Just a girl living in a post-genre-bending-remix-mashup world.

My long dead newsletter makes a celeb appearance.

Tuesday afternoon the New York Times, ‘Amplifier,’ playlist appeared in my inbox: “6 new (genre-smashing) songs you should hear now.” I listened to ‘All The Way’ and ‘Never Enough’ as I did chores.

The same day, I went to see the movie, ‘Sinners,’ with a friend.

All three combined usual tropes into something fresh and original. They played in my brain on recursive loops.

‘All The Way’ is a country collaboration between Bailey Zimmerman and rapper BigXthaPlug. Hardly the first of its kind, it continues to redefine the boundaries of the genre. ‘Never Enough’ furthers Turnstile’s reputation as a “post-post-hardcore” band who uses vintage electronics to evade clean categorization.

‘Sinners’ could be called a vampire film, a horror movie, a thriller, or a period-piece — while mixing in surprising elements of comedy and music. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Earlier, I sat in a therapy session discussing the merits of depth vs. breadth —in relationships, livelihood, culture. My therapist made a compelling statement: “Humans are inherently niche. We talk about a ‘loneliness epidemic’ while also witnessing the death of subculture. Where are the punks? The preps? The nerds? Where do we fit? Everyone does the same thing. Trends make us easier to market to.”

An irony, but a truth: sameness can be isolating. It’s like talking about the weather all the time: fine, general, agreeable, palatable. Anyone can talk about the weather, but what do we learn about each other? What do we learn about anything? Polite conversation maintains order. Polite conversation isn’t disruptive. Following trends serves the same purpose.

So, is there an antidote to this homogenization? To this sameness? To appropriation? Can genre-bending forge a new path? Art has always questioned tradition by thumbing its nose at the past generation and then doing the opposite. How is a world flooded with so much information questioned? Where does one start demolishing?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the essay, ‘On the Body’ by Linda Nochlin. The summary reads,

“Nochlin explores how, from the late 18th century, fragmented, mutilated, and fetishized representations of the human body came to constitute a distinctively modern view of the world.”

The message is clear: throughout history, culture and politics are re-written though deconstruction. Nochlin posits,

“Put in its simplest terms, the omnipresence of the fragment — in a variety of forms and with a wide range of possible significance — in the visual representation of the French Revolution had something to do with the fact that ‘the French Revolution was caught in the throes of destroying one civilization before creating a new one’.”

So then, what does today’s art and media say about modern civilization? All three examples above upend various cliches and narratives — but rather than fragmenting, they rearrange separate pieces into a mashup, a remix, a bending of genre to create new meaning.

In today’s globalized world, I wonder if the flip side of mono-culture is a re-imagining of the niche. Sharing disparate ideas invites thoughtful conversation, forges community, and builds anew. Assimilation through capitalism proves hollow — what if, rather, we construct a future by reclaiming the various parts that collectively serve us? I sometimes feel as though everything has already been done, and there’s nothing left to say. But maybe more begets more. And, the weird and earnest is always harder to shake than the palatable.