There is such a thing as bad taste and you don't have to feel guilty if you have it but it definitely exists
Hella Immaculate is thoughts/FEELINGS, peculiar music, and actions to improve our world, from me, writer-performer-comedian Dave Maher. Thank you for reading!
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I default to thinking in absolutes, but I know the world is gray. I revel in the grayness now. BUT because of my default, I fucking love it when something seems real black-and-white to me. It’s usually not, but oh man, those few seconds of certainty are sweet.
Here’s my clear cut issue this week: nu-metal is bad, right? Like, irredeemably, fully bad. Sure, millions of people bought albums by Korn, Limp Bizkit, and whoever else. And we know many of those people started bands, so yes, those O.G. nu-metal bands are technically influential, but COME. ON, man. This is Bad Music.
You know that bottom, back inch of JNCO jeans that got muddy from slipping under the heels of your skate shoes? This music sounds like that muddy jeans inch looks.
Right?
RIGHT?!
Please.
So why is Linkin Park getting a retroactive redemption narrative? And truly, I mean zero ill to the dead and especially not toward any of the people Linkin Park’s music genuinely helped. It’s okay to like bad music! But it’s definitely Bad Music.
And we’re straying from nu-metal territory, but this:
Actually, my guys, NO. The end. We don’t need to renegotiate these fucking legacies. Just because a certain amount of time passes doesn’t mean we’re compelled to take the exact opposite opinion all thinking people had the first time around.
I don’t know how these feelings square with my belief that the distinction between “favorite” and “best” is bullshit. You should like what you like without paying lip service to what’s “important.”
But I don’t know! Also, you should just know when what you happen to like is total trash. And I don’t mean reinstating the concept of the Guilty Pleasure we collectively released in the last decade. I just mean admit a handful of things are objectively terrible.
I realize this doesn’t add up to a very cohesive philosophy of taste. If I have to boil it down, I think what I’m trying to say is I don’t like when people are contrarian except in the ways I’m contrarian.
Am I actually kinda right?
This Week’s “This Is Your Afterlife”
I told you a while back about Angel Bat Dawid and her perfect-for-quarantine album The Oracle (she recorded most? all? of it on her iPhone, and it’s also got a particularly isolated-interior-spaced-out vibe). I started brainstorming dream guests for the podcast a while back, and she was first on the list.
She did not disappoint, and I’m so, SO excited for you to hear this episode. The memory she chose to relive is this beautiful school concert she played at a zoo that kind of foreshadowed her whole life. And it’s just invigorating to talk to someone who loves what they do so much it seeps out of their pores.
If you missed the announcement, I launched my Patreon this week. I’ve worked incredibly hard to make sure the rewards are cool and relevant, it’s affordable, and that it actually builds the community I want around my work. This is a great week to join because I’ve already got bonus content posted from the Kimberly Michelle Vaughn episode, and I’ll have loads more from Joz Norris and Angel Bat Dawid very soon.
Join me here and spread the word: patreon.com/davemaher.
Wamp Wamp (What to Do)
Watch The Forty-Year-Old Version on Netflix (hat tip to my man and last week’s “Sound” provider @calvero_sings for this rec and the inspiration for this week’s essay while I’m at it).
If you dig the kind of cultural/creative existential crises I have each week in Hella Immaculate, you’ll enjoy it: Playwright pushing 40 reckons with her obscurity after appearing on a prominent 30-under-30 list (ugh) and finds her voice as a rapper. Parts of it were a lil unrealistic (do smart, charismatic people really break out rapping in so many situations?), but the writer-director-star is so likable and the story so painfully relatable that even the weird moments are kinda great.
Read the results of the research project that gave $7,500 per person, in cash to homeless folks in Canada. Feels like a good one to have in your back pocket for gentle conversations with cynically conservative relatives during the holidays (are we doing holidays this year?). Turns out maybe people just want to take care of their needs, not go on massive drug sprees (though tbh massive drug spree sounds kinda heavenly).
Celebrate. We donated a total of $20 to Nox Arca Theatre, the independent theater that nursed Feed Wolf Ice Cream into being.
Just curious, are the weekly fundraisers becoming a bit much for people? I’m happy to change up the style of actions I suggest to keep people invested. The last thing I want to be is performative with activism. And if there are just long lulls where I’m the only one donating, that’s totally cool! But I don’t want this part of the newsletter to be a downer. And as previously mentioned, I’m prone to an existential crisis, but I promise this isn’t one.
I’m genuinely curious your thoughts if you have ‘em.
Donate to Seeding Sovereignty in honor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day. They’re an Indigenous and womxn-led organization who’ve been doing COVID-19 mutual aid in addition to their other environmental and social justice work. You can see in the post below, they recently distributed 600 backpacks to unsheltered people in the (U.S.) Southwest.
I donated $25. Reply with what you donate, and I’ll post our total next week.
May I Play You a Sound?
This is out of nowhere (it came up on an algorithm-generated reggae station I started after listening to a Drake song), but this song, “Move Mountains” by Alkaline, is absolute Top 5 Most Ridiculous Songs I’ve Ever Heard, maybe #1. I don’t know if I like it, but I love it.
I guess if I’m going to coddle you with a warning, I’ll say it is the smoothest song to start with the lyrics, “I have a penis for your vagina” and then get crazier from there, all while seeming like a genuine paean to love!?!
We can move mountains,
DM