On Anamanaguchi's Chiptune Cover of Wavves' "So Bored"
From the amount of attention that's been heaped on Wavves' skate-fuzz single "So Bored" this year--whether it's inspired by overzealous, me-first hoopla or deserved enthusiasm is something to argue at this weekend's Bruar Falls grand opening--you'd be forgiven for thinking that Nathaniel Williams's three-minute shit-gaze ode to fidgety, pot-smoking angst is the Gen B successor to Green Day's "Longview." That's far from a done deal, but a notion that's ushered along when Wavves's early-20s peers are feverishly producing covers: first, the Vivian Girls played "So Bored" live during South by Southwest, though the video post of them doing so has disappeared from their blog; and yesterday, Brooklyn chiptune squids Anamanaguchi posted an 8-bit instrumental version here.
Filtered through the essential parts of a flea-market console, "So Bored" becomes a victory lap for the home-run stretch of NES R.B.I. Baseball, not the next "Loser." So what we might have here instead is something else: the progression of future-forward-thinking band-stunts--i.e. the best way to harness the longtail is not to write songs about Perez Hilton-level celebrities a la 2007, but rather to ride 2009's horses before they've even left the gate. Frances and the Lights, also on Jakob Lodwick's Normative with Anamanaguchi, already tried a slow-jam lounge-version of Kanye West's "Can't Tell Me Nothing," but Wavves's "So Bored" is next-level meme-ification. Someone, quick, cover a track on Veckatimest--you've only got two months left!
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