Do deep cuts still exist?
Dear Maude, the center ain't hold
A “deep cut” is a song that’s considerably less popular than the majority of a popular artist’s discography but really good as well, sort of like a hidden gem only for “real,” more dedicated fans. Historically, when music was more of physical experience via cassette tapes, vinyl records, and CDs; deep cuts would be on the B side of the project and it was never the single. Any track that spent more than a cup of coffee on the Billboard Top 200 can’t be a deep cut. They should seldom be played live, on the radio, or in the club. The term “cut” is originally a reference to the groove on a record. A deep cut is closer to the center of the disc, making it less radio-friendly. There is a certain cultural cache to knowing the deep cuts. It’s a way of signaling elevated, distinct taste. Casuals will respect your knowledge, other die-hards will acknowledge your expertise. For example, if you tell a Weezer fan that your favorite song is “Buddy Holly” it comes off like a boring or safe choice that reveals nothing about you, but if you say something like “Glorious Day” then maybe they’ll perceive you as separate from the societal hivemind. Lately I’ve felt pressed to contend that deep cuts do not actually exist anymore, at least not in the fashion that they have in years prior. Rising individualism, particularly in the social media age, has bred a democratized mode of pop culture. It’s an ever-growing collection of echo chambers, many coteries of experts with shared digressions. If everything is a deep cut now, do deep cuts still exist?
Don’t get it twisted: individualism, especially in America, has been a prevalent social condition for quite some time. Robin M. Williams suggests in American Society that in American culture the premier source of action, meaning, and responsibility is the individual rather than the group. The self is both unique and asocial. Independence, being accountable for the self, personal style and willpower, attrition braved in solitude… we view and reward these things as virtue. But while we live independently, Americans also value branding and conformity. Autonomous self as a vehicle towards the analogous whole. The 1981 essay “American Individualism Reconsidered” by C. Eric Mount Jr. states that “For many Americans, individualism is a kind of secular religion influencing the way they live more than the religious traditions some of them espouse.” Liberty is identified entirely with ego. Persons matter, not people.
Kevin Durant once opined that LeBron James (or anyone else) cannot surpass Michael Jordan’s impact because “Kleenex” already happened. What he means is that Kleenex came around at the perfect cultural moment to implant itself in our consciousness as synonymous with facial tissue. It is no longer just the brand but the generic term for the product altogether. Whoever is second in market share will forever be referred to as “Kleenex” regardless of what their actual brand is. So there is the great contradiction: how does groupthink coincide with our obsession with being uninfluenced and solitary?
Claude S. Fischer’s 2008 essay, “Paradoxes of American Individualism,” posits that Americans participate in voluntarism as part of a social covenant with each other. There needs to be a decision towards the masses and public good or at least the illusion of a decision. Merit lies in conviction so we must adhere to the codes of our chosen dogmas. Unhappily married? Choose divorce but don’t defile its sanctity with adultery. Going to college? Better have good grades. Disillusioned with your faith? Convert to another but don’t brazenly defy its tenets. Hate your job? Quit, don’t disrupt the work. We’re morally free to leave but not morally free to trespass any implicit contracts provided by our choice. Yehoshua Arieli observed that America doesn’t have “the usual bonds for unity-ethnic or cultural homogeneity or a common historical tradition. Yet America has exhibited a strong national cohesion because of a community of values and beliefs. ‘The American way of life’ came to mean not simply something descriptive but something normative.” Taking the time to appreciate less obvious choices outside of the mainstream is only admirable because there is a center to avert. I don’t think that center exists anymore, at least not in the way it did before.
One of my favorite basketball analysts online, David Lee (@dlee4three), posted a TikTok a few months ago about this exact phenomenon. In the video he maintains that our abundance of access and options has built a global culture that is completely apathetic to monoculture. We’ve fragmented. The idea of being a regular is uncommon now: there’s too much to see, too much to explore. Lee decides this is for the worse, “wide breadth, no depth.” I’m inclined to agree.
Everything is categorized now. Are you doe pretty or bunny pretty? What’s your Letterboxd Top 4? Insert-the-blank-core! How to obtain *insert* Pinterest aesthetic? Looksmaxxing! There’s a revolving door of piecemeal identities and trends that comprise what we wish to be. Everything is referred, influenced, compartmentalized. Earlier I mentioned “shared digressions” and there is a generation of people trying to be different as individuals in the exact same ways. Told what to like, told how to like it. There is a lack of connecting aesthetics and tastes, cultural bridges have weakened as a result.
So what has the mainstream been as far as music? Wendy Farrow defines it as “the majority of music that appears in national charts and appeals to a broad cross-section of the public” and ethnomusicologist David B. Pruett designates it as “any music created or produced with commercial purposes.” The steps have remained the same: production, dissemination, consumption. But things are less regional because we can find new music without buying a physical object.
Popular music’s governing body has either disappeared or evolved to be so many-faced and diverse that it has lost the power to dictate the “hits.” The machine still exists of course, but it is a condition of virality, either completely organic or expertly crafted to appear as organic. There has even been a shift in how we contextualize a song’s reach, certain streaming numbers now equivalent to an album sold. Radioplay and MTV have been replaced by playlisting, memes, streaming bots, and TikTok sounds. The spectator is more omnipresent than ever before, except streaming and social media have widened the scope of vision. We’ve traded ownership for renting music, the perpetual consumer has superseded the one-time purchase. With all of us on independent timelines we’re supposedly less susceptible to mass marketing. Everything is an advertisement and everyone has become a brand but it needs to appear natural in order to disarm us. There is an artistic insistence on appearing decentralized, even from some of the biggest artists. But is this so different from how it has always been?
I argue yes. There is no such thing as a widely known deep cut. It’s counterintuitive, self-defeating, and perhaps has always been a condition of the individual spiritual experience that is listening to music. To have a genuine opinion on music that wasn’t broadcast on the radio, on TV, or at a function; listeners needed to buy a physical album and play it until they form opinions on each track. Music has arguably never been less profitable while simultaneously have never been more visible. I don’t believe there is any way to put the genie back in the bottle. Outside of the cool points one may get from knowing Ravyn Lenae’s music from “Blossom Dearie” rather than “Love Me Not,” there is no incentive to take deeper dives into what we encounter. There is so much surface for us to skim through. I once read that “proliferation makes it hard to do something worthwhile.” It’s true that sticking out in a crowd is more difficult than going it alone, but in an era where taste has been christened as creative currency, returning and engaging should be the norm. Listen to the album twenty-five times. Find your favorite chord progressions and vocal runs. Read that book twice, take notes, consult criticism. Forget the difference between minor and major works, be less efficient, watch bad movies, wander through the archives. Let your obsessions be a waking bugle every morning and a lullaby each night. Find a passion that isn’t held together by any distinct idiom and live it in a way only you can. You not passionate about half of the shit that you into and I ain’t having it.
Become a regular somewhere, anywhere. There aren’t many greater joys.
