100 by Glenn Maganzini. They gave this exact same 00:13:51.100 --> 00:13:54.700 album an incredibly high 9 .3 out of 10. A 9 00:13:54.700 --> 00:13:58.500 .3. A 9 .3 is not just a positive review. A 9 00:13:58.500 --> 00:14:01.879 .3 is a declaration of absolute love. It really 00:14:01.879 --> 00:14:03.980 is. That is a score you give to a masterpiece. 00:14:04.919 --> 00:14:07.440 Oh, and the source also notes that Now Magazine 00:14:07.440 --> 00:14:10.090 reviewed it by Paul Terafenko. Though we don't 00:14:10.090 --> 00:14:11.809 have the numerical score for that one on the 00:14:11.809 --> 00:14:14.269 stub. Right, but just looking at the canyon between 00:14:14.269 --> 00:14:17.690 Pitchfork 6 .8 and this niche outlet's 9 .3. 00:14:17.889 --> 00:14:20.769 It's a massive divide over the exact same 48 00:14:20.769 --> 00:14:23.190 minutes of audio. And that divide tells us everything 00:14:23.190 --> 00:14:25.769 we need to know about how art is consumed. How 00:14:25.769 --> 00:14:28.690 so? Well, if you are a publication called Kids 00:14:28.690 --> 00:14:31.549 Like You and Me, you are likely speaking directly 00:14:31.549 --> 00:14:34.500 to a specific subculture. The garage punk kids. 00:14:34.879 --> 00:14:37.080 Exactly. You are writing for people who already 00:14:37.080 --> 00:14:40.139 speak the language of DIY, garage punk, and underground 00:14:40.139 --> 00:14:43.379 rock. For that specific listener, an artist taking 00:14:43.379 --> 00:14:45.779 genres they already love and stretching them 00:14:45.779 --> 00:14:48.080 to their absolute breaking point isn't a flaw. 00:14:48.360 --> 00:14:52.159 It's a triumph. Yes. So for Pitchfork, the contradiction 00:14:52.159 --> 00:14:55.480 is a bug. But for kids, like you and me, the 00:14:55.480 --> 00:14:58.480 contradiction is the feature. I love that. Art 00:14:58.480 --> 00:15:01.399 that takes massive risks, art that demands patience 00:15:01.399 --> 00:15:03.580 and intentionally gives you emotional whiplash 00:15:03.580 --> 00:15:06.700 is never going to be universally beloved. It's 00:15:06.700 --> 00:15:09.440 not designed to be a safe, pleasant, background 00:15:09.440 --> 00:15:13.320 -listening 7 .5 for everybody. It is explicitly 00:15:13.320 --> 00:15:16.639 designed to be a 9 .3 for the exact right person 00:15:16.639 --> 00:15:20.480 and a confusing 6 .8 for someone else. Standard 00:15:20.480 --> 00:15:23.419 critical metrics fail because standard metrics 00:15:23.419 --> 00:15:26.039 value cohesion And this album values friction. 00:15:26.299 --> 00:15:29.259 Which brings us to the most brilliant, poignant 00:15:29.259 --> 00:15:32.220 layer of this entire deep dive. The stub status 00:15:32.220 --> 00:15:34.840 itself. Yes. The reason the source material exists 00:15:34.840 --> 00:15:37.899 in the state that it does. The Wikipedia classifications. 00:15:38.019 --> 00:15:39.759 The database itself trying to make sense of the 00:15:39.759 --> 00:15:41.639 friction. It's almost funny. At the very bottom 00:15:41.639 --> 00:15:44.139 of the page, the encyclopedia flags this article 00:15:44.139 --> 00:15:46.580 with two distinct categorization tags. Oh, I 00:15:46.580 --> 00:15:48.750 love this part. One says, this article about 00:15:48.750 --> 00:15:51.789 a 2010s pop rock album is a stub. And right below 00:15:51.789 --> 00:15:53.669 it, it says, this article about a punk rock album 00:15:53.669 --> 00:15:56.590 from the 2010s is a stub. It can't choose. The 00:15:56.590 --> 00:15:59.990 internet's own taxonomy literally cannot decide 00:15:59.990 --> 00:16:03.169 what this thing is. It places it into two totally 00:16:03.169 --> 00:16:05.990 different digital buckets and yet admits it doesn't 00:16:05.990 --> 00:16:08.769 fully belong in either. It is caught in digital 00:16:08.769 --> 00:16:11.470 limbo. Yeah. And the language of a stub is so 00:16:11.470 --> 00:16:13.570 fascinating when you think about it philosophically. 