Clairo - Heaven
Back in 2017, Claire Cottrill, aka Clairo, released a song entitled “Pretty Girl.” The song went viral for two basic reasons: one, it’s a good song; two, it comes across as unpolished and unfiltered, as if it hasn’t been washed through a multitude of computerized enhancements and sonic graft jobs, followed by undergoing de-rezz and then hi-rezz.
Clairo | Photo Credit: Brooks Sproul
In other words, it was clean and pure and spontaneous. Unlike what was about to happen.
As tens of millions listened to “Pretty Girl” and loved it, a small coven of internet tyrants, called trolls, began digging through the trash, looking for something – anything – they could spin as scandalous tittle-tattle. Why? Because like the Grinch, they have hearts ten sizes too small, are jealous as jelly of anyone who is successful, and are generally boorish human beings.
In effect, they are the worst people on earth: shrill, shallow, loutish, and two-faced.
Referring to it as “research,” the troglodytes scrutinized every scrap of information, every tidbit of data available on Clairo and her family. Ponderously the great probing machine ingested its bales of gen; grinding, groaning, shuddering, it finally belched out its product: small puffs of acrid, multi-hued fumes.
According to the Paleolithic gnomes, Clairo’s father, Geoff Cottrill, was found guilty of being employed in marketing, where he worked for a music promotion outfit called Rubber Tracks, which, it turns out had nebulous links to The Fader, an online magazine covering music, style, and culture. Untrammeled by intelligence, or anything analogous to grey matter, the internet idiots concluded that, since The Fader was the first to bring Clairo to listeners’ attention, and since her father – perhaps – knew people who worked at The Fader, then Clairo was, indisputably, an “industry plant.”
What is an “industry plant?” An industry plant, as defined by Complex, is “a pithy derogative that we (haters) wield to imply that a rapper or singer is an upstart fraud, a record label puppet, a focus group-tested vessel of creativity so-called.”
In the end, the trolls and their bleating cronies are a group of theorizing dilettantes.
In other words, a fake or a phony. Or if you prefer, a poseur.
Ostensibly, Clairo was the product of a vast conspiracy. She presented herself as an indie whiz-kid, while in reality she had been groomed for a top slot in the industry. And, declared the goblins, the proof was in the pudding: her very talent indicated corruption. No one, asserted the internet pests, aka envious trolls, could write one song, post it, have it go viral, and become all-the-rage.
The bugbears, of course, ignored a crucial factor in the situation. They themselves are irretrievably part and parcel of a collectivity with only mass communication to shape their hopes, formulate their values, and arrange their thinking. Without the internet they would be little more than nonentities, less than mediocre, individuals whose sophistries would be devoid of targets. Their pangs of envy would have no outlet.
In the end, the trolls and their bleating cronies are a group of theorizing dilettantes.
Personally, I like Clairo’s music. It has a raw, uncontrived edginess about it that resonates with my musical taste. She utilizes authentic themes and commensurate rhythms, fusing them into sonic organisms with a soul. And I don’t give a tinker’s damn whether she’s the willing or unwilling tool of the music industry, foisted upon me by being preordained, prepped, trained, and assembled. I just like her music.
I give no credence to the allegation she is an “industry plant.” And if it turns out she is, well, by-golly, more power to her. In fact, I’d like to put in my application right here and now to be an “industry plant,” the next-big-thing. Sadly, I’m bereft of talent, ugly, and my singing ability is akin to screaming banshees from hell.
So I don’t think it’s going to happen. It requires talent, kind of like, well – Clairo.
