Zoomers [sometimes] suck
on Feid, Karol G, Rauw, + Rosalia
Yes, this is another “kids these days” post. But just allow me to get it out of my system real quick.
I’ll start by saying I love Rauw Alejandro. As much as I acknowledge that he’s an industry pawn whose music and persona are determined for him by a combination of corporate elites and artificially-generated algorithms, I can’t deny that his music and persona are fairly interesting (if not actually good). I find the production of his music—which combines old school reggaeton, trap, R&B, and freestyle—to be pretty creative, and his persona—a weird mix of femme boy, trapero, R&B heartthrob ala Chris Brown, emo futurist, and elegant fashionista—to be mildly compelling.
I also have to credit him (and his ex (colonizer) gf Rosalia) for turning me onto old school bolero. I have a lot of respect for young artists who incorporate elements from classical genres into their repertoire, thereby exposing the young ‘uns to them.
Thus, I was excited when I heard that Rauw covered NJ-native Frankie Ruiz’s classic salsa song “Tu Con El.” Sadly, Rauw didn’t have the vocals or the chutzpah to pull it off. When you listen to Ruiz’s original version, you hear the longing, the passion, the depth of experience that must’ve enabled him to sing in such a manner…whereas Rauw’s rendition falls flat. It’s boring and disappointing in the same way that the answer ChatGPT gives you when you ask it what the point of Book 10 of Augustine’s Confessions is (a thing my zoomer students sometimes do).
The miserable flop of a song made me think back to
’s piece on how the new breed of R&B singers lack the soul and internal depth that old school R&B singers had.It seems that R&B music shifted somewhere along the cultural faultline where Americans started to claim to be more self-aware, conscious of “protecting their peace” and blocking out “toxic” relationships–thanks in part to the mass expansion of Western talk-therapy–our secular form of salvation. And yet, despite priding ourselves for our growth in “emotional intelligence,” we seem to be more apathetic and detached, averse to risk, vulnerability, and humility. We are fine with pleasure and empathy, but avoid passion and compassion. We are more interested in posturing ironically for the gram and parading our bad-bitchery than actually seeking, than feeling that flame which might possibly set our hearts ablaze or burn us. Better to stay cool, calm, and collected.
I also tried to capture this generational divide in my review of Gaga’s ARTPOP.1