SONDER
Too Late to Die Young
Too Late to Die Young
(Sonder Global)
Here’s a chasm, as wide as that between my grandparents and my sixteen year-old self, in ripped strides annotated with felt tipped swear words, on my way to school in 1977.
Here’s a chasm, as wide as that between my grandparents and my sixteen year-old self, in ripped strides annotated with felt tipped swear words, on my way to school in 1977.
The words. The words. They are sung as if they are very important. They are accompanied with plastic soul wailing, the kind that approximates a drunk man playing darts - that bullseye of a note is out there somewhere, just need to throw enough. It’s the sound of a young man whispering in a young woman’s ear whilst he’s distracted by Tinder.
‘Bitches’. It’s like ‘woke left’ - people who use the word without thought raise a flag, flapping lazily in the aircon. It’s less than an apostrophe. Less than a dash. Less than ‘baby’. I’m a big fan of ‘baby’ in a pop song, even if it’s often stuck amidst a marsh of muddy cliche, it has a positivity to it. ‘Bitch’ is an attempt to talk soft but retain some kind of weary street tough. It’s like middle class white kids throwing guns in the air. It’s the single word lyric equivalent of very clean trainers. Absolute entrepreneurial vapidity. Influencer economy.
All the words in Sonder’s latest video, compilation, promotional sound thing are ‘bitches’. They all have the same basic low watt power, filling an empty frequency void. Relationship packaging.
And the visuals that accompany the muttered words. Are what happens when someone gets the message that old technology is hip but doesn’t understand that old technology is also a Ronald Reagan advert for Californian governorship, is also a mid-western church preacher grifting on VHS (actually both these examples sound more interesting than this). They make the various degraded images of three young blokes standing around moodily wondering if their takeaway is ready (plus their paid for girlfriends - ‘models’ no less - standing around, looking generally mystified) ready for the ‘teenage internet expert’ scene in a Tom Berenger thriller.
But young bitches love it, apparently. Old bitches, like me, or just me, hate it. I would blame it on marijuana legalisation in some American states but get the feeling that this particular kind of dumb would exist on a diet of legal milkshakes and simple technology access. Lazy bitches. I’ve just put in more work on this critique than they have on all the lyrics of their latest effort. Maybe that’s the point I’m not getting. because I’m an old bitch. It’s all about the stupid, stoopid. That’s a level of academic criticism I’m not prepared to teach - it’s not Duke of Earl stoopid, or Ramones stoopid. There’s no class, no actual verifiable thought beyond ‘make $’.
I’ll stop bitching now.
Main Image: Sonder Screenshot
Main Image: Sonder Screenshot
