Late last week, I woke up to an e-mail that came as a wonderful surprise. Well, maybe it should’ve been more of a surprise because the urgency wasn’t in me to perk my ears up and just go full impulse. Apparently, 100 Gecs were coming to House of Blues in Anaheim, CA. Not only that, but at $40 I thought it was a reasonable price. A lot of details were in perfect position for me. Not only has “10,000 Gecs” remained my most played album of the past two months, but this HOB location is within convenient driving distance. I had ideas in my head. Would they be one of those bands who just randomly made jokes about performing in front of Disneyland? Given that they’re known for sampling the THX sound effect and dedicating songs to tooth removal, I had to believe they’d have their own take.
But alas, it wasn’t meant to be. I looked at those tickets and had a strange belief that it would be there in a few hours and even days when I finally approved that my calendar didn’t have anything going on at 7 PM on a weekday. I spent so much of that day distracted by how close 100 Gecs would be to me, where I could see the hyperpop gods perform in such an intimate location where I would be able to stand in the back of the room and just admire the sight. I’m a wimp. I don’t want to mosh. I don’t want to be crushed in the front row. I just want to be there, to look up at Dylan Brady in his yellow wizard hat fidgeting with a computer while Laura Les does incoherent, autotuned stage banter. I wanted to be there. I really did. But alas, 24 hours later their Instagram confirmed the worst when saying the HOB show was SOLD OUT. Either that or shill out nearly double the cost, which is almost a dollar per gec.
It may be difficult to understand why this feels deserving of a lengthy post. Even if I’ve played “Dumbest Girl Alive” almost every day since its release, I’m not necessarily the obsessive like I am with Marc Maron. My admiration for hyperpop as a genre is only a year old and, to sound a bit shameful, I haven’t doused myself as much in “1000 Gecs” or the remixes with as much frequency. This isn’t to say that my life didn’t change when “Stupid Horse” first hit my headphones. There is something genuinely amazing about them and they’ve only gotten more interesting. It’s just that for as much as I recognize the thrill of being in that room, $70 plus surcharges ain’t it.
There are probably less than a dozen bands that I actually would want to see live anymore. As I’ve gotten older, the appeal of loud venues has diminished greatly. Outside of Lana Del Rey or DEVO, I can’t name many that speak to me that directly. This makes it odd how excited I would get over a 100 Gecs show, where I’m sure I’d get bruises and ringing ears for two days. I’m sure they’d consider me lame for even being there, and yet I think I want to see it just to know that this subgenre is real and that there actually seems to be a crowd of likeminded individuals who respond to the aggressive sound mixes, where the digital textures blend with fractured lyrics that mean nothing but convey these complicated emotions. Maybe I’m chasing a youth that feels like it’s quickly fading, or maybe it’s just that “10,000 Gecs” is a truly amazing album.
Like all panic attacks, this could just be something that consumes the mind for an afternoon and fleetingly disappears. I wonder if I will really care that I didn’t buy those 100 Gecs tickets in a few years when life has taken me to the next stage of life. Given how rarely they produce albums, I do worry this will be the only shot I have between then and now, but who’s to say that I don’t still put “Frog on the Floor” on a playlist or two to slowly convert others into a world that feels like a mix of being on the internet in 2004 with the pop-punk and ska influences that I consumed so regularly. If nothing else, I feel like they’ve gotten better with each passing year. Dylan Brady has only continued to produce amazing beats for others like Charli XCX. I doubt they’re going to disappear, but then again this may just be a coping mechanism for my immediate sheer disappointment.
There’s a lot of reasons that 100 Gecs is appealing to me, especially at this point in my life. It may not seem obvious, especially if you compare it to how much Boygenius I’ve consumed in the past week. However, I think the ultimate appeal of them and hyperpop more in general is how they deconstruct the structures of music and expectation. At a time where pop music feels sluggish and repetitive, 100 Gecs doesn’t avoid nostalgia but instead recontextualizes it, creating their own universe where Reel Big Fish and Limp Bizkit motifs blend with so many different techniques. It’s not reaching for the heights of their peers but instead asks what makes a pop song work. The guitar alone on “Doritos and Fritos” feels revolutionary for how it feels like a catchy melody even if no human hands could probably play that riff correctly. It’s the beauty in artifice, in the substance of disposable pop. It’s what made me love Girl Talk during his Illegal Art days. The only difference is that 100 Gecs feel like they’re arsonists in the dream factory who mean well.
