Let’s start by saying I am extremely gifted at spotting musical talent. I could watch all of the auditions for The Voice or American Idol and tell you on first watch who is the best. And I hate to tell you The Chainsmokers ain’t it, Chief.
Not all music is made to win Grammy’s. Pitbull and Flo Rida have made millions of dollars and sold millions of records with that strategy. No one’s life has been changed by a Flo Rida song. But there’s a special place in music for “artists” who make music that you know is actually bad but you like it anyway. We all have our weaknesses. I know that the 2004 album “I Don’t Want You Back” featuring Eamon’s hit record “Fuck It (I Don’t Want You Back)” won’t be inducted into the music hall of fame. But it was fun to listen to a song that had the f word in it so many times. Everyone freaks the fuck out when Call Me Maybe comes on but we all universally agree it’s one of the worst songs from a musical standpoint of all time, right?
The Chainsmokers reside firmly in this category. Music that if you hear it once, you immediately have it stuck in your head for 6 months whether you like it or not. The radio plays it until the NBA gets to it and incorporates it into every promo video. And just like Eamon, Carly Rae Jepsen, and Nickleback, I’m going to need The Chainsmokers to fade into the background.
We quite literally do not need any more music from The Chainsmokers. I have run the statistical numbers and considered all possible combinations and we have reached the limit, they have all been made. Every Chainsmokers song legitimately sounds the same. I know this is classic over 30 mentality to start resenting the kids these days but there is hard evidence that every Chainsmokers song is a version of the same combination of noises.
The Chainsmokers have made $50 million dollars writing the same song with a different feature artist for the past 6 years. I respect the fact that they have made a career out of having no actual talent and getting to live like actual rich, famous people. It’s the Kardashian school of marketing, and I can’t really knock The Chainsmokers for capitalizing on the terrible musical taste of today’s youth. But I have had enough and I am putting my foot down. I would like The Chainsmokers to please stop making music. $50 million dollars is plenty to retire off of and even have enough for most of the illegitimate children they are bound to have for all the EDM thots they are fucking.
“We rage every night. My mom’s going to hate reading that,” says Drew Taggart, 26, “but she already knows.” He’s the baby-faced half of the duo — the producer, songwriter and, increasingly, singer of The Chainsmokers. He’s sitting in a massage chair in the venue’s greenroom, sipping tequila from a red cup and chewing on beef jerky. Sitting on the black leather couch next to Taggart: Alex Pall, a 31-year-old with bedhead and neck scruff, whose role is a permutation of DJ, A&R rep (he books the collaborations), art director and bon vivant. “It’s always ‘work hard, play hard,’ ” says Pall after a pull of vodka. “But you’ll never see us getting carried out of a club. We’re way too good at drinking.”
I held back vomit reading that, just like the hot one’s mom.
These good-time bros, whose website bio includes the words “17.34 combined inches”(Pall clarifies: “Oh, that’s our penises combined… tip to tip”), are also astoundingly good at making hits.
Maybe this hatred also comes from the fact that I got too emotionally invested in this story about the ugly Chainsmoker cheating on his normal girlfriend despite being the ugly one. If we can’t even get the ugly one to not be a complete asshole, it’s not a great sign for the rest of you. We might be a little more lenient on the hot one even though he is short and cannot sing because obviously he is going to cheat but if you’re going to be the ugly one, don’t be an asshole.
Watching The Chainsmokers perform live, like I did during the always classic Monday Night Football halftime performances, I felt compelled to take a stand. I can’t bear to deal with another Chainsmokers song, following me everywhere I go, forcing itself on my ears.
Going into 2019, my new years resolution is to be done with The Chainsmokers. If they aren’t going to retire from music, I’m going to retire from them. I am officially #tooold.
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