TikTok is good (for music), actually? Steve Lacy 'Gemini Rights' Review

The kids, it turns out, are alright. Come join me on a journey to the present as I celebrate my birthday, Professor Skye style. @stevelacy119


(My name on Reddit is "losermobile" for a weird reason)

[willyyg]

there’s something so great about a middle aged guy talking about new music in a positive way.

[finn]

I'm 14 and I absolutely love your reviews, I love your honesty and opinions and the rawness in all of your videos. You have such amazing humor, as well your taste and open mindedness to all types of music. My dad didn't love Black Country, New Road when I first showed him "For the first time, " then I showed him your "Ants from up there" review and he really wanted to take a look at "Ants from up there" after that, which made me so excited. You even got me into William Faulkner when you talked about him briefly in your "Hellfire" review (I just got Absalom, Absalom!) I grealy appreciate everything you put out and I love watching your videos. Happy Happy Happy birthday Professor Skye and heres to many more!

[ringer]

I’ve been a fan of Steve Lacy for awhile so it’s weird to see this song and album blow up but I’m definitely happy he’s finally getting the praise he deserves. This is a amazing album.

[EayuProuxm]

31:25 The thing that producers are going to have to realize if they haven't already realized; it doesn't matter how your song sounds as long as you have multiple feelings in the same song.

That's actually a deep point. I've been pondering along these lines ever since 2 songs on 1 track became more prominent, but this goes deeper.
Giving your listener emotional whiplash is probably what it feels like living in the 21st century. Especially when you frequently use social media.

[traplover]

Really thought you would skip this one. I love how genres of past zeitgeist still exist through the bedroom setting and algorithm niches, with Steve Lacy being a part of bedroom soul/rock imo

[cocoq]

Happy Birthday Professor!! Thank you for making this video on one of my favorite musicians of the last 5 years. I thought I came across Steve Lacy from his single Ryd/Dark Red back in 2017- but I was actually listening to him before this when he was in the band the Internet and didn't know it. He may seem to have come out of nowhere by becoming TikTok famous, but Steve is a child prodigy and has been making great music for probably close to a decade or longer. I can always tell when I'm hearing a Steve Lacy song without reading production notes.. weird being an almost 40 year old mom, and now my preteen and her friends listen to the same stuff I have been into for a long time. Oh, and if you haven't heard of The Internet/Odd Future gang where Steve has his origins, they are a collective of child prodigies. Have fun going down that rabbit hole!

[austinbartola]

Glad you spent a good amount of time on the TikTok dyanmic! I think there's so much to say about how much TikTok has single-handedly caused a sort of mini-revolution in music consumption among young people in the past two years. The fact that a 1985 Kate Bush song is one of the biggest songs of 2022, the fact that the correlation between what's newest and what's most listened-to is collapsing (a 2012 Frank Ocean song reached peak popularity in 2021, Dreams by Fleetwood Mac got a whole new generation of listeners 44 years later, etc). You could probably talk for hours about what this means about how open young people actually are to different sounds/styles/eras versus what we might have thought based on the music labels/radio pushed on them in yesteryears, etc.

I also think it's notable that the two biggest songs of 2022 so far, Bad Habit by Steve Lacy and As it Was by Harry Styles, are nostalgic guitar-driven songs - over a decade after these kinds of guitar-based songs almost completely fell out of the mainstream in America (not to mention Good for You by Olivia Rodrigo last year). Makes me interested to see where pop is going for the rest of the decade

also, happy birthday!!!

[InsightfulVisionary]

It's funny how you talked about the 4 horsemen of the musical apocalypse when for me, I found out about Steve Lacy through my friend who recommended his "Hate CD" album around when it came out and he was a lot less famous (yes I am going to *jokingly* gatekeep, same goes for Kate Bush ever since one of her songs got into Stranger Things). A little after Gemini Rights came out I was constantly getting ads on Spotify for it and if I'm being honest, if I never heard of him and my friends didn't know about him I probably would have just automatically tuned it out because I hate hearing the same stuff over and over again and usually have an aversion to ads. All that being said, a lot of music I love and likely never would have heard otherwise has come from Youtube's recommended tab algorithm so I have come to appreciate it. Even finding your channel was a happy coincidence because after I listened to Dean Blunt's Black Metal 2, I saw the thumbnail for your review on it and I figured I might as well hear what you had to say about it (I'm really glad I did!)

[viktorskog]

It's so great to see such insightful discourse from "older" generations about the current, modern state of music and its place in society!

[keylelizyane]

Happy Birthday, sending love from Brazil❤️❤️

[Jaden-zuwc]

Happy Birthday Professor Skye!!
I love bad habit but i haven't checked out genimi rights yet, your review has convinced me thoo!

[tyrusquiroz]

By the way, the colour of that shirt suits you well! Happy belated birthday!

[atlargeauteur]

I would say his connection to Flying Lotus was huge he was on flamagra and produced a song for DAMN pride.

[robinlawrence]

happy birthday bruv i’m from the UK and your video on mavi was one of the best videos i’ve ever seen i love what ur doing

[natashamunro]

Happy Birthday professor!! Hope you have/had a great day :))

[gain]

love this skye, its good to have some appreciation of music and thats what you always deliver. i hope u had a lovely birthday <3

[malcolm]

Happy Birthday Prof Skye thanks for the great reviews

[sean.anthony]

Happy Birthday! I’m going to go back and look but I wonder if you have looked into Mac Demarco. He is, in my opinion, the face of bedroom pop and the TikTok generation, or well he used to be. I’d say his style has heavily inspired a lot of bedroom pop and modern Indie so it’s definitely worth giving a look. But great video!

[cactusesforyou]

if you ever do a throwback review (wishful thinking, ) i suggest circles by mac miller. it shows him having fully transformed from bombastic pitsburg rapper turned melancholy musician; his final album, it perfectly foreshadows his death. it went down in history as one of the most cryworthy moments in the history of hip hop

[purple]

Happy Birthday, hope you have a great day!! I found you through your Dijon review because you were one of the only people talking about it. I'm glad you reviewed this project as well.