00:16:14.500 --> 00:16:17.039 Wikipedia defines a stub as an article that is 00:16:17.039 --> 00:16:20.740 too short to provide encyclopedic coverage. It 00:16:20.740 --> 00:16:23.759 displays a banner that says, you can help Wikipedia 00:16:23.759 --> 00:16:26.879 by adding missing information. Please help us. 00:16:27.259 --> 00:16:29.179 Exactly. Think about what that represents in 00:16:29.179 --> 00:16:31.799 the information age. We assume that everything 00:16:31.799 --> 00:16:34.340 on the internet is cataloged, understood, and 00:16:34.340 --> 00:16:36.700 neatly filed away. Right. We trust the algorithm. 00:16:37.059 --> 00:16:39.440 But here is a database, essentially pleading 00:16:39.440 --> 00:16:42.259 for context. It is an admission of institutional 00:16:42.259 --> 00:16:45.139 ignorance. It's the algorithm saying we see the 00:16:45.139 --> 00:16:47.580 data, but we don't understand the humanity behind 00:16:47.580 --> 00:16:50.080 it. Beautifully put. Encyclopedias and databases 00:16:50.080 --> 00:16:52.559 are designed to categorize safe, conventional 00:16:52.559 --> 00:16:55.620 things with clear boundaries. When faced with 00:16:55.620 --> 00:16:57.960 truly polarized, genre -colliding, contradictory 00:16:57.960 --> 00:17:00.779 art, the system just breaks down. It really does. 00:17:00.960 --> 00:17:04.119 It defaults to a stub because it doesn't have 00:17:04.119 --> 00:17:06.940 a spreadsheet cell for manic, depressive, doo 00:17:06.940 --> 00:17:10.089 -wop punk with a six -minute hostile intro. It 00:17:10.089 --> 00:17:12.549 highlights the absolute limits of digital taxonomy. 00:17:13.009 --> 00:17:14.829 I mean, a database can tell you the runtime is 00:17:14.829 --> 00:17:18.809 48 .56, but it can't tell you why that runtime 00:17:18.809 --> 00:17:21.910 feels like an endurance test. It can list the 00:17:21.910 --> 00:17:24.609 review scores, but it can't explain the cultural 00:17:24.609 --> 00:17:27.970 chasm between a 6 .8 and a 9 .3. No, it can't. 00:17:28.069 --> 00:17:30.650 The internet provides the skeleton, but the human 00:17:30.650 --> 00:17:32.710 intellect still has to provide the flesh and 00:17:32.710 --> 00:17:34.890 blood. Which is exactly what we've been doing. 00:17:35.150 --> 00:17:37.569 Exactly. We just spent this entire session unpacking 00:17:37.569 --> 00:17:40.970 a remarkably rich, complex story. From almost 00:17:40.970 --> 00:17:43.410 nothing. Right. We found a narrative about an 00:17:43.410 --> 00:17:45.849 underground artist wrestling with commerce and 00:17:45.849 --> 00:17:48.369 purity. We found a story about gatekeeping an 00:17:48.369 --> 00:17:51.130 audience with imposing song links, swinging from 00:17:51.130 --> 00:17:54.529 aggressive nihilism to prom night devotion and 00:17:54.529 --> 00:17:56.690 basically fracturing music critics right down 00:17:56.690 --> 00:17:58.630 the middle. It's wild. And we didn't uncover 00:17:58.630 --> 00:18:01.289 this by reading a 500 page biography or watching 00:18:01.289 --> 00:18:03.690 a three part documentary. We did it by looking 00:18:03.690 --> 00:18:07.809 at a supposedly empty internet page. We did it 00:18:07.809 --> 00:18:10.769 by interrogating a track list, a release year, 00:18:11.190 --> 00:18:14.269 a couple of conflicting numbers, and a list of 00:18:14.269 --> 00:18:16.730 contradictory genres. It serves as a really powerful 00:18:16.730 --> 00:18:20.630 reminder that data is never just neutral information. 