Music for PC in 10 revolutionary songs

Group of friends in London. There is no need to tell more about PC Music, the label collective founded by A. G. Cook in June 2013. Ten years ago, when PC Music started releasing their first singles and first EPs, each piece was futuristic, projected into the future. Inside there was a real, digital culture, hyper-consumerism, accelerationism, but musically, the references were the first in-the-box productions (that is, completely made on a computer) of the 90s and early 2000s. The idea was simple: to revolutionize modern pop , flipping clichés, colliding bass and other, future and past, in an unprecedented explosion. ADHD music, sped up like an energy drink, full of unexpected twists and turns. Many, driven by the enthusiasm of the productions of A. G. Cook and Danny L. Harl for their projects or those of others such as Hannah Diamond and GFOTY, and the fundamental work of member of the collective, SOFI, are thus beginning to talk about hyperpop, maximalist pop from fast rhythms, dehumanization of singing, powerful bass. The label will always reject the name, even if we still find AG Cook on the cover of Spotify music playlists today.

However, when you need to find a name for something, it’s because the thing itself is new. And PC Music was a novelty, a subversion of the classical canons. From that moment on, hyperpop entered pop music, changing it, infecting it from the inside. For ten years – the life of PC Music, until this summer AG Cook announced the closure of the label – the deed was done. A grassroots collective movement that has managed to attract artists such as Charli XCX, Caroline Polachek, Carly Rae Jepsen who, infected by this future, have brought dominant aesthetic elements to their chart-topping PC pop music.

Now that the future has opened up, it’s time to pick ten key songs released by PC Music.

In the first round of releases of the English label, which will release four singles and two EPs from the end of June 2013 to the end of July of the same year, Danny L Harle became a hit. broken flowers, featuring Emily Verlander on vocals, is a song that harkens back to British house and represents the first elements of the PC Music sound, which constantly mixes high and low frequencies. This will only be the start of Huge Danny’s huge career (from co-producing Caroline Polachek albums to harlecorehis first solo album dedicated to the subcultures of English dance music).

PC Music’s anthem par excellence. Precisely because “beautiful”, uttered convincingly on the first fall, will become the sound tag of A. G. Cook, the man behind the label, because the single itself has all the characteristics of a PC Music song (steady rhythm, pop refrain, melodic lyrics, piercing vocals, repetitive clapping to the beat, trance synth), but Beautiful it’s the perfect distillate to discover and understand the universe of the London label.

The world of PC Music stood out in particular for promoting and supporting many female artists such as Hannah Diamond, who was the label’s nexus during those ten years. She, who is more graphic than a musician, has written a number of hits produced by AG Cook such as Hello, Disappear, Every nightbringing her Barbie-futuristic style (long before the mood Barbie came into vogue again with the Gerwig film) as an aesthetic emblem of PC Music. The songs are similar to her, a little cool, a little teenage inside, but still weird and unconventional.

In ten years, Easyfun has released very little under his own name: four singles and four EPs (two of them this year, one in August and another in October). It was enough to make him one of the favorite producers of Charli XCX who wanted him on mixtapes together. Angel number 1, pop 2in album Charlie and finally in speed drivelast single by an English artist for the film’s soundtrack Barbie. Laplanderfrom the second EP deep problemPurely PC Music: An energy drink hyperpop in a straight case with vocals from Hannah Diamond. Needed to understand all of this.

In a game about the ghostly identities of artists, PC Music Life Sim is perhaps the most mysterious. Released several remixes and only two singles, IDL extension AND Lightning lip gloss. But it’s these two songs (built on perpetual arpeggiators) that give us all the clues we need to figure out who’s behind this moniker: Lightning lip gloss really become Lip gloss for mixtape Angel number 1 by Charli XCX and IDL extension it will take the form Track 10also by Charli XCX, featured on the mixtape pop 2 (in next album) Charlie with the new arrangement it will become less interesting It’s all about your love paired with Lizzo). The two songs are signed by Life Sim, but also and above all by A. G. Cook, who is also the person behind Life sim, as also revealed by his mother on Facebook (things to be found in the Reddit maze). Resubmit the original version IDL extension it reminds us of the ambiguity that has reigned for years on the English label, where ownership of the product belongs to everyone and no one in an attempt to give up ego in favor of the network.

