Rating: 3.5/5 stars
American hyper-pop duo 100 gecs (“Snake Eyes”) released “Hollywood Baby,” the latest single for their upcoming sophomore album “10,000 gecs,” on Feb. 17.
Every review of 100 gecs’ music starts off with some thesaurus-guided hook about how the band is enigmatic, experimental and eclectic. Something about the by-gone era of Napster electro-punk and deep Internet post-irony that defined the band’s breakout debut, “1000 gecs.” The accompanying photo is a promotional image of the duo doing something wacky, like wearing gaudy wizard outfits in public or posing for a grainy image of them in an attic somewhere.
But 100 gecs have moved on from their highly independent self-releases of Dog Show Records to the major label Atlantic Records. This is not just a change in budget, but a change in style: the singles from “10,000 gecs” promise not the harshly noisy hyper-pop of their debut, but bouncy alt-rock, with riffs sounding very Weezer (“SZNZ: Winter”) and lyrics sounding like early Beck (“Mellow Gold”).
“Hollywood Baby” continues this trend. The guitars still sound straight from GarageBand, and their vocals still sound characteristically whiny, but they lose part of the intriguing confusion they provoked from their earlier music.
This all points to Atlantic. Their upcoming album release had been pushed back constantly. Prior to this single they released the three-track EP “Snake Eyes” that kept with the sound of their debut while gesturing to more rock influences (e.g. “Hey Big Man”). The time-line points to the possibility that Atlantic heard that they were the next big Gen-Z thing, and their sound was too shocking for them. “Snake Eyes” could have been an attempt to not kill their darlings but refrigerate them.
“Hollywood Baby” is still a banger despite its implications. The positively obnoxious drums are heavy and massive. The production is compressed to H-E-double-hockey-stick but the resulting noise is like moshing next to the speakers at Warped Tour. The lyrics blare about the quest for fame. “You’ll never make it in Hollywood, baby,” the duo repeats on the bridge. They have, though, so the real question is whether Hollywood is ready for them.
Image from Hollywood Baby via Getty Images
