It’s often around this point that we begin to see popular culture shed the skin of a decade.
In 1988 we saw the rigid uniformity of the ’80s broken with the burgeonings of the Acid House movement, something that would balloon into the ‘Second Summer of Love’ the next year, and set the cultural tone for the next ten years to follow.
The millennial moment that roughly began in ‘98, meanwhile, saw a solid rejection of this zeitgeist and its psychedelic organicism in favour of a glossy, futuristic, conspicuously technological feel, epitomised in the now-celebrated ‘Y2K’ space-age inspired aesthetic.
Decadeology, of course, works slightly less efficiently as a sand-dial in an age where the internet has simultaneously fragmented culture and curtailed its attention span manifold.
Things don’t take all of ten years to slide out of view anymore; Tuesday’s memes become stale, passé and exhausted of any remaining meta-humour by the time Sunday rolls around.
Standing at the end of 2018, though, it’s still possible to determine the prevailing wind of the culture of our own times, and it increasingly appears to blow stronger in the direction of the shocking and surreal.
Take pop’s most storied tale of the year for one example.
A flamboyant rapper with polychromatic hair would’ve most likely been little more than laughed at by the young hip-hop audiences of 2008; in 2018, Tekashi 6ix9ine rocketed to dizzying popularity catalysed by his hyper-violent, hyper-real take on the world of the east-coast gangster, a trajectory that would see him end the year in a prison cell, its walls staring back at him with the prospect of a 32-year sentence.
More credibly, we’ve also seen huge critical acclaim heaped upon SOPHIE, a leading light of the avant-garde in today’s pop music world, who herself offered a rather crucial insight into a possible reason for the popularity of traditionally leftfield forms in an interview this year with ARTE; “there’s a gap between where we are now and where we could be… the places our imaginations can take us are so far away with we are presented with a lot of the time”.
It would seem, owing in part to the legacy of the PC Music collective affiliated with by herself and fellow pop ascendant Charli XCX, that we have begun to far better realise the possibilities opened up by ever-advancing tools available at our disposal when it comes to projecting artistic vision.
Perhaps this meme-ification of pop culture, the increasing preponderance for the strange, the extreme and the ridiculous, will turn out not to be the route travelled by mainstream tastes through the 2020s.
Predictions, especially those made in a world that currently refuses to resume normal service, are after all a fool’s errand.
But in the few hours we have left before 2018 becomes a mere entry in Father Time’s journal, let’s take a little time to look back at five tracks released by artists who have challenged us this year.
Few exemplify pop’s left-turn better at the moment than Estonian rapper Tommy Cash.
Melding absurd visuals and an eerie backing track together under the weight of his unimitable slavic deadpan, his January single Pussy Money Weed came as yet another strong entry in the cirriculum vitae of one of the most original artists of the present, and, even more impressively, also managed to make JNCO jeans look aesthetic AF somehow.
He’s just one in a slew of Eastern European pop artists we’ve seen turn the heads of western fans and critics in the last year, something only bolstered by the Russian Government’s attempts to block entry to the gigs of Ic3peak and Husky, two artists who like Tommy have provided a bleak and equal parts refreshing post-Soviet take on Western music.
On top of considerable punk credentials, there’s something of a family feel to this Eastern wave, too – Estonia’s self-styled ‘pro-rap-superstar’ goes a few years back with the guys at Little Big, a Russian rave group who themselves shot to global viral stardom this year with surrealist dance sensation Skibidi.
Anyway, if you’re thinking the video here has some of the most out-there visuals to greet your eyeballs for a while, I’d humbly suggest you sample the orgasmic spiritual cult theme of Mr Cash’s latest single X-Ray.
And, while you’re at it, check out the rest of his LP ¥€$ from November, not least because it’s really, really fun.
Unknown T – Homerton B
Does violent lyrical content in rap music foster an aggressive, self-interested culture amongst young people in deprived inner-city areas, or is it merely an artform that reflects the existing reality of their lives?
It’s the chicken-and-egg question that has variously plagued hip-hop since its very inception, and has now fallen squarely at the feet of its offspring UK drill in a year where record levels of homicides in England’s capital has appalled swathes of the population, leading to some drill artists being banned by the courts from making music.
Regardless of where the truth lies, UK drill is more of the here and now than pretty much any other genre around at the moment, and Unknown T’s Homerton B is perhaps an ideal starting point for any music fan looking to explore this most intruiging of recent musical developments.
It’s intimidating, caustic (with the rapper labelling his rivals a “Madeliene [McCann] gang cause they vanished and ran”), somewhat dystopian, and, incidentally, also really catchy. This track found the bridge between what has been labelled ‘road rap’ and more danceable hip-hop, and, what’s more, Louis Theroux rates it too.
Gestaffelstein – Reset
Gestaffelstein‘s chilling critique of the destructive excesses of hip-hop culture came on the back of several years of the French techno producer’s work for the likes of A$AP Rocky and Kanye West.
His video largely speaks for itself, and won’t be spoilt, but its send-ups of figures within the world of rap (including a thinly disguised caricature of 6ix9ine) and its bleak depiction of the self-aggrandisation encouraged by rampant commercialisation of the genre easily mark it out as one of the most vital audio-visual pieces of the year.
Against All Logic – Such a Bad Way
Nicholas Jaar surprised nearly everyone when he dropped his 2012-2017 collection of recordings under alias Against All Logic in February this year.
It’s not that his back catalogue that preceeds it is bad, at all, but what he’s done for the dance music album as a concept with his carefree, eleven-song jaunt was certainly not something expected from a DJ known for a more insistent brand of techno.
Such A Bad Way is a personal favourite from the record. It perspires summer from every pore, making it particularly suited for the record-breaking one enjoyed across Europe this year, and rewards your patience as you accompany it from its slow build to its neat, bouncing apex.
The Kanye sample just under halfway through is a bit of a gamble, sure, but it’s maybe best to see it as one of the many idiosyncrasies that have helped elevate Jaar’s cachet in this important career statement.
Kids See Ghosts – Feel The Love ft. Pusha T
While we’re on the topic of Kim K’s spouse, I’d be amiss not to say that his full-length solo release this year – Ye – could and maybe should be forgotten, perhaps at the same time as some of the choice outbursts that begrimed his name in 2018.
His work with Kid Cudi on the Kids See Ghosts collaboration, though, is another matter entirely. Most of it is actually quite good, coming across a chin-stroking sort of weird, rather than the wince-and-skip-song kind induced by his slapdash solitary efforts.
Feel The Love, with a guest feature from Pusha T, is perhaps its product most likely to live longest in the memory; it’s got a definite Black Skinhead kind of energy, and continues his tradition of pushing hip-hop to further levels of deconstruction with its unconventional structure.
When he’s got someone to rein in his more questionable stylistic choices, it would seem that his creative zeal remains as fruitful as ever.
benedict tetzlaff - deas. 