Hello, dear readers!
It’s been too long since I last wrote on Substack … I suppose the last article was a “load-bearing post.” I wrote a quippy blog about the strange, often teary state of music (video) journalism.
It went viral. 20,000+ people read it. Substack made a video about it? And so did Mina Le? And now I’m #6 “Rising” in the Music category on Subsatck???
Most meaningfully, some very cool, very thoughtful people reached out to me to share their own thoughts about the piece.
Writing, in certain miraculous moments can be like a sort of cosmic bat signal. The right people may hear your frequency and reach out, which is why I knowingly smiled when I got a DM from Derrick Gee. He read the piece. It made him think.
I have followed Derrick Gee (IG, TikTok, Substack) for a while, and thought about him a bit when writing my piece. Gee has worked in radio and for labels for years.
More recently, he’s carved a meaningful niche in the online music media ecosystem. He hosts a radio show for a dedicated community of Patreon subscribers and makes videos exploring niche, but buzzy topics (like mysterious AI jazz on Youtube or why Skrillex still wears Beats headphone from 2013). Most relevant to this conversation, though, is his interview series — though “interview” may be a misnomer given the specificity of the format.
Gee invites artists to come to his home in Australia where they sit down with him and play some music — obscure or iconic selections that excite or inspire them. He, in turn, does the same. The music becomes a launching point for the artists to discuss their influences, latest project or the world writ large. It’s a musical equivalent of the Criterion Closet interviews, and is very needed in our music media ecosystem, given that our era of streaming slop means that too few regard music as a serious art form worth discussion beyond fandom histrionics … but I digress!
Notably, Gee has sat down with a stellar (and, by my accounts, “cool”) group of musicians, like Lorde, MJ Lenderman, and Ichiko Aoba among others. He makes a point to only invite artists who he thinks he could connect with or admires on some level. That said, he makes sure to treat them as the “ordinary people” that they are.
In my original piece, I focused on a few choice creators/podcasters — Jake Shane, Las Culturistas, Call Her Daddy and Zane Lowe. These people, I claimed, all have a heavily emotional, adoring tone in their interviews which mirrors the parasocial mania of internet fan culture. There’s some thread between that positivity and Gee’s interviews, which are generally smiling and sweet. The smile he shares with his guests, though, is different from the performative passion I was describing in the article. So I thought both that tenuous connection, and the fact that Gee is building something new, unique and curated, could make a chat with him an interesting addendum to this long discussion we’ve been having here on my Substack.
I also just think he’s smart and thoughtful and committed to highlighting music appreciation in a real and rooted way. So we spoke over Zoom about all of this.
Read below for a lightly edited deep dive with the one and only, Derrick Gee.
We’re thinking about similar things from different vantages. I’m curious how my piece struck you and what your initial thoughts were on my argument?
Derrick Gee: It was very funny. The “brand” that I built is not one that criticizes people too much. I wrestle with this idea of how I could potentially be used by the industry. I built my profile without any artist's involvement. I am grateful that I don't need it. If I decided tomorrow to shut down my interview show, I don't think it would matter. But I like doing it when I can do it beautifully. But I can see, as soon as my channels start to build, the industry gets their claws out and they start to go, “You are our mouthpiece now. You are mine.”
I just have to be really protective about my taste, and what I want to do. I get offered certain artists that I'm not a fan of. I have to ask myself, “Why do I want to speak to these people? Is it because they're famous? No. Is it because I think there's something to talk about?” Then, “Yes.” You see people speaking to artists, and you can tell they don't really care about them, they're just doing it because it's leverage to build a brand. Lots of new faces are popping up in video form with microphones being nice to artists. As someone that has been a long-time radio host, I am part of that, in a sense of being a content creator and putting artists in a context that's different from one that is purely journalistic. But also I built my reputation off my taste and my opinion on what I like.
I don't like seeing [music media] growing in a way where the music is not a central part of the conversation. There’s Chicken Shop Date and Hot Ones, which are great, but every music label now wants a version of that. And then there’s me putting my lens through that. I don't want to do a gimmick. I want to talk about music.
I can see some music journalists being critical of what I do. Meanwhile, I think I have some integrity to what I do. I don’t consider it traditional journalism. I’m in this gray area that I'm happy to be in, but I don't think it's fully explored or matured yet.
I see what you do as very distinct from the creators that I wrote about. Your show is the equivalent of the Criterion Closet for music. That said, your tone with guests is very positive, which is where I see the potential thread between your work and this new music media landscape, which is generally quite friendly to artists. It seems like you’re grappling with this as well. I’m curious to hear you expand on that.
