I Fell Into A Black Hole

Gems “Soak”

It drives me a little bit crazy that we still don’t really have something to call this type of music, aside from maybe recycling the term “indie pop,” as my BuzzFeed colleague Reggie Ugwu did recently. (I don’t approve of this, as indie pop has been a specific thing for a long time, but beggars can’t be choosers.) But you know this sound — the clicking beats, the unobtrusive keyboard tones, the tasteful minimalism, the sensual vibe, the vague R&B-ness of it, the way the female and male voices hint at sexual tension but seem strangely noncommittal about it. This is the “sexy” music of many people you’d call millennials, and it sounds like the music that’d play at the “Blasé Olympics” described by Alana Massey in her excellent essay Against Chill. Gems is good at this genre, and “Soak” is a good song, but it reflects a culture that I find sad and alienating and unimaginative. The singers are describing passionate feelings, but not conveying them. What I hear is people trying to connect but holding back too much. Or maybe it’s more like they’ve chilled these fiery emotions in music that just makes them lukewarm.

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