Dearest Old Heads,
I am still traveling, leaving the newsletter defenseless against intruders. Last week, the intruder was friendly. This week, fully hostile. You’ve been warned.
Those who manage to sit all the way through this beating will be treated to a concert ticket giveaway as a reward.
With that, I’m going to hand it off to Mr. Ketchup. GOD BE WITH YOU.
Introduction
TO MY FELLOW PATRIOTS,
I know you were all expecting Gabbie.
But let's face the truth you are TOO COWARDLY TO SPEAK: Gabbie is not fit to curate music on your behalf.
You keep your little mouth shut and tell her how much you appreciate her recommendations. You pitifully add them to your Spotify playlists. Then they sit there idle while you listen to music that you actually enjoy.
You know who you are. You know what you like. Why the hell are you having someone else “curate” music for you? It makes no goddamn sense to me.
billy bearham and I, we’re going to be honest with you since you can’t be honest with yourselves. Rather than tell you what you want to hear, we’re going to be blunt. Direct. Right to the point. Once you hear what we have to say about your favorite music genres, you’ll wish you listened to something half-way decent – like ZZ Top or Slipknot or Nickelback.
Frankly if you don’t listen to Slipknot you have no goddamn right to call yourself a fan of punk music. Learn to accept that, you incels.1
NOBODY LISTENS TO AM RADIO ANYMORE AND IT DISGUSTS ME. BEATNIK POETRY CAUSED ALL OF THIS.
It is time to share our thoughts.
God bless America.
-Mister Ketchup
What Your Favorite Music Genre Says About You
Pop
If Target were a person it would be you. The store is brightly lit but nothing is going on inside. You are the generic skin in Fortnite that my nephews always complain about. My nephew can get a goddamn new avatar from that game when they graduate elementary school. If I told you to eat pink paint chips and not file an extension of your taxes you would, because you feed what is given to you without asking to see a menu first. Nothing about you is original. That is why you have been ghosted by guys named Jake or Aaron. Not worth their damn time or mine.
Hyperpop
You definitely think you’re the most interesting person in your office. You’re not by a long stretch, but you tell yourself you are while you chain smoke cigarettes on the roof on your lunch hour.
The actual most interesting person at your work is called Devon, and he can name every type of cactus, do like 50 different bird calls and also fosters cats.
You would know this if you talked to him, or to anyone in your office for that matter, but you don’t have the ability to think about other people and their inner worlds. You just talk about your Livejournal and how you play dress to impress ironically.
You talk a lot about how your favorite band of all time is drinkpissdawg.420.jpg, but you actually just listen to Addison Rae.
You have a “band” that’s just you and your friend “davi-d” freestyling over a 400% slowed down midi of All Star and the sound of you eating Doritos. You tell everyone it’s not that serious, because you’re scared of anyone ever seeing that you’re trying, because trying is not cool. But you send water from your eyes’ manager about 30 emails a day asking them to check out your band.
Ska
You dance horribly and protest every little microinconvenience in your life. You are everything wrong with this beautiful country. The reason you adopted the checkerboard design is because you lack the intellectual capacity to play the game itself.
Ska isn’t some working class movement that works to better society. It is a silly genre for those who got picked last in the gym and failed to bring anyone to climax. Try to defend something actually worth a damn, like the goddamn constitution of the United States of America. Better yet, go ask mommy for more mozzarella sticks, you dweeb.
Electronic Music
I have nothing for you.
You’re probably thinking this is because you’re cool and mysterious, wrapped up head to toe in black and smoking a fucking clove or tugging on a Vimto vape or whatever lame thing you have in your mouth – it’s not a toothpick is it? You’re not that far gone, are ya?
But in actuality I have nothing for you because you are the most boring fucker who has ever lived.
You read a nonfiction book recently about fast food and now you will just open up most conversations with something like, “I’ve been thinking, fast food isn’t so great.” Like wow, illuminating, now please shut the fuck up rather than keep talking about exactly the same thing for the next 45 minutes.
Get back at billy & Ketchup in the comments. They deserve it.
Death Metal
You have let the devil inside your body. Your idea of fun is going to raves and doing drugs with your friends who have unresolved daddy issues. Thunder and lighting may turn you on, because God’s anger fuels your weird little mind. No amount of tattoos will make up for your lack of personality. The restaurant you work at will never consider you for a higher position because you have lowered yourself to Satan’s playground of hell.
Pop Punk
You have unironically said “adulting is hard” at least five times already today.
You have a free hugs tattoo.
