The Music for Polly People
On Gus Dapperton, discovering new art and artists, and the fresh effects of their music on their audience.
Turn that thing off, I pled. His voice was mere noise in the background of that dinner. It was a friends playlist and it didn’t fit the vibe but it continued to play on and I soon dismissed it as background noise; a form of wailing — and I begged for my tastebuds to conquer my other senses.
Perhaps it was the raspiness to his vocal abilities or rather that form of shriek — he is intelligibly screaming through his neck and vocal cords. There is almost nothing melodic or harmonic about the way he shrieks; it doesn’t blend well into his choruses, it doesn’t harmonize well with the climaxes of his songs. But he does so and he continues to do so in bravado and they let him. And the tunes that came with the singing! He was an imposition: his music was simply imposed upon you and whether you enjoyed it or not, it was hard to ignore; your tastebuds give in and your other senses function on because it was all far too loud.
Who is this anyway? And I was told who it was and even his name fled over my head, unmemorable, a fleeting stage name, his last name had too many syllables at that time for someone uninterested to articulate; it was difficult, and I didn’t care enough to repeat it because for what? And so I continued to live my life untouched until one day in the same year of that dinner where that playlist jammed, it was a post on social media of another friend — the ones that disappear after a day — and it was this tall man, almost dressed obnoxiously; it was the visual physicalities that one would initially access because you are looking through a screen, but you don’t necessarily care at first because everyone is dressed obnoxiously in your screen these days! But it wasn’t the physical appearance of this tall man on that stage that stopped you from tapping on your screen to skip that slide, it was the simple fact that it’s him! That is him! And I observed him perform his semi familiar screams and shrieks and wails on that stage in all his glory, performing that song and everyone in the audience seemed to love him and I was taken back to the night of that dinner and he continued to have the same effect on me. And so without instinct or thought I clicked on his profile that was tagged in the following stories — oh how the internet truly does everything for you! — and I was finally exposed to this singer. In his pictures he is dressed exaggeratedly; baggy pants that overwhelmingly outsized him, in neon colors that you see in a thrift shop, complete with sparkly eye shadow and the hair! he wears the bowl cut which he flaunts in that familiar bravado so boldly. And I found this exposition to Gus Dapperton — he has a name now — confusing. Was this really him? Is the persona legitimate?; the funk he implements unto himself seems far too coerced, it all seems far too predictable, he was any other new coming of age artist that so desperately wanted to make himself seen. But isn’t that the common goal for this generation? How modest our dreams have become. So I fulfilled his wishes and searched him up on the internet, the sort of thing you do when you are fatally unoccupied which led to myself devouring his videos and the color of his hair would change accordingly, the same bowl cut, buzzed off in some, and I could see clearly now what he would do with his mouth and his face when he does that thing — oh, that thing! — when he lets that sound come out through his vocal cords and escape from his mouth. It was almost the only thing that stuck with me now; his thin lips would open agape, widely, with a simultaneous frown — just like the effect he had on me, his mouth is evidence that his own voice is imposed upon him. And then I did the thing an emerging fan would do (still on the brink of denial) — I read that noise! The so called wailing that screamed at me when he opened his mouth the way he does now that I knew what it visually looked like and that was the moment I entered a realm of deep intense admiration for the noise; now to me a form of sound. It was poetry! The style in which he assembled his words together, the decisions he would make to concoct and conjoin these expressions in his own style — it was music! And everything made sense and I became part of his audience, an avid listener in the chorus of his fans, I would include him in my playlists, I transformed, but life goes on.
His music becomes a drastic convention in your life once you let him — after the numerous amounts of him imposing himself onto you from that dinner; his screaming, sometimes in desperate anger — it works! But I learnt to appreciate it and let him because it soothes you; the raspiness that came with it becomes smooth melody to those senses you once would have suppressed and you admit that if this was any other singer I would not appreciate it the same way I am submitting myself to his music; the way I am living through his music now.
It seems to move forward, in a linear fashion but like the screams and shrieks that comes and goes in his music, he directs us to the random non linear stresses in his wails; sometimes it feels all too non sequential — like a drug hallucination; its effects unknown, uncontrollable, a substance that takes over you, which you willingly let your senses surrender for, like Gus.
It keeps coming at you; you do move forward — like reading a book you progress through headings and chapters and advance through the commas; and you let it guide yourself through every rhythm, every chorus, every synth that leads to a new verse, the strum of the bass that welcomes you to a bridge and the frequencies that work up to the chorus — you give in to him to take over your senses, conscious or not, you are aware of the music taking over your soul. It was the poetry of his lyrical powers that coalesced with his melodies and the harmony that birthed the masterpieces which he released into the world that I soon learnt to appreciate.
There was now to me an intense form of admiration to the melodies and harmonies in the style of his screams and shrieks and wails; that now blends into his choruses, and which I now permit. And in the moment of his music there is an instant switch of your own identity and you let yourself solely become one and blend into his audience — and this was the sort of blending into his music which he desires the raspiness of his voice would coalesce amongst the harmonies of his music. A chance for your identity to escape with his music. Life goes on, and his music plays in the background, your hips will sway and your head bobs and his music gets buried in the back of your head even after it plays and you will only notice it playing once you give your mind the power to.
Soon after I discovered him, he released a record Where Polly People Go To Read which was all I listened to for a whole month. The month ends and I notice I still did not suffer any form of boredom, or fatigue towards it. It was hard for me to become immune to it. And soon I pondered whether this was due to the form of the lyrics itself; despite my deep emotions of trust and admiration towards his writing I noticed it was never fully lucid for me, there never was a stance in his lyrics — it never really entirely made sense to me. “The reason I don’t [share the meaning to the lyrics] is because the secret meaning is for the listener, so they can relate on their own.” That’s Dapperton speaking, in all his glory; a white tank top tucked snug in his signature oversized pants, shiny pair of maroon-ombre sunglasses indoors and his signature bowl cut, now extremely bleached in a neon shade of yellow — speaking at the height of his success during the period he released a song about dreaming to be in movies. And perhaps his audience — including myself — related to it like he did. The modest dreams of our generation; oh to be seen!But this song just like his others were interpreted in numerous, unfathomable manners; it gave us some sense of control over our lives. To have some sort of control over the music you listen to simply by listening to it was a dream enough for some. So I continued to tune in to his record, anticipating, patiently, for what I had no clue, but I had faith though, and trusted in the relationship I’ve formed with this man, letting his music take over my identity, the way he took over his, a newly running current flowing through my veins, and I let life take over.
