Music serves many different purposes. Some people listen to find relatable subject matter and content to help them feel understood. They normally land on music by people that have a lot in common with themselves, whether that be race, wealth, age, nationality, language, gender, etc. Sometimes people listen to help themselves calm down after a long day. Lots of acoustic guitars, pianos, and easy going melodies are most common for this listener. Most people are just passive listeners, whether that be songs on the radio or music from their childhood that never gets old after decades of listening. There’s never any attempt for new music connections, it may come accidentally, but it’s never looked for.
100 gecs are not for any of these types of people. Their music challenges everything that most people think music is supposed to be. It’s not something that can be listened to passively, or with any conception of what music is “supposed to be.” As soon as you close that door, 100 gecs immediately becomes unlistenable. There’s no acoustic guitars, no three and a half minute long radio singles, nothing to ponder over, everything’s drenched in layers upon layers of autotune, etc.
Because of all of this, 100 gecs has been called everything from the future of pop music, to people not believing that anyone unironically listens to them. So much so that 100 gecs have had to defend themselves over and over that their music isn’t ironic. “We’re not joking all the time… sometimes. A little bit. We’re having fun -- we’re not fucking being ironic,” says Laura Les, one half of the duo, during an interview with NME. And that’s what 100 gecs is, pure fun in the age of the internet.
Their music abides to no genre, and this project holds true. It’s a remix album of their 2019 album, 1000 gecs. While the original album sounds crazy on first listen, much of it sounds conventional compared to what’s on here. The over 20 artists that are on these remixes help with this, as their diversity in sounds and styles help transform the originals into these insane remixes, but 100 gecs somehow manage to make this project come together with somewhat of a cohesive sound.
This album’s sound is extremely hard to pin down, but it mainly consists of electronic, bubblegum pop, nu metal, and use of distortion. But even that only accounts for maybe half of what’s in here. For example, the “gecgecgec (Remix)” with Lil West and Tony Velour starts off as a rap song, but ends up with Laura’s heart wrenching vocals over an acoustic guitar and trap drums. “xXXi_wud_nvrstøp_ÜXXx (Remix)” with Tommy Cash and Hannah Diamond sounds straight out of a Eurodance club, with it’s fast paced beat and synth driven production.
They also bring on some big names for some of these remixes. The first “ringtone (Remix)” features Charli XCX, Rico Nasty, and Kero Kero Bonito. All of them are big in their respective fields, but somehow come together to make the most accessible remix on the entire project. But the biggest feature is Fall Out Boy on the “hand crushed by a malled (Remix)”, which also features Craig Owens and Nicole Dollanganger. Patrick’s voice comes in blaring during the first chorus, which along with these piercing guitar lines, instantly makes the song feel like a mid 2000s punk anthem instead of the original being an off kilter electro-pop song.
They also have a couple official releases of some new songs as well, as both of them had been played before in a previous Minecraft concert. “came to my show” is another electronic banger with minimal production and killer hook by Laura. You can even hear the Minecraft lyrics still there in the first verse, “Do it big in the mine, like always. Do it big, getting diamonds like always. Grab my golden pick, and my golden axe. And my golden shovel.” “toothless” is the other new song, and it features a genre bending outro that’s closer to what 100 gecs have come to sound like.
While there’s plenty more to go into, like the Skrillex brostep revival that is the Ricco Harver remix of “800db cloud”, or the bouncy remix of “745 sticky” by Injury Reserve, 100 gecs music is always best enjoyed by just diving into it, even when it’s just people remixing their songs. Whether you enjoy their songs or not, they’re not someone that you can easily forget.
I can still remember listening to 100 gecs the first time, and laughing out loud at the EDM beat switch of “745 sticky”. Or even though I didn’t enjoy the album on first listen, I still had “stupid horse” and “ringtone” stuck in my head for next month. Even listening to this remix album for the first time, the drop on the Danny L Harle remix of “gec 2 ü” caught me so off guard the first listen.
100 gecs is a group where you need to have that experience with them. They’re someone that is going to make just as many people angry than people happy, but you’ll remember the name no matter what. Is it the future of pop music to come, or is it a wading craze like dubstep was in the early 2010s? Only time will tell, but there’s no forgetting them.
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