{"id":78362,"date":"2022-12-02T03:00:17","date_gmt":"2022-12-02T08:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=78362"},"modified":"2022-12-01T15:42:29","modified_gmt":"2022-12-01T20:42:29","slug":"the-whole-music-culture-it-seems-is-now-under-the-sway-of-a-chipmunk-aesthetic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2022\/12\/02\/the-whole-music-culture-it-seems-is-now-under-the-sway-of-a-chipmunk-aesthetic\/","title":{"rendered":"The whole music culture, it seems, is now under the sway of a chipmunk aesthetic<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ted Gioia<\/a> explores the oddity of musical tastes on TikTok:<\/p>\n

When I was a child, a band called Alvin and the Chipmunks enjoyed a brief taste of fame. Hot bands come and go, but this one had a bizarre back story.<\/p>\n

First of all, it didn’t really exist. The band consisted of cartoon chipmunks. In this regard, Alvin and his rodent colleagues get credit for anticipating the anime pop stars of the current day.<\/p>\n

Second, these singing chipmunks were more a brand than a band. Because these animals were make-believe, they couldn\u2019t go on tour \u2014 but they could sell boatloads of merchandise, from lunch boxes to comic books. This, too, anticipated much of our current music industry \u2014 where the side deals often make more money than concerts and records.<\/p>\n

But even stranger, this group aimed to imitate the sound of singing chipmunks by speeding up recordings of human vocalists. The end result was arguably the most annoying sound in 20th century music (a rare distinction, that). I can’t stand listening to these tracks, but they somehow won five Grammy Awards. Alvin and the Chipmunks actually enjoyed two number-one singles.<\/p>\n

That’s two more than Bob Dylan can claim<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In all fairness, these same tracks sound even worse when slowed down. So maybe there\u2019s something to be said for getting to the end of the song as fast as possible.<\/p>\n

But here’s the most surprising part of the story. This sped-up sound also anticipated the contemporary music of our own time \u2014 it’s actually one of the hottest trends on TikTok.<\/p>\n

The whole music culture, it seems, is now under the sway of a chipmunk aesthetic<\/em>. This, to my way of thinking, is even more foreboding than all those people who want us to eat bugs and compost our deceased loved ones.<\/p>\n

I’m starting to think that Alvin and the Chipmunks belong in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Maybe I can’t stand listening to the stuff, but these cartoon critters clearly pointed the way to the future. A dark dystopian future, perhaps, but I guess that’s what happens when you treat rodents as role models.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ted Gioia explores the oddity of musical tastes on TikTok: When I was a child, a band called Alvin and the Chipmunks enjoyed a brief taste of fame. Hot bands come and go, but this one had a bizarre back story. First of all, it didn’t really exist. The band consisted of cartoon chipmunks. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,13],"tags":[1106,428,200,593],"class_list":["post-78362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-usa","tag-genz","tag-marketing","tag-music","tag-socialmedia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-knU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78362"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78364,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78362\/revisions\/78364"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}