I do believe that some credit should be given to the sense that hyperpop feels like a distinctly neurodivergent genre. Given that we’re a community known for experiencing the world differently, it makes sense that our interests tend to fall into that camp. There’s something immediately cathartic about 100 Gecs less because they’re the best band but their confectionaries are so confidently assembled. You don’t just put out something like “Money Machine” without having some earnest passion for the work. Given that they walk around in wizard outfits and have a laundry list of performance expectations from their fans, there is a whole world that makes me curious. What is it like to witness something so different from the world I know? Maybe that’s what I want more than anything. I want to observe the fan who knows every word and acts like how I imagine Swifties are, but have it be set to lyrics like “I did science on my face/I’m the dumbest girl alive.”
My mind has become consumed by this record for nearly two months now. I have sat in classes where I’m just hearing Laura Les yell “Go on pitch your fit/No one gives a shit” while learning about global warming. I have critiqued other students’ heartfelt stories as “mememe” just plays in the background. It’s an album that’s been inescapable, an earworm of the truest sense. I think there’s a genius to that. Hearing Les hit those high notes on “Hollywood Baby” is a special kind of euphoria that I don’t think you’d understand. Sure, one could argue that 100 Gecs are on the verge of ruining my final semester of university, but for now, the only clue of my obsession is in the pencil tapping the desk as I wait for class to end so I can just open Spotify. It may be distracting me, going crazy other times, but I’d argue that it’s also what’s keeping me sane.
Another thing that may explain this curiosity to drive down to HOB next month was that I have developed a crush on Laura Les. While there are several performers who I admire from a craft level, there are very specific types who really connect with a deeper feeling. It’s the idea of wanting to be friends with them, maybe fantasizing about living in the same apartment complex and hearing what she’s up to while picking up mail. I guess my expectations are low, but she does strike me as a friendly introvert who mostly talks to you because she has to. I don’t know why, but Dylan Brady strikes me as the moderator, the less awkward member who keeps the train on the tracks. Still, Les is someone who makes me smile every time she sings and I love her transition on “10,000 Gecs” from dominant autotune to her own voice. She has this deadpan quality that is infectious, where it feels sincere and also a bit flippant. It’s the type of singing that suggests you either get it or you don’t.
As someone who grew up in the local punk scene, there is something inherently charming about the D.I.Y. nature of certain music. I love the idea of a song sounding like it has duct tape wrapped around the sides to keep it from falling apart. If you’ve seen any 100 Gecs video, you’d know that they have a low budget mentality where they set off fireworks in a house or hold up cutouts on popsicle sticks to show who’s singing. I know it’s a collaborative effort, but there’s something about Les that feels so expressive even as she’s barely putting in any effort. There is a genuine sense that she doesn’t take things too seriously and thus lets the music just be fun. It’s an oddball pairing that I think reflects the freedom in sound to do anything and thus means that one will never be bored when popping on their music. It may not be your speed, but it’s hard to dismiss it. As it stands, numerous comments out there suggest that people listened to 100 Gecs ironically before becoming fans.
On the one hand, this may be a totally useless piece. I’m still not getting into HOB for that show (unless you want to hook me up!). However, it only felt right to share in light of this news. For a record that has consumed a lot of my free time, it’s strange how little I’ve discussed “10,000 Gecs” on here. Even as I watch old concerts, including the Coachella where the sound cut out, I find myself more enamored with them as people. I love how their stage banter is strangely able to connect with others while being the kind of awkward nonsense I’d do. For a duo who could be considered pioneers, they’re most charismatic at making up their legacy as they go along. I love peering into their world for a few minutes and wondering where the magic comes from. Then again, it’s the type of inspiration that makes me wonder what I can do to be more creative.
Maybe that’s why not seeing 100 Gecs hurts. There’s just so much that opens potential in me, and I would love to know what it’s like to be in the room with people who knew how to sample Scary Movie 2 (2001) and have it be ominous. These are 21st century geniuses, so transparent and messy. At times they’re reflective of me at my most manic and others at my most joyous. It’s a world where Laura Les can ask Anthony Keidis for oral sex, where you can experience a sonic journey through dental surgery in a ska song. It’s a reminder that culture has endless potential and the only ones holding us back are ourselves. 100 Gecs long ago busted down the door and I’m happy to have let them in.
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