"Rebels" by Rmours
DV:
It's an indicator of how long a shadow Lorde cast that "Rebels" seems like another rejoinder in what seems to be a burgeoning cottage industry of "Royals" response tracks. And while Rmours take a different tack than T-Pain, it's theoretically an equally pointed one: given the choice, who wouldn't choose to be a rebel rather than a royal? Royals represent the establishment, the norm, while rebels represent something cool, something new, something different. The decision is an easy one.
Yet there's conflict within "Rebels" nonetheless - the hook, "Don't grow up/ It's a trap/ We can be rebels, we can rebels instead" is the problem here: unless Rmours have some sort of Peter Pan formula hidden away, the song's presenting adulthood as the antithesis to rebelling. And while it's true that some people stop rebelling as they age, it's not as if youth is a prerequisite for doing so. And also not as if growing up is something anyone can avoid. Which renders the song's theme essentially meaningless, just as Lorde's longing for the trappings of wealth lurking beneath every line of "Royals" negated the supposed critique of that song.
More than that though, there's something unintentionally hilarious about a song that advocates not growing up, yet is blinkered enough to sample the Amen Break - now halfway through its fifth decade - as a key element. I do hope the "Royals" backlash in music continues, since it's about time we had more than just a rash of thinkpieces delving into that song, but I can't help but hope that the majority of the responses land on T-Pain's side rather than Rmours'.
MG:
Hat tip to the Ann Friedman newsletter, I serendipitously read "Everybody's Doing It," an article about the evolution of peer pressure by Maxwell Neely-Cohen for The New Inquiry, right before listening to "Rebels." If you're not going to click the link, Neely-Cohen observes how the instant ubiquity of everything has broken down the royal hierarchy of high school. This doesn't mean that kids are no longer cool or losers but that it's a bit like the Clueless model - many and varied cliques. That's how I remember high school being - even during those years, I'd be hard pressed to pick any particular person (or even clique) as the most popular, but certain broad strokes (like jocks as popular and queer kids as losers) were still firmly upheld. The modern twist of today's high schoolers is how niche their cliques can get. And how easy it is to assemble the various members. Nothing's secret when you have internet access. My graduating class was just outside this new normal; I had the internet but was in the second semester of my senior year when Friendster emerged. I had found people who shared my taste in leisure activities but they lived in London and New Jersey. I was in college by the time saying you were a fan of the Decemberists was an effortless way to meet people to drink with.
Neely-Cohen never says it outright, but I think he might agree, it's hard to rebel in the old, superficial ways. If you can order a Fugazi t-shirt on Amazon and run the Fuck Yeah, Ian MacKaye tumblr, how rebellious is it to declare your allegiance to straight edge? The article considers a young queer girl ostracized by her red state peer group as someone both severely persecuted by her peers and yet connected to likewise identifying classmates through a gay/straight alliance. She's not rebelling or exploring non-conformity, she will be queer for the rest of her life and "Oh, you're gay too?" is a much more profound moment of connection than "Oh, you like Minor Threat too?" In high school I used to wear a homemade patch that said "If I'd known it was harmless I would have killed it myself," which really freaked out my classmates, but now any kid that can read that slogan can google it. I was able to pass myself off as smarter and tougher than my peers for a solid two years, today's sophomores might get two hours.
Which brings me to "Rebels." For all that "Royals" is deeply misguided (I continue to be generous and consider it naive, like its teenaged writer, but I won't deny anyone who finds it damaging or racist beyond its intent) class envy is still a thing that teenagers feel (or adults remember), as its wild popularity confirms. I'm as talked out on"Royals" as the next blogger so instead of focusing on what it does, here's what "Rebels" doesn't: understand rebellion, at least not in the sense that conventionally informs adolescence. Sure, if you're looking to overthrow your government, a large scale rebellion is the best way to accomplish that. But, in the sense that Rmours use the word (the alternative to "conform[ing] to the norm" or a way to avoid the "trap"), the more participants, the less effective the gesture. "Royals" was so massively appealing because if you identified as a monied asshole then you felt the flattery of envy. And if you didn't, you were part of Lorde's enormous cool girl posse. If you recognize yourself as defining the norm, there's no solace in "Rebels," you're basically outed as sheeple (and what a disastrous time to pick on the sheeple, what with the revelation of #normcore as cutting edge chic) but if you're smart and tough, you know there's no "we" in non-conformity. "Rebels" is shorthand and kids, no matter the era, constantly struggle not to be dismissed as shorthand.
