Everyone, You're Taking Ariel Pink Too Seriously

Ever since we developed the technology to communicate with anybody, anywhere, anytime – while also maintaining a close watch on everybody else as they do the same – conversational exhibitionism has reached a point where most of our exchanges take place online in full public view. Technology has changed the way we interact day-to-day, but the difference between a letter, a phone call and an email is negligible. The difference is that our conversations are there for the world to see. Sub-tweeting is never as personal as you might think; it’s closer to Joan Rivers playing the Hollywood Bowl than it is to passing a mean note in class.

Another thing about the internet is that famous people fucking love it just as much as those of us who spend all day sat in front of a screen in a dirtying pair of pants with nothing better to do. We volunteer information regarding something dumb, like a guy doing something weird on the bus, and they let their beefs play out in front of the public’s eyes. As a result, most of our exchanges tend to be about online conversations that happened between people most of us have never met. Whether it’s Mark Kozelek going ham on War on Drugs or Azealia Banks and her Twitter circus of perpetual shade, there is nothing we love more than famous people cat fighting with hashtags, which is precisely why the internet exploded when last week’s “he says, she says” bullshit revolved around a veritable triforce of pop monoliths: Ariel Pink, Madonna and Grimes. If you’re not up to speed – here’s a recap. Ariel Pink did an interview with Faster Louder and was really Ariel Pink about it. The full interview has yet to be published, but in the preview he claimed to have been tapped by Interscope to write songs for Madonna’s new album because: “They need something edgy. They need songwriting. She can’t just have her Avicii, her producers or whatever, come up with a new techno jam for her to gyrate to and pretend she’s 20 years old.”

“It’s not because of her age,” he clarified. “It’s because of the things that she thinks she needs to do to stay in her narcissistic domination of the world. Which is totally hers to have. But it’s about not just being a yes person. I’m sure Interscope signed her like, ‘Okay, the last record didn’t do so well. We gotta do something about this. We’re gonna get all new songwriters together and we’re gonna try to come up with this thing. ’Cause she needs help with this.’”

It was just a conversation between artist and interviewer, but then the voyeurists piled in. Grimes accused him of peddling delusional misogynistic bullshit – an opinion supported by James Brooks (Default Genders) who said “UGHHHH ariel pink is the fucking WORST” and Katie Crutchfield (Waxahatchee) who asked “wtf is this world we live in that a person like that can be so revered?” – maybe also referring back to a questionable interview with Pitchfork in which he claimed he was “maced by a feminist”. Then came the headlines from NME, the Guardian, Spin, Billboard et al. Soon after that, the fans from each camp lashing out to defend their chosen one. Then came Ariel Pink re-tweeting every single comment about himself that he could find. Then finally, Madonna’s manager waded in and shut that shit down by confirming Madge has no idea who the fuck Ariel Pink is and “has no interest in working with mermaids” (ouch).

The obvious problem with Ariel’s critical assessment of Madonna is that it reeks of the idea that behind every female artist there’s a man pulling the strings; which is an all too common and incredibly infuriating opinion the music industry seems to be built on and one that Grimes tackled excellently in a blog post last year. Calling out people for stupid shit is important – it means we get to see people like Robin Thicke enjoying a downward spiral into irrelevance. But, as much as I appreciate people in the public eye being held accountable for the stupid shit they say to a global audience of millions, what if the stupid shit they say is meaningless?

You only have to listen to a few seconds of an Ariel Pink song to get that this is not a guy who takes himself too seriously. I mean, he writes songs about eating schnitzel, called one of his albums Ku Klux Glam, and agreed to appear on a satirical panel show for Fox. I’m not saying he shouldn’t be called out for chatting straight breeze, but I do fear that we’re becoming so desperate to rectify the lack of morality we see reflected in everything around us, that we demand reasons and values from statements that are completely empty. And by empty I mean in terms of conviction, rather than moral weight. It’s like trying to hold Harmony Korine accountable for saying he’s going to write the sequel to Titanic and set it on a rowing boat. It’s such painfully obvious bullshit that shouldn’t require justification.

Considering Diplo is one of the main producers on Madonna’s forthcoming album, it’s not out of this world to suggest she might collaborate with comparably even smaller artists, but Ariel Pink got where he is by being a jester not a moron. Nobody disregards the entire recent body of work of the person they’re about to work with by using vague quips like “People need more substance in their mac-and-cheese. People need more sugar or something”, especially if the person they are about to work with is Madonna. In a recent interview with Spin he said that his talent was “making people feel uneasy.” He knows what he’s doing.

The kind of people who take Ariel Pink seriously are exactly the kind of people who get hyped on an obviously fake tour poster and then turn it back on the band as soon as the realisation hits. Watered-down “troll” culture is precisely the reason why Facebook has decided it is necessary to introduce a “satire” tag for articles from publications like The Onion, so the reader can prepare for the fact that they are about to encounter a joke and not mistake something like “Archaeological Dog Uncovers Ancient Race Of Skeleton People” for a real news story. It completely removes any kind of thought process, and that is both dangerous and sad.

At the moment, “outrageous” statements are sought after click bait; a form of currency. People love the weird, the improbable, and anything that will result in a “mind=blown” situation. But in order to produce that on a constant daily basis, you have to make something from nothing. Nothing, in this case, being a joke based on a culturally familiar artist who has all the sincerity of Adam Green singing “there’s no wrong way to fuck a girl with no legs.”

The real problem behind all this is that we have come to expect our artists to be well-oiled PR machines. We can’t handle figures like Tyler, The Creator and Donald Glover and Ariel Pink making elaborate, straight-faced jokes because they do it too well. We have become accustomed to believing we can eventually find out everything about everybody. If we can collect all the facts about them, we can actually claim to understand them, really “know them”. When our pop stars start fucking with us in a major way, that ability to get to know them drifts further and further away, becoming even more of a fantasy than it already is.

If everyone was a well-oiled a machine, we’d end up with a thousand Ellie Gouldings, which is almost where we’re at now. From Beyoncé to Little Mix, our pop stars are like politicians; talking without really saying anything. So does it really make a difference if they’re talking about how “blessed” they are to be here or how Madonna releasing an album called MDNA was probably the beginning of the end? Both statements are equally vapid, but at least Ariel Pink has the decency to be funny and decide to say things that will inevitably result in conversations around feminism, women in the music industry and Madonna’s relevance. Ariel Pink is obviously happy to be the instigator for those conversations and if it reflects badly on him, he does not give a single shit, which is a quality that’s becoming harder and harder to find in the music industry. Pop stars are supposed to be entertaining and, regardless of whether you think he’s actually funny, Ariel Pink is at least that.

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