An Editorial by someone unqualified to talk about anything
When I decided to start a blog my ethos was relatively simple: I wanted to cover smaller artists within a very specific range of genres. The lines for that range are a bit vague, but despite never coming around to the likes of glaive or 100 gecs I have a huge love for hyperpop adjacent music in the form of things like digicore and glitchpop, and the way hyperpops sound design innovations have bled into other genres. I was a heavy brakence fan during the punk2 era which sculpted my taste for this general area of music, but it’s impossible to be in this scene without becoming aware of a handful of names.
By some insane act of witchcraft, Danny Brown has managed to get most of those names on a single project. Danny Brown’s Stardust is like the god damn Avengers for people familiar with underground internet music circa 2020. From Quadeca to underscores, Cynthoni to Jane Remover and 8485, this album absolutely blew my mind when I saw it pop up on my feed. It wasn’t news to me that Danny was tapped in. I knew he and Quadeca had history with Danny appearing on both of Quad’s recent albums, and I also had seen Copycat with underscores as a single for this project, but I did not know just how deep Danny was embedded with this incredibly niche corner of music culture.
Putting it lightly to ensure I don’t exaggerate: This is fucking crazy, and it’s resulted in an album with the most interesting and dynamic production of any rap project I’ve heard in recent years. I’ve spent endless hours preaching about our need to innovate within popular “mega-genres” (usually focusing on the pop sphere but it’s also applicable to hiphop), and Danny Brown has just made himself the poster child of this idea. This album is full of wild synth patches, choppy effects and vocal cuts, and textures beyond most type beat makers wildest imaginations. It’s a completely fresh take on a time proven format, and if we’re being honest about it a lot of people are going to thrash this project for that. But I firmly believe that if you’re wanting artists to make the same shit we’ve been hearing for a decade that you’ve boxed yourself in to a horrid degree, and to put it lightly, you are boring. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying a great by the book trap beat, but resting on our laurels is NOT how we got from The Beatles to Michael Jackson, or how we get from MJ to Kanye. Innovation is the life blood of art, and through a deep rooted connection to internet music culture Danny has pulled together the ambassador of a variety of sounds ranging from JOHNNASCUS’s screaming vocals on 1999 to electric vibes of underscores on Baby and Copycat.
A little bit of behind the curtain for you, but for AuraLink we made a Spotify bot that tracks new releases from artists Spotify pages so that we don’t need to chronically live on social media to ensure we don’t miss anything. It’s a convenient system that lets us keep tabs on small artists, as well as artists with large significance to the scene. If you’ll indulge me and actually real that list instead of just skimming it, Danny Brown’s Stardust is listed 3 separate times. It’s not a comprehensive list of artists either, we’re constantly realizing we’re missing some really obvious stuff, and in spite of that 3 of the 10 projects listed on there this week are Danny. Danny Brown is one of us. Danny Brown is like if MICO started using his Columbia deal to feature TruePilot and han.irl<3. To sum it up, I have nothing but respect for this project. It’s a huge swing and as far as I’m concerned it’s an absolute hit. Bravo Danny. Bravo.
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