3 Things We’re Diggin’
Week of Apr 16, 2023
Ashleigh — “Jury Duty”
If I can giggle a few times after putting my kids to bed, and before I hit the hay myself, I am a very happy human being. And, thanks to the freevee original show, Jury Duty (which I watch on Amazon), my giggle dreams have come true. The show description says “Jury Duty is a documentary-style comedy series that chronicles the inner workings of an American jury trial through the eyes of one particular juror.” The premise is part comedy, part documentary and the actors are all on top of their game. I can’t imagine the actual filming process of this show and how the cast and crew could keep it together, but I’m delighted they did, because the result is pure comedy.
A.J. — “Heart On My Sleeve”
Not only am I fascinated by the creation of the song Heart On My Sleeve featuring AI-generated vocals by Drake and The Weeknd but more importantly, I think it absolutely rips. Take a listen first before reading on. The song you heard was created by an artist (yup, a real life human being) who claims they have been working as a ghostwriter for major music labels and “got paid next to nothing.” Now I don’t know exactly how this track was created but here’s my educated guess: the ghostwriter wrote the lyrics, sang them into a mic, and used an AI program that replaced their voice with the voices of Drake and The Weeknd. You can read all about how Universal Music Group, the music label that represents Drake and The Weeknd, has repeatedly pulled the song from Spotify and other music streaming apps. Obviously, they do not want anybody making money off of their artists but them. But I’m not that interested in the legal and business side of AI-generated music. All that stuff will eventually be sorted out. I’m more interested in how AI can be used as another tool by musicians, because judging by Heart on My Sleeve, when this tool is used by a creative and talented human, the results can be staggeringly good.
Bubba — Steel Beans
Is there a word for a double-take on Instagram? That thing when you’re mindlessly scrolling to the depths of Instagram, giving your thumb yet another cardio workout it never asked for, when your brain finally registers what your eyes blankly caught two or three swipes ago and says “Wait, wait, wait. What the heck was that?”* Well, that happened to me a few months ago when Steel Beans popped up on my feed.
Here’s the scoop on Steel Beans:
Steel Beans is a rock band
(Cool.)
Steel Beans rocks
(Cool, cool.)
Jeremy DeBardi is the frontman of Steel Beans
(Yep, ok.)
Jeremy DeBardi rocks
(Yep, got it.)
Steel Beans had been a full band with a revolving door of almost 50 members in the past 15 years
Steel Beans only has one member left
(Oh, shame.)
Jeremy DeBardi is the only member of Steel Beans
(Poor guy.)
Steel Beans is still an active, full band.
(Say what now?)
Jeremy DeBardi plays lead guitar, drums, keys, and sings at the same flippin’ time
Now, whether or not you think Steel Beans is the stuff of rock legend or just another novelty act, discovering this artist has marked a few interesting “firsts” in my life: The first artist I’ve discovered on social media as well as the first artist I almost exclusively interact with on social media. That is to say that besides attending a recent live performance (Steel Beans is currently on tour), I plan to follow Steel Beans exclusively on Instagram, watching his outrageous reels in lieu of listening to Steel Beans releases on Spotify. And while I can easily rationalize this decision (Jeremy is, without a doubt, a better live performer than Steel Beans is a studio-recorded artist), it’s the unexpectedness of it all – how abruptly my relationship with music has changed – that interests me: A social-media-avoiding-millennial like me – someone who has only seen a single TikTok video in their life – managed to fall in love with a sloppy, unbuttoned, coffee-chugging rockstar because of Instagram. Is this what being Gen Z feels like?
*After two seconds of Googling, it looks like a double-take on social media is still just called a double-take. Lame.
