im a fans fan baby
come with me on a journey from max verstappen to singing the beatles one syllable out of time - i swear it makes sense when you read it.
michael whomacher?
I’ve fallen for Formula One. It started with the Netflix documentary series Drive To Survive (years late I know) and has now blossomed into a cross-platform, multi-source love affair.
Race commentary on Tik Tok, Oscar Piastri memes on Instagram, driver interviews on YouTube, Liam Lawson getting his shot because Daniel Ricarrdo injured his hand, Lance Stroll is a nepo baby, quali reactions, radio rage compilations - I consume it all.
I also have never watched, and never intend to watch, a Formula One race.
charles le who?
Do I qualify (ha) as a Formula One fan? Im not sure.
Im engaging with the culture around F1, but not directly with the sport. The content I consume is pulled from a primary source, but distributed and consumed as a secondary market of sorts.
This phenomenon - the creation and consumption of a secondary layer of culture around a thing that can be enjoyed independently - can clearly be seen in the rising cultural relevance of ‘Sport’.
I watch less sport than I ever have in my life, yet I somehow know more about more sports than ever as well.
I know the names of UFC champions, that the American Ryders Cup team wants to be paid more & the arguments for and against Le Bron James being the best basketballer ever.
I don’t watch any of those sports, yet the content created around them can be so entertaining and obviously so incredibly accessible that I have become enmeshed in the secondary culture.
Im not trying to make a grand point about sports importance to the world - I understand algorithms and the personal hell of a digital bubble I am stuck inside.
What I am saying is this - does being a musician still require the music?
andrew whoang?
I was discussing this topic with my friend Neil Macleod (go donate to his boosted campaign please). We pondered aloud that if we are indeed in a cultural transition brought on by technological revolution, then “who is experimenting in this new landscape the best?”
My answers were SynthTubers like Andrew Huang, Red Means Recording & Adam Neely. Kenny Beats and his creative studio series The Cave, as well as his Twitch streams and interactive beat battles came up. Improvisational and IRL performer and streamer Marc Rebillet was there. Anthony Fantano, a music reviewer based on YouTube, is one of the most recognisable names in music today.
All music industry behemoths of the digital age, creators and content Ive spent hours, days, weeks of my life consuming and almost no time at all was that on their released music.
The biggest names in music culture are not necessarily there for the primary source - music - but for their contribution to the secondary culture of music. The act of making, the gear its made on, the people who make it, the places its made - all proving popular without a connection to the primary music made.
In many of these examples the culture of music has dislocated from the music itself.
There is however one ascending culture / genre that has intertwined its primary source heavily with the secondary culture around it and is now reaping the reward of ubiquity.
who again . . . . ?
If cultural relevancy is determined by a combination of strong secondary content and its ability to digest and recontextualise the popular culture around it - then there is only one title contender musically.
Electronic music is almost purpose built for the way we now interact with culture, editing, sharing, remixing, sampling - these are ideas shared by both the genre and the new culture itself.
With the democratisation of the cultural means of production (software, hardware & distribution) culture has now become more of background thing to be played with than a consequential thing to be concentrated on.
No other genre (outside of Hip-Hop broadly speaking) has the capacity to be as funny, as playful and as reactive to shifting trends as electronic music.
The fact that any meme can be turned into a main stage banger with the addition of breaks and a drop is a huge reason why electronic culture seems so much more appealing today, especially amongst younger people.
Everyone can be in on the joke, in on the culture. Anyone can participate in it by adding samples to an acapella of a Nicolas Cage monologue. And that both sucks and rules simultaneously - a fitting analog for our modern world.
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who are you?
Are there any lessons in this incredibly pretentious sociological justification of my new found love for Carlos Sainz? Sure, why not!
The songs you are recording, writing and performing are now not only essentially worthless financially, they are also increasingly irrelevant too!
Obviously I would never tell you to stop writing and releasing music - that still (mostly) remains the point of being a musician.
What I would suggest is that artistically speaking audiences may find what you do with - or around your music - far more interesting than the music itself. My advice would be a small shift in creative focus stemming from the shifting importance of ‘the song’.
I would argue that sitting down and making music around a creative idea, rather than the song itself being worthy independently, may be a far more interesting approach in 2023.
In other words - stop trying to recreate your favourite band’s songs, and instead try to transform them in interesting ways - remix, recontextualise, transform - maybe it wont help your career but i bet it’ll be more fun!
freebie fomo
I hope you enjoyed whatever this was - I have a whole heap more of these which you can read for free right now and if you sign up to the newseltter you’ll get future ponderings just like this (almost) every week as well. No need to thank me.
Those who have the means and the confidence to support my work do not get exclusive content - but they do get it early, and for the tiny sum of $5 a month ( less than you spend on coffee a day!) you can both make my work as Hahko more sustainable AND get cool stuff before everyone else too.
This week the Freebies are missing out on my podcast interview with Ben Woods - where we discuss his move to Melbourne, as well as the next episode of ‘Exploring Ōtautahi’ featuring the lovely Ryan Fisherman.
Don’t fret if you cant become a Paido (still working on this) - you’ll still get these interviews on The Hahkoverse over the coming weeks. And if you’d like to help but don’t have the means then please feel free to share this article - or the publication itself - with a music-minded person. Thanks!