How high is your tolerance for memery? Unless you’ve been totally fried by the internet, it’s probably not quite high enough for 100 gecs. This is music for the terminally online made by the terminally online. It’s loud and noisy and it can be very stupid and being stupid is often the point, but it’s still stupid. For all of that though, it can still sometimes come out with something that changes your life.
“Doritos and Fritos” is what I’m talking about. It skids around the place and memes a lot more than it really should, but there are really interesting fragments studded in there. They just have a much better ear for music than your typical hyperpop band.
In particular, “Dumbest Girl Alive” is incredible. It’s got great lyrics, you can tell that the writers have the internet as their first language. “Put emojis on my grave / I’m the dumbest girl alive” is immediately memorable and “Text, text, text, text, like you’re tryna start a fight / Yeah, I’ll fuckin’ text you back, I’m the dumbest girl alive” is an excellent distillation of the song.
For all that though, the lyrics are much less interesting than what the band does sonically. The alt-rock of my adolescence was something of a cultural wasteland, but it has proved to be incredibly fertile raw material for the musicians of today and 100 gecs take that to the extreme.
Similarly, “Billy Knows Jamie” could have been scoped by Trent Reznor. The production throughout is just the most absurd showcase of talent. Something like “Hollywood Baby” is so clearly intelligent that no posturing can diminish it.
“Frog on the Floor” and “I Got My Tooth Removed” both play much closer to the line though. The edge between dumb and good gets very fine with this album and both of these songs are constantly teetering on both sides of the ledge. “One Million Dollars” has fallen right off though. There’s just not much that’s actually interesting in that song, just a lot of played out sounds mixed together in a rather boring way.
10,000 gecs is an uneven album, but it’s impossible to imagine an album like this that’s not. If you’re willing to let it bounce off the wall, you’ll find a lot to love on the rebound. Just don’t get square in its path.
It’s been a while since we’ve done one of these. As you may know, Top Five Records is a small company with just a few writers, and life events derails our plans of getting new music to you. But never fear, we are making our way back to putting out info on all the best tracks out there. Starting with – our top five picks for the month of May!
“UNHEALTHY” by Anne-Marie feat. Shania Twain
British pop singer-songwriter Anne-Marie has had reasonable success on her side of the pond, with her 2018 debut album Speak Your Mind reaching as high as #3 on the UK Albums Chart. Buoyed by giant singles such as “FRIENDS” and “2002”, Anne-Marie is one of those singers whose tracks you’ve probably heard a bunch of times on an algorithm-driven playlist somewhere. “UNHEALTHY” is off of her upcoming new album, also called Unhealthy, and features Canadian country star Shania Twain. The country-pop song features Anne-Marie’s strong vocals in a beautiful duet with Shania’s iconic vocals, set against a jangly guitar and a driving beat. Another great pop song from Anne-Marie – definitely check it out!
“From the Start” by Laufey
Laufey is a pop singer from Iceland blessed with a beautiful voice that transports listeners to elegant jazz clubs of yore. Indeed, the classically-trained singer lists female singers such as Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald as the key influences to her sound. Her sound is perfectly exemplified in her new track “From the Start” which mixes in an element of bossa-nova with plinking piano notes into her jazzy vocals. The crisp and clean production makes this a repeat-listen kind of song – as seen through the more than 5 million streams that it’s already racked up on Spotify.
“Should I” by Sir Chloe
Sir Chloe is an indie rock band created by singer-songwriter and guitarist Dana Foote, along with her four band members Emma Welch, Teddy O’Mara, Palmer Foote and Austin Holmes. The band first caught our attention due to their presence on the upcoming Beck and Phoenix tour across the US this August and September; however, this hasn’t been their first brush with fame. Tracks like “Michelle” and “Animal” from their 2020 album Party Favors have hundreds of millions of streams online, and for good reason – Foote’s drawling vocals are confident and rambunctious in a restrained punk rock sort of vein, and her bandmates do well to support her. With “Should I” – off of their latest album I Am The Dog – the band amps up the energy to new levels, showing an edge that hasn’t been on their earlier tracks. You’ll instantly find yourself nodding along, especially to the noisy and well-structured chorus. And for fans of early-aughts teen movies – we can’t be the only ones who see a similarity between this track and the one that Lindsay Lohan’s garage rock band performs in Freaky Friday…
“The Narcissist” by Blur
Britpop legends Blur have made a couple of attempts to get back together in the intervening decades since their Parklife (1994) heyday. They released their first new album in 2015 – The Magic Whip – after a twelve-year drought, and embarked on a couple of reunion tours and shows since then. Of course, on the side, lead singer Damon Albarn is more than busy creating album upon album as Gorillaz, and the other members have done sundry solo albums and so on. Now, the iconic band is back with a new track, “The Narcissist”, off of their upcoming and recently-announced new album The Ballad of Darren.
“Infinity Repeating (2013 Demo)” by Daft Punk feat. Julian Casablancas & the Voidz
In 2013, French dance music duo Daft Punk released what would be their final record – the smash-hit Random Access Memories – to critical and commercial acclaim. The album went on to win just about every award possible in that year’s music awards circuit, and still holds up 10 years later. The album features an all-star guest list, from Pharrell Williams to Stevie Wonder, but perhaps the most mellifluous collaboration on the tracklist was the subtle “Instant Crush” featuring the Strokes’ Julian Casablancas. The song came at the perfect juncture of the two artists’ evolving sounds – Daft Punk softened their club / house sound, just as the Strokes were also mellowing out in their peak Comedown Machine-era – indeed, the two albums released within 60 days of each other. Turns out, that collaboration had one more fruit to offer. “Infinity Repeating” was a demo from those sessions ten years ago, and offers a snapshot in time of Daft Punk and Julian Casablancas in 2013. Julian’s vocals are soft and beautiful, and the instrumentals have just the right touch of melancholy and yearning to make you hit repeat just as the track finishes. “Infinity Repeating” is the rarest of gifts – a last-ever song that adequately closes out a beloved band’s discography. (Side note: Not sure what the Voidz were doing here but it’s all Julian’s show here.)
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