Me All Same No Like Boom-Boom Stick

I feel that writing about any music these days involves combining Mad Libs, Patagonian telephone books, Eno's oblique strategy cards, badly dubbed Serbian porn videos, every 17th word from Anne of Green Gables spelled backwards, all the spells from the Harry Potter books, the ingredient list of Laffy Taffy, the sound of a Himalayan cat coughing up a hairball, Latin translations of rugby commentary, arthritis, Sasquatch flatulence, and the Oxford comma into a stew which is fed to the rejuvenated corpse of Alaric the Visigoth, who is then tasked with describing the tune Slayyyter was humming right before she stubbed her toe on the Holy Grail.

This article broke me once and for all. Well, that and nearly every song that Tom Breihan has covered in his Number Ones column on Stereogum in the last year or so leaving me feeling like a friendly owl on the 4th of July trying to understand why the hell the sky started exploding when all I wanted was a tasty mouse.

[pitchfork.com]

I really did give it my best effort to try to at least stay conversant with current music even if I didn't like it, or at least give myself the illusion that I was trying to, but the last decade+ has done me in, and I officially and happily embrace my status as a cranky old fool bellowing "You call that music???" and close my eyes and reminisce about the halcyon days when Pop music was "Walk Away Renee" and "Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again" and leave the kids to enjoy chopped up robot voices hollerin' at them about fuckin' bitches fuckin'. They can have Pop music.

I'm gonna pull my pants up to my chest and go watch me some Lawrence Welk now.

I couldn't get past the first paragraph. But I've had that problem before with Pitchfork. I tried reading an article or review about some rap mixtape a few years ago and literally couldn't comprehend the words on the screen, as if it wasn't written in English.

So, are all the "talented" writers completely gone now from Pitchfork? https://trouserpress.com/forum/read.php?1,66734,66734#msg-66734

That same article popped up in my feed yesterday. I've never heard of this genre. (I sent the link to my son, who is far more conversant with underground hip hop than I am.) I read about 2-3 paragraphs, which sounded like a writer with a wordcount trying desperately to stretch out a one-graph subject into an entire article, and gave up. The more I think about it, the more I think this is an April Fool's article accidentally published early.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/2025 04:47AM by Michael Toland.

I see what you all mean, but I toughed it out for a few more paragraphs, and was rewarded with this passage:

"Drift phonk was only the start. Soon, nearly every country and microgenre had their own version of phonk, riffing on the TikTok-patented Phonk Recipe. The Korean boyband Stray Kids sampled phonk on the careening bounce house 'LALALALA.' There's Mexican phonk adorned in triumphant trumpets and ¡Ándale! calls. CXNTAGIXUS, a producer of unknown origins, has made 'Indian Meme Phonk,' 'Jewish Meme Phonk,' and something called 'Yoinky Sploinky Phonk.'"

I don't know what's funnier: the names of some of those "microgenres," or the fact that whoever wrote this piece expects their readers to take it seriously.

Well, now I have to hear "Yoinky Sploinky Phonk."

Psst! Post-Yoinky Sploinky Phonk is the new Yoinky Sploinky Phonk.

I was a big hip-hop fan....er, many years ago. Be that as it may! I'm not totally ignorant of it, so was able to follow this for a bit. However, I then burst into guffaws at: "drift phonk, a Russian variant of the sound heavily associated with clips of cars racing and anime edits. "

Okay!

And then there's "The style’s pressure-cooker peak conjures visions of iShowSpeed backflipping at nightcore velocity."

Huh..?

And to think that one of Ira's editors said he needed to define "rockabilly."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/28/2025 12:16PM by MrFab.

The basic point of the article is easy to grasp: phonk was once an innovative style, but it's been watered down by copycats and taken away from the subcultures where it began. But it's written in a manner that prides itself on throwing out the most obscure references and proving how chronically online the author is.

Yeah, agreed, this is the work of a writer who's writing more to impress than to inform.

I've been guilty of that, too, so I'll just leave it at that.

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Okay, full disclosure ... I'm leaving it at that, because I'd rather use my online time checking out some Yoinky Sploinky Phonk. (But then, who wouldn't?)