00:18:20.690 --> 00:18:23.670 Oh, never. Every single data point is the result 00:18:23.670 --> 00:18:26.549 of a human decision. A track length isn't just 00:18:26.549 --> 00:18:29.549 a time stamp. It's an art of deciding how long 00:18:29.549 --> 00:18:31.210 you need to sit in the dark before the lights 00:18:31.210 --> 00:18:34.200 come on. I love that. A genre tag isn't just 00:18:34.200 --> 00:18:36.960 a filing category. It's a historical lineage 00:18:36.960 --> 00:18:39.440 of kids playing instruments in garages and on 00:18:39.440 --> 00:18:42.440 street corners. Yep. And a review score isn't 00:18:42.440 --> 00:18:45.779 just a grade. It's a reflection of a critic's 00:18:45.779 --> 00:18:48.500 entire worldview colliding with the artist's. 00:18:48.500 --> 00:18:50.819 So why should you, the listener listening to 00:18:50.819 --> 00:18:53.440 this right now, care about a sparse Wikipedia 00:18:53.440 --> 00:18:56.039 page for Mark Sultan's 2010 album? Why should 00:18:56.039 --> 00:18:59.140 they? Because it is proof that the world is incredibly 00:18:59.140 --> 00:19:00.779 deep if you just know how to look at it. You 00:19:00.779 --> 00:19:02.720 don't need all the answers handed to you on a 00:19:02.720 --> 00:19:04.900 silver platter to find a fascinating story. Not 00:19:04.900 --> 00:19:08.480 all. You just need curiosity. You just need the 00:19:08.480 --> 00:19:11.279 willingness to look closely at the raw data in 00:19:11.279 --> 00:19:13.900 front of you, these little digital pottery shards, 00:19:14.259 --> 00:19:16.720 and refuse to take them at face value. You have 00:19:16.720 --> 00:19:19.859 to ask the questions. You have to ask why. Why 00:19:19.859 --> 00:19:22.660 these genres together? Why these massive track 00:19:22.660 --> 00:19:25.140 links? Why is the internet struggling to categorize 00:19:25.140 --> 00:19:28.299 this? The stories are everywhere, hiding in plain 00:19:28.299 --> 00:19:29.980 sight, even in the places the internet tells 00:19:29.980 --> 00:19:32.200 us are incomplete. And that actually leaves us 00:19:32.200 --> 00:19:34.359 with a rather profound thought to walk away with 00:19:34.359 --> 00:19:37.500 today. Lay it on us. We've spent this time decoding 00:19:37.500 --> 00:19:41.240 one singular album, an album conceptually intriguing 00:19:41.240 --> 00:19:44.019 enough to fuse emotionally volatile punk and 00:19:44.019 --> 00:19:47.359 doo -wop, sprawling across 48 minutes, capable 00:19:47.359 --> 00:19:49.660 of earning a near -perfect masterpiece rating 00:19:49.660 --> 00:19:52.559 from the right critic. Yeah. And yet, it has 00:19:52.559 --> 00:19:55.319 sat on the internet for well over a decade, quietly 00:19:55.319 --> 00:19:58.099 labeled as a mere stub with missing information. 00:19:58.259 --> 00:20:00.019 It's pretty easy to think about. So if something 00:20:00.019 --> 00:20:02.160 this dense and fascinating can slip through the 00:20:02.160 --> 00:20:05.279 cracks of our digital cataloging, How many other 00:20:05.279 --> 00:20:07.859 incredible, challenging, boundary -pushing pieces 00:20:07.859 --> 00:20:10.960 of art are out there right now? How many masterpieces 00:20:10.960 --> 00:20:13.779 are buried in the digital dust, quietly tagged 00:20:13.779 --> 00:20:16.220 as incomplete, just waiting for someone like 00:20:16.220 --> 00:20:18.579 you to stumble across them, decode their data, 00:20:19.079 --> 00:20:20.460 and finally fill in the blanks?