Derrick Gee: There's sometimes discourse around the fact that I do brand deals. That's what funds my business. I don't do brand deals with music labels or artists. I do brand deals to have a career out of this, but also to protect the fact that I don't have to take money from labels, which a lot of music content creators do.
[Regarding being critical,] I prefer to be investigatively journalistic. I’ve done viral videos around music culture and trends. I do my research, and I go deep on that. I like that kind of “journalism.” But I liken myself much more to a radio host or a presenter. I don’t think people are asking me, “Why aren't you asking X person about X controversy?” The criticism I see [about me] is more like, Who are these influencers that are walking billboards for certain brands? How can you be a real journalist, which I've never said I am, if you’re also promoting things?
I'm a journalist. The reality, though, is: most young journalists or people who work in digital media are balancing output with rigor. It’s a huge challenge. So whether that’s happening within digital media, or on the creator side, the pressure to produce is a culture-wide issue.
Derrick Gee: It’s survival, right? The funding model is different. I had an interview last week with Ichiko Alba. That's a four-camera shoot. I spent so much money on translators, editing, and the post-production side of things. It took forever. Sometimes an artist can cancel an hour before. I don't have anyone paying my salary, so if you cancel, I've lost a day and I've lost money. My wife plans to leave the house with my son when we do interviews here. All of this impacts my life.
I’ve thought, Should I create a music platform and bring in other people? Demonstrably, it doesn't seem like there's enough money to survive and do “music journalism,” unless you're Billboard and attached to a whole other thing. This new wave of music media isn't people flying the flag and saying, “We've figured it out. This is how you make money.” But it is saying that it’s sustainable if one person can do it on their own and bear the brunt of all the production and post-production … and then shill yourself off to some headphone company sometimes. What would traditionally be the banner ad on the side [of the website] is you now.
Does that lose any integrity? It’s in the eye of the beholder. It’s all media, though. Everyone's still trying to figure out how to be editorially independent and creative, whilst paying bills. My interview show doesn’t make money. That’s what they call a loss leader. It’s the pure part of the business at the moment. [With that,] I can do what I want.
I think what I was trying to work through with my article is this: maybe avoiding being critical, or “access journalism,” is the cost of survival now, because if you lose access to talent, there's not another income stream or attention-stream to make up for that. And culture doesn't have reverence for or interest in criticism on its own, so access is fundamental.
Derrick Gee: I do wonder about the definition or use of criticism now. On the channels that I exist on, there's too much criticism. Anyone can be a critic. You see random kids going, “10 Worst British Albums of all time.” Who are you? What is your background? What gives you the right to say that? These people get millions of views. I have witnessed that there’s a lot of criticism out there … and maybe this is born out of Fantano-culture and the tribalism of fans, but there's a lot of people that like to rank and criticize things. These people aren't journalists, but their opinions are out there. I would argue there's more criticism than ever, but there isn’t an investigative nature to it, which is like, “I'm going to explore this idea, and share how I formed my critical opinion.” There's a lot of “critics” in bubbles that speak to an audience that don’t like something anyways. [They say something like], “Yeah, all rap sucks these days.”
I'm 25, so I don't even remember this era, but I’m told there was a time where there was higher trust in institutions. We know, of course, that institutions are problematic, but institutions can provide a framework so a society can collectively look at something and discuss it. Criticism in The Times, or in more recent times, Pitchfork, can, theoretically, create a common language for discussion. Today, with our siloed culture and stan culture, we’re separated. Swifties have a different internet than me, and I listen to Taylor Swift! That siloed culture leads to these dynamics of both stan journalism and overly positive access journalism online.
Derrick Gee: I think this culture of everything being “nicely, nicely” existed before on different platforms. In the blog era, a press release goes out to 10,000 people, and then 10,000 blogs post something that's throw away content. Artists performed on morning shows and they asked softball questions. Commercial radio [would ask artists], “Hey! Do you like Australia?” Some of that is necessary.
People say that today people won't do things unless they're eating hot wings. I don't think that is true. Lorde coming on my show was interesting. My show is an hour long and I like to talk about music. She did 3 things in Australia. She did a Vogue photoshoot, she did the national broadcaster, Triple J, and me. What is her creative, journalistic decision in doing this? She could have done the morning shows here to reach middle Australia. Looking at the stats now, our Youtube interview has 100,000 views, not a million views. Maybe I'm trying to post-rationalize, but maybe there is a little bit of an acknowledgement that there are things out there that will take a bit more time to appreciate her as an artist and as a listener. That has more value to her than a 60-second video of her ranking snacks.
