Nothing Is, In Fact, Gnarly

In this episode of "More Than You Think!" we discuss how companies like Coachella, Live Nation, and Hybe are destroying the artistry of music and ruining the live music experience for real fans.

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More Than You Think! is a podcast produced by WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2, student-run radio from NC State University. Like what you hear? Consider supporting it with a gift to the WKNC Enhancement Fund. Visit our podcast page to hear more and follow us on all social media platforms @WKNC881. Thanks for listening.

Creators and Guests

Host

Valerie Gorham

WKNC Podcast Content Creator

What is More Than You Think!?

“More Than You Think!" is a podcast that explores the deeper layers of pop culture, uncovering how today’s trends connect with the political, economic, and social climate shaping our world. Each episode dives into the ways music, media, and cultural moments reflect — and influence — the society we live in. "More Than You Think!" is a podcast produced by WKNC 88.1 FM HD-1/HD-2 at NC State University.

Valerie: Hello, hello, and welcome back to More than you think it is.
Valerie: I, Valerie, and this is a podcast about how political, economic and social events affect pop culture and are also affected by pop culture.
Valerie: So let's get into it once again.
Valerie: Today the topic is the music industry and its downfall, to be honest, because in the wake of Coachella, it is becoming more and more obvious that it's not about art anymore, it's just about them getting people to pay for tickets.
Valerie: So let's talk about Coachella.
Valerie: So Bieber watched YouTube.
Valerie: Sabrina got canceled for a few hours there.
Valerie: And then Carol G. Did nothing wrong actually, and she was perfect.
Valerie: So that's good.
Valerie: But let's talk about the people who were at Coachella, specifically Weekend one and Weekend two, and how they are not the same.
Valerie: So if you're not familiar with Coachella, it's like one of the biggest music festivals in the world.
Valerie: I think it might be the biggest.
Valerie: It takes place in California every year around this time, takes place over two consecutive weekends, which are Friday, Saturday, Sunday weekends.
Valerie: So it is three days each week.
Valerie: And this year the headliners were Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber and Carol G. As I already mentioned, and everybody knows that Weekend one is typically known as the influencer weekend, which is when all of the influencers get tickets because they get sponsored by random brands that just want publicity and get them tickets to go to Coachella and they make videos there.
Valerie: And a lot of these people don't really care about music.
Valerie: Music.
Valerie: They aren't music fans.
Valerie: They get to go because they are sponsored.
Valerie: It's really crazy.
Valerie: So we're getting non music fans at Coachella and these brands that are sponsoring them are willing to pay very high prices for tickets and for airfare and hotels and all of that stuff, like transportation, all of it.
Valerie: And then Weekend two is known as like the regular weekend where actual fans get to go and have fun.
Valerie: And the artists actually know this, it seems.
Valerie: So this is when they bring out the more awesome stuff.
Valerie: Like, for example, Weekend two, Sabrina Carpenter brought out Madonna to sing together.
Valerie: Bieber again, did not much.
Valerie: Weekend two, I think he's just over his career.
Valerie: And Weekend two also, Carol G. Brought out like a bunch of like people.
Valerie: And Olivia Rodrigo showed up with Addison Rae.
Valerie: The Strokes did this crazy look into what the Strokes did.
Valerie: I'm not going to talk about it on here, but it was pretty cool.
Valerie: Look it up, watch it.
Valerie: But anyways, something that I just want to talk about are the prices of Coachella tickets.
Valerie: So if you're not an Influencer and you actually have to pay for your own ticket.
Valerie: General admission tickets are around 5 to $600, which is already expensive.
Valerie: But anyone who's ever bought a concert ticket or a music festival ticket knows that's really not what you're actually going to pay, because there are these evil people online called resellers that buy the tickets, knowing that they' high demand, and then go back on the website where the tickets are sold and put them back up for sale for two to three or four times the price.
Valerie: So Coachella tickets often are purchased for one to $2,000, and that's just for the admission.
Valerie: Not only do you have to pay for the ticket, but you have to.
Valerie: If you're traveling, you have to pay for hotels, for food, for transportation.