One of the fun things about PC Music and its subsidiaries is the game of ghost names, nicknames and projects. Among the names behind which Danny L. Harl was hiding, Danny Sunshine was perhaps the most beloved meteor. Only one song is this Never thought – presented as part of a collective collection Mayhem Month. The story behind this song is strange: Danny is referring to a song about accelerated love, which he sings in a child’s voice, and so he instructs the boy to record this song. Then due to permissions (it seems that the boy was under 16 years old) the song is not released for several years until it appears under the name Danny Sunshine. Crazy? Yes, of course, but this is the norm here.

GFOTY (an anagram of Girlfriend of the Year) was the most rebellious and crazy artist of the whole group. it will be his Bobby the label’s first official release in 2013 but this is a compilation GFOTIBAX to confirm its potential. Through the production of his faithful A.G. Cook, GFOTY can build its own Y2K universe, a sort of hyperwhite thrash world in which everything has power, from tarantellas to techno-trance carousels to Christmas songs, from criticism of capitalism made in USA to covers. Blink 182.

The appearance on the scene of Estonian rapper Tommy Cash is a breath of post-Internet aesthetics and meaningless lyrics. Tommy’s unusual presence alone hits the mark. His strong Baltic accent does everything else on the mic. A. G. Cook sees his genius first and releases a series of singles as well as part of an album. ¥€$. pussy money weed – which precedes the disc – is the first collaboration between the two, released for an English label: a slow rap composition built on two sounds of drums, bass and synthesizer. Industrial minimalism.

Not everyone knows that Caroline Polachek’s hit single – So hot you hurt my feelings – there is an inverted version called So cold you hurt my feelings presented by the artist during the Pc Music 2020 Christmas Livestream (one of the few decent livestreams of that pandemic period). To move on to the Christmas theme, Caroline prepares a new arrangement and changes some of the lyrics (“I’m a good girl, Santa” and “Don’t send me presents, you’re making it worse”). It will remain one of two releases (with a remix of Oh yes for AG Cook, featured at the Appleville digital event) Polachek of PC Music, despite the fact that between participation and collaborations (for example, staging Danny L. Harl on his two recordings), she will always remain a partner.

The relationship between Charli XCX and Pc Music began in 2016 when the English singer decided to change her career by releasing an EP. vroom vroom. SOPHIE, the label’s affiliate, arrives at the production, with AGCook and Hannah Diamond on the song. From that moment on, the relationship between Charlie and Alexander Guy blossoms, and their careers begin to move along the same path. Although Charli was never officially released to the label (with the exception of this song), she would become the band’s standard bearer, collaborating with most of its members, bringing hyperpop (a term both Pc Music and Charli dissociated themselves from) to the music world. mainstream, understood as a new idea of ​​futuristic and avant-garde pop music. xxplex it’s just all of it.

This bonus track is necessary because it’s a multi-layered paradox. First of all Hey CT this is the only song by phantom artist QT that – spoiler – doesn’t exist. The song was produced by AG Cook with the late SOPHIE and as QT we find Hayden Dunham, who would later enter the PC Music list under the pseudonym Hyd and also become the only artist to have Sophie’s posthumous works in her own discography. . The song also promotes DrinkQT, an energy drink that doesn’t exist. Become one of the iconic songs of the PC Music discography (inside it has everything that we will later call hyperpop), but it was not published by PC Music, but by XL Recording. Despite numerous four-hand collaborations with AG Cook (think of the work done with Charli XCX, for example), SOPHIE would never release anything for his friend’s label. It seems right to us to remember it in this way.