I'm disappointed in the trajectory of BENEE's catalogue
Mar 14, 2021 4:07:06 GMT 10
Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2021 4:07:06 GMT 10
The topic of this thread is just what it says on the tin (and entirely my own opinion):
BENEE (formerly Bene) was launched into international superstardom and the bedroom pop scene in 2020 just before the pandemic with her hit single Supalonely, but before that she made her debut in 2017 and 2018 with a bunch of other singles and music videos. But these earlier releases are quite different in their fundamental building blocks than her more recent stuff. Have a listen:
It doesn't sound poppy and sunny like other bedroom pop artists. Listen to that: it's like Sade from the '80s! It's moody, dynamic, and the vocals sound, dare I say, sultry and even sexy. It's alluring and mysterious just like Sade's music was.
And then 3 years later you end up with this:
I get that moderating her sound was the price of success so I wouldn't begrudge her that. But it's like the label took the one quality of her sound that set her apart from all her contemporaries and threw it away, and apparently that is what earned her mass appeal. It's so depressing because the rest of her catalogue is comparatively boring. Again, I wouldn't say bad but not nearly as interesting as how she started out.
Maybe it's not BENEE specifically that I'm upset about but rather that mainstream success seems to necessarily entail blandness. If you want to get out of the underground, apparently, you have to rip out anything actually interesting going on in your songs so it sounds exactly like everything else. It's the reason I don't ordinarily even bother with radio music anymore; most of my collection in the last 2-3 years has been exclusively underground Bandcamp music like Midwest emo bands and piles upon piles of vaporwave albums. I just feel like it doesn't have to be this way.
Anyway, rant over. Discuss.
BENEE (formerly Bene) was launched into international superstardom and the bedroom pop scene in 2020 just before the pandemic with her hit single Supalonely, but before that she made her debut in 2017 and 2018 with a bunch of other singles and music videos. But these earlier releases are quite different in their fundamental building blocks than her more recent stuff. Have a listen:
It doesn't sound poppy and sunny like other bedroom pop artists. Listen to that: it's like Sade from the '80s! It's moody, dynamic, and the vocals sound, dare I say, sultry and even sexy. It's alluring and mysterious just like Sade's music was.
And then 3 years later you end up with this:
I get that moderating her sound was the price of success so I wouldn't begrudge her that. But it's like the label took the one quality of her sound that set her apart from all her contemporaries and threw it away, and apparently that is what earned her mass appeal. It's so depressing because the rest of her catalogue is comparatively boring. Again, I wouldn't say bad but not nearly as interesting as how she started out.
Maybe it's not BENEE specifically that I'm upset about but rather that mainstream success seems to necessarily entail blandness. If you want to get out of the underground, apparently, you have to rip out anything actually interesting going on in your songs so it sounds exactly like everything else. It's the reason I don't ordinarily even bother with radio music anymore; most of my collection in the last 2-3 years has been exclusively underground Bandcamp music like Midwest emo bands and piles upon piles of vaporwave albums. I just feel like it doesn't have to be this way.
Anyway, rant over. Discuss.