Valerie: It's in the middle of the desert, so you need to get an Uber, you know, like, you have to.
Valerie: You have to get someone to drive you.
Valerie: And then there's no parking, as far as I'm concerned.
Valerie: I haven't heard anything about that.
Valerie: And then there are also an incredible amount of complaints about people who have bought the tickets from the official Coachella website from resellers who have been scammed because the resellers then claim that the tickets were stolen, even though the people bought them off the official website.
Valerie: It's like, it's a whole thing.
Valerie: A lot of people are getting fake tickets.
Valerie: I don't even know how that's possible.
Valerie: Like, they go to Coachella, they, like, try to scan their bracelet or whatever, and it doesn't work, and they can't get in, and so they're just left outside.
Valerie: And then there are.
Valerie: There's also this thing that some influencers do that is really sad.
Valerie: This is kind of unrelated, but they, like, go out to the desert and take photos, and then they don't actually go into the music festival.
Valerie: They just have the photos of, like, oh, I got dressed up.
Valerie: So Weekend one for the influencers is really just about getting the photos.
Valerie: And it's not really about the music or the festival or the art or the celebration of music.
Valerie: They're just there to take pictures and post them on Instagram.
Valerie: They only know Somber.
Valerie: Like, somber.
Valerie: Are you serious?
Valerie: I saw a video or, like, a photo, I don't remember which.
Valerie: It was of Somber at Coachella in the crowd for the main stage for the Strokes Weekend 2, and he was on someone's shoulders.
Valerie: Like, are you serious?
Valerie: I know that, like, they talked about him on stage or whatever, but he's already like, six, four.
Valerie: Like, what are you doing that was gross.
Valerie: I have no reason to dislike Somber, but I dislike him, and I think a lot of people do, which is kind of beautiful to me.
Valerie: And it's something that we can all kind of come together over.
Valerie: Back to the topic at hand.
Valerie: Coachella is overpriced.
Valerie: It is like a whole vacation.
Valerie: You have to pay through the nose just to be there.
Valerie: And then everything else is sold separately.
Valerie: Even kind of water.
Valerie: Like, you have to bring a clear water bottle, which, like, anyone who's ever used a clear water bottle knows that, like, that will warm up.
Valerie: Like, your water is going to be warm within minutes, especially in the California desert.
Valerie: So if you want to refill your water bottle for free, you have to bring a clear water bottle.
Valerie: There have also been complaints that the water tastes weird and that it's not cold.
Valerie: And a lot of people say it's like, their worst nightmare.
Valerie: A lot of people are like, I went to Coachella and actually was like, the worst time I've ever had in my life.
Valerie: The music was good, but everything else was bad, which, you know, when everything is sold separately and the festival is just trying to make money and not actually offer a celebration of art and music and artistry to a group of real music fans, that's what's going to happen.
Valerie: The quality of fun in between the music sets is going to go down.
Valerie: Like, nobody wants to stand in the desert without water.
Valerie: Can we just all agree on that?
Valerie: In their, like, expensive outfit that they bought just for this weekend so that they could take pictures in their outfit for Instagram and tag, like, what?
Valerie: Like Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, who sponsor them and sponsor their ticket.
Valerie: Like, it's just a pretty sad display of what has happened to this music festival, because year one tickets were about $50.
Valerie: And before, you're like, well, inflation, Valerie.
Valerie: Like, inflation, obviously.
Valerie: Yeah.
Valerie: That was only 27 years ago, if I'm not mistaken.
Valerie: Adjusted for inflation, it's not even.
Valerie: I don't.
Valerie: I don't think it's even 100 bucks.
Valerie: So these tickets are now going for one to two thousand dollars.
Valerie: That's not.
Valerie: That's not inflation.
Valerie: That's just crazy.
Valerie: And that's because of the resellers.
Valerie: And Coachella allows that because they make more money off of that.
Valerie: And on the topic of resellers, let's talk about Ticketmaster and Live Nation.
Valerie: Just this week, Ticketmaster, or rather Live Nation, was declared a monopoly by a New York court.
Valerie: So hopefully something happens there, because it's actually disgusting.
Valerie: It is disgusting the way that they allow resellers to.
Valerie: To hike up the prices.