This sphere [of music media] is still maturing with the Jake Shanes of the world. I don't think we've been in it long enough to know who's gonna stick around. Jake Shane is a lot closer to Jimmy Fallon than he is to most music journalists. That’s not a bad thing. Jimmy Fallon has his place. He hypes it up. Could I do it? No. But there are a lot of people who like that kind of thing.
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I take your point. I guess I was harping on Jake Shane, because what feels new is he has this style that’s evocative of stan culture. And that feels new, and very potent and powerful. Stan culture is this monster eating the world, and maybe it always was. But the internet makes it feel so overwhelming.
Derrick Gee: Jake Shane is not small, right? He's a known entity now. But there is still that feeling with him of, “Oh god. How kind of this artist to do an interview with this young fan.” That relationship's kind of weird. The artist wants media, views and attention through his platforms. I don’t think they're giving as much as they are taking from him, but he's fine with that. I started my show here my home. I still do it every week for my Patreon, and then Jamie XX's people said, “Do you want to do something with him?” And I said, “Why doesn't he come in here and play music with me?” That's how the show began. It wasn't a concept, it was just, “Join me.”
I used to work at a record label. The thing I got tired of was people obsessing over musicians as magical beings. They do incredible things, but they're ordinary people. As I continue to do this show, I want to present that, not gas them and not bow down to them. I don’t get nervous with them, because they’re just people. And I want it to feel that way.
[Stan culture] does eat the world alive if all we do is look at artists starry-eyed. To your point about Zane Lowe, he’s very good at what he does. But he has a company that he represents. That company has a lot of power in terms of promotion and streaming. He has a lot of great relationships and supports artists early in their career. Therefore they build a long-term relationship where you can always support their music. It's an ecosystem. I do look at [Zane Loewe] and how he treats people, though … not everyone believes it, right?
It's hard to believe [his enthusiasm] over the course of watching so many of his interviews. It’s just not likely that he would be so enthusiastic for so many people.
Indeed. But it depends on the business. Because he is great at what he does within the structure in which he exists. He gets paid by Apple to represent big music. People go to him for that reason. Jake Shane’s business is built around him as an individual being stoked. And me, as a much smaller business, [I ask,] “Are you a music fan? Tell me about it.”
In your article, you wrote about how there's not much discomfort in a lot of these [interviews]. I thought about that in the prism of what I do; the discomfort for me is that we both play each other shit that we might not like. It’s kind of scary. But my business doesn't rely on being excited by them, and my business doesn't rely on them needing me to disseminate their promotion on streaming services. My business, and why they might be interested in my business, is they want to show that they think about music and want to contribute to the great music that’s been out there. Not every business is built like mine, and not every business is built like Jake Shane's. Not many big artists go with Fantano, because of his reputation. It’s a bit fatalist to say, “The business means journalists have to be stans.”
Another angle to look at this is that streaming has devalued the idea of music as a precious art object. Music is vibes, music is playlists, music is algorithms. Music isn’t something where you go to the criterion closet, except you are subtly doing that.
Derrick Gee: I think a lot about how Letterboxd has their top 4 films, right? That's such a great and clever format. You could not do that for music for a multitude of reasons. If you name 4 albums I've never heard of, then “Fuck you, you think you're better than me?” Whereas, if you have someone mentioning four films that you've never heard of, you're like, “Oh my gosh, I need to find out what they are.” There needs to be more of that in music, and I don’t know if it ever has existed, or maybe it can't because of the kind of gamification of it with the ranking culture.
I avoid that, because the only thing I know how to do is tell people about music I like. I don't think about rankings, I don't think about the song of the summer, I don't think about the best album of this year. The best album for me for this year is probably something that came out a long time ago, because that's what I found this year. I take music appreciation so seriously, and I put myself in different contexts [to do that].
Thank you for reading Gen Zero. If you enjoyed this article, consider subscribing, sharing with a friend or signing up for a paid subscription to support my work <3 much more writing, essays, and reviews to come. You can find me @tobiasfornow on all platforms (but mainly IG and X).
xx
Beautiful
Please take a look at mine on Nick Drake and the Sound of One Hand Clap
https://substack.com/@collapseofthewavefunction/note/p-167021101?r=5tpv59&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action