Your Tinder bio says, “Do you want to be the Peach to my Luigi? Let’s build a pillow fort.”
You routinely talk about how all 30 of your exes were the problem.
You have a half sleeve little mermaid tattoo and you live for the day that you can start an under the sea singalong because that would just be oh so cool.
One time you got a handjob during a Simple Plan song and you think about that fondly.
You can’t listen to anything without gang vocals.
You own three t-shirts that say some variation of “Most Humans are 90% Water, But I’m 90% Pizza.”
You haven’t started a band, but you threaten to. Every single day of your life. The one thing stopping you is that you “can’t find a practice space.” It’s not that you have no musical ability at all, you just want an excuse to get drunk with your friends who have all stopped hanging out with you.
You got your mustache finger tattoo lasered off, but when you hear a Four Year Strong song, you swear your finger twinges.
Classic Rock
You are a true goddamn American. I hate to use the Lord’s name in vain, but you have got it all figured out. You bought a house in the suburbs forty years ago on your bag boy salary when you worked at Stop N’ Shop in high school. Nothing impresses you. Not even your children who are attending college. In your opinion no college should be accredited because they just fill your kid’s head with a bunch of liberal fantasies. Real life is working a trade job and rejecting the advances of your neighbor Jill who wants to hear those horses rev in your RAM 2500 truck.
Country
Please don’t kill me.
That’s what you want me to say when I look at you as you poke me in the chest with your finger and give me your best angry face that you practice in the mirror every day.
But it’s really hard to take you seriously as a person when you’re in a sleeveless Punisher t-shirt that’s five sizes too small and you still have a goatee in the year of our lord 2025, really tiny goatee.
You def sit around and watch old action movies and think to yourself “Yeah, i could do that” when Segal does a backflip.
You mainly sit around and talk about the good ol’ times. If you mean that one time when you were 16 and happy, then buddy that time is gone, so put your big boy cowboy boots back on and stop stomping around the world like an angry child and actually try to fix stuff instead of yelling that something is broken and demanding it be fixed by anyone other than you.
Also Jason Isbell sucks, fucking fight me, I will destroy you.
~BONUS!~ Grunge
Being part of Gen X is your entire personality and you’re going to make it everyone’s problem. The only item on your daily to do list is “accost a passing youth; tell them my parents left me unattended to drink from the firehose.” You give yourself bonus points for using the phrase “latchkey kid.”
Nothing says depression more than enjoying grunge. Instead of processing your feelings like an adult, you wear thick flannel that makes you look like a goddamn picnic blanket. Ain’t nobody sitting on you with their cured meat. The only nirvana you will find in life is accepting your fate and slowly rotting away at your minimum wage job.
Editor’s note - I can’t help but feel like these two missed some key genres that would have been ripe for a roast. Who wants to take on punk, new wave, shoegaze, post-punk, or power pop? -Gabbie
Ketchup’s Conclusion
As the most popular condiment on the goddamn planet, I have learned that being responsible is 1) for suckers and 2) for chumps.
I understand how difficult it is to face hard truths. I refuse to take any responsibility for my three failed marriages.
You can listen to whatever the hell you want, but know that you may be destroying this beautiful country.
Just because you have 17 Taylor Swift songs on your playlist isn’t going to make that girl in your liberal arts college class you spoke to once about the fibonacci sequence ask you to toss salads on the student union bean bag chair. Get your goddamn head out of the gutter and face reality. Your taste in music says a lot about you. Learn to accept that you are a poor representation of freedom and our ability to express it.
Win No Joy Concert Tickets!
Gabbie here again — LOOKS LIKE YOU MADE IT.
If you’re not too morally shaken, it’s time for a treat.
After more than a decade away, Canadian shoegaze band No Joy just released a fantastic new album called Bugland. Now they’re on tour.
I’ve got 2 tickets up for grabs for the Philly show on Friday September 5th.
This giveaway is open to ALL subscribers, not just paid. Come visit our beautiful garbage city and hang out with me!
Let it be known that I made every attempt to stop Ketchup from calling you all incels, but billy bearham threatened me with a rusty butter knife until I relented. -Gabbie
this was fun! to everyone who was scared by this please instead check out mustard @ https://justsomemustard.com/
New Wave: You wear tight clothes and converse. Except when you’re spending a night on the couch watching The Lost Boys, Blade Runner and The Breakfast Club back to back. You spend a lot of money at the salon, and on spiky offbeat designer shoulder bags. You drink vodka tonics and still own a Swatch.