Valerie: And these are people who never had any intention, right, of going to the concert.
Valerie: Like, for example, in North Carolina, Bruno Mars is going to be here, which is really exciting.
Valerie: Can't go because I have an exam the next day.
Valerie: Like, frick my freaking chungus life, bro.
Valerie: But also because people log into Ticketmaster, buy these freaking tickets with no intention of going to the concert.
Valerie: And every intention of making hundreds of dollars reselling them to people who have no other choice but to buy them because there is not really another place to buy them.
Valerie: I just checked on seatgeek.
Valerie: I literally.
Valerie: I went off the recording app, went on seatgeek.
Valerie: It's just as bad on there.
Valerie: We're cooked.
Valerie: We're cooked.
Valerie: No one's going to see that Bruno Mars concert.
Valerie: There are still, like a decent amount of seats left.
Valerie: He is a, like, really famous guy.
Valerie: We all love Bruno.
Valerie: We all love Bruno.
Valerie: We do talk about Bruno.
Valerie: And he made some freaking good music on the romantic album, bro.
Valerie: Cha cha cha with me.
Valerie: And now we'll cha cha cha with you.
Valerie: Well, yes.
Valerie: And yeah, like, who can afford.
Valerie: I just saw.
Valerie: It's two.
Valerie: Two tickets, 1,000 plus dollars.
Valerie: The seats not even that good.
Valerie: The seats not even that close.
Valerie: This is why Olivia Dean.
Valerie: We all know Olivia Dean.
Valerie: Oh, come be the man I need.
Valerie: Talk to me.
Valerie: Suck to me.
Valerie: Oh, that would.
Valerie: She said, heck no.
Valerie: Ticket master.
Valerie: Screw you.
Valerie: Put those.
Valerie: Give those prices down or else.
Valerie: I don't think she actually said that to them, but she did stand up for her fans and said that I'm gonna do something about these resale prices.
Valerie: And she did.
Valerie: And like, some of these artists aren't doing that.
Valerie: Oh, that's not.
Valerie: And, and let's just be clear.
Valerie: It is not just the people selling the tickets, but let's also talk about some music management companies.
Valerie: My favorite example of this is that company Hybe H y B E. This is a record label, kind of a record label, but now it's.
Valerie: It's a really big company that focuses on more than just making music, but also making content for social media as well.
Valerie: This is the management label of Cat's Eye.
Valerie: If you don't know about Cat's eye, consider yourself lucky.
Valerie: I mean, there's really nothing to see there.
Valerie: But they are extremely popular right now, especially with, like, I think it's probably with more like middle school age type girls or, you know, I don't know, like middle school to younger.
Valerie: Because I can't imagine anyone my age, like, early 20s, late teens, actually enjoying Cat's Eye music or any of their music videos.
Valerie: And the part that gets me the most upset is that the five or six.
Valerie: I don't really know what's going on with that right now.
Valerie: There's, like.
Valerie: That's a whole topic for another episode.
Valerie: Like, but there.
Valerie: It started out with six girls.
Valerie: One of them has been on, quote, unquote hiatus, and she.
Valerie: She speculated to never return.
Valerie: She's zaning out of there.
Valerie: They're all, like, really great performers, really great singers, really pretty girls.
Valerie: There's, like, that whole Netflix show about how they got that band together.
Valerie: It's like, whatever, but the issue with this band is that they have the worst music anyone has ever heard in their lives.
Valerie: The beat always sounds like someone took a hammer and just banged it against, like, a metal trash can at, like, some sort of consistent tempo.
Valerie: It is some of the worst music, if not the worst music, if you even want to call it that I've ever heard in my entire life.
Valerie: And it feels like such a waste of these girls talent because they, like, worked so hard, I think, on that Netflix show.
Valerie: I think it's, like, about them working really hard to get into this band.
Valerie: Because that company that I mentioned before, hybe it was.
Valerie: It started out as like, an indie sort of record label in Korea, and then it transformed into this, like, global superpower of music.
Valerie: And it is the label that is responsible for BTS and all of those really popular K pop groups.
Valerie: And with Katseye, they wanted to make this, like, a global group, which is why a lot of the girls in the band are American.
Valerie: And, I mean, it's just terrible.
Valerie: Their music sucks.
Valerie: It is so bad because what this band is focused on from the management perspective is being viral on TikTok, which is probably why their music is made for, like, these really strange dance moves.
Valerie: It's certainly not art.
Valerie: I think that the point of these music videos that they make is so that, you know, other people will try to learn the dances and then repost with the songs, and then that'll make the songs viral, and then they'll get their money.
Valerie: Yay.
Valerie: Like, oh, my gosh, give me a break.
Valerie: My ears are getting polluted.
Valerie: I'm on TikTok.
Valerie: I'm scrolling, and I hear this stupid pink.
Valerie: Pinky, like, shut up, Pinky down.
Valerie: Like, eat zucchini, girl.
Valerie: I wasn't gonna try zucchini, but now I'm probably gonna.
Valerie: I'm probably gonna, like, start a movement against zucchini.
Valerie: I don't know.
Valerie: That wasn't a very good insult.
Valerie: I.
Valerie: But there are some terrible lyrics in these cat's eye songs.
Valerie: Like, for example, the song Gnarly.
Valerie: Worst song that I ever heard.
Valerie: The first time I heard it, I thought.
Valerie: I thought, music can't possibly get any worse than this.
Valerie: And then they've released two more songs since then, and they just progressively get even worse.
Valerie: But Gnarly starts out with the lyrics, Boba Tea Gnarly.
Valerie: The first time I heard it, I thought they said poverty.
Valerie: I thought she said poverty.
Valerie: Gnarly.
Valerie: And I said, either way, the lyrics are terrible.
Valerie: Like that.
Valerie: That's just terrible.
Valerie: And the concept of a song about the word gnarly, that is a good concept.
Valerie: But the way they executed it, dang, they couldn't have possibly done anything worse than that.
Valerie: That's some of the worst music I've ever heard in my life.
Valerie: And then they sang it at the Grammys.
Valerie: They performed it at the Grammys, rather, because they sing and dance, which they are good dancers and performers, but the music sucks.
Valerie: My God.
Valerie: And jeez, I mean, what.
Valerie: What a crappy performance at the Grammys.
Valerie: Like, they bent over.
Valerie: They bent over and shook their butts.
Valerie: Like, all six of them standing side by side at the Grammys.
Valerie: At the Grammys.
Valerie: At the beach.
Valerie: Now you're probably going to be like, valerie, why are you hating on women?
Valerie: I'm not hating on women.
Valerie: I'm pretty sure their choreographer is a man.
Valerie: Their dance moves are so stupid.
Valerie: These are girls who are, like, classically trained dancers.
Valerie: They're classically trained dancers and singers, by the way.
Valerie: And then they've got them saying, eat zucchini.
Valerie: And it's not about, like, them just not being classy.
Valerie: Like, that doesn't matter because you can still make fun music.
Valerie: And that's the excuse that a lot of people online say.
Valerie: It's like, oh, you're just allergic to fun.
Valerie: No.
Valerie: You know who's fun and makes good, like, messy, like, trashy pop music?
Valerie: Charli xcx.
Valerie: That's fun.
Valerie: Slater.
Valerie: She's fun.
Valerie: This cat's eye music is just noise pollution.
Valerie: Like the CIA, I'm pretty sure right now has someone locked in a room listening to Internet Girl.
Valerie: And they say they're threatening to play Internet girl for 24 hours straight if they don't give them the freaking information that they want.
Valerie: It's terrible.
Valerie: And it's even worse that these girls tried so hard and worked their butts off to get into this group, because now they're just doing this crap.
Valerie: It is beneath them, and it is beneath all of us to be listening to that music.
Valerie: And it's this horrible greed from big music corporations that it just extinguishes all the power of actual artistry.
Valerie: And the music that they make is terrible, but it's, like, so terrible that you remember it.
Valerie: The music industry is flopping.
Valerie: The music industry is going downhill.
Valerie: And if we continue with, like, social media music, we're going to be cooked.
Valerie: And if we continue with, like, social media events, for example, Coachella, we're going to be cooked, and there won't be any good music anymore.
Valerie: And then we'll all just die.
Valerie: The world will eventually end and no one will have ever made a good song again.
Valerie: So that's going to be fun, and I hope we're all looking forward to that.
Valerie: So what are we going to do about it?
Valerie: Like, don't stream music.
Valerie: That sucks.
Valerie: Yay.
Valerie: Just be mindful of who you actually give your streams to.
Valerie: Be mindful of who you're actually buying your music from.
Valerie: And on that note, the episode is over.
Valerie: Thanks for listening to more than you think.
Valerie: Again, I am Valerie, your host, and I will be seeing you soon.
Valerie: Bye.
Valerie: Love you.
Valerie: Bye!