Borkowski Weekly Media Trends: Planet of the Bass & More

Sunak's Culture Wars Gambit | Lizzo in crisis

Culture Wars spread to Government Policy

As the UK government struggles for a foothold amid the faecal landslide loosed on it by successive past leaders, policy announcements this week hint at a doubling down on culture wars issues.

While Just Stop Oil protests continue to disgruntle the public, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak took the opportunity to announce hundreds of new North Sea Oil Licenses much to the outrage of climate activists (and probably Mother Gaia herself when the drilling starts…) but in a direct appeal to businesses and citizens who would rather enjoy the supposed energy savings and energy security, and definite profits the new fossil fuel reserves may bring - many of whom share the government’s distaste for the ‘woke climate agenda’.

While this might have some superficial appeal to the Tories little England base - currently under assault from Labour’s staunchly bland centrism- it exposed further vulnerabilities in a premiership struggling for integrity when it was revealed that Rishi Sunak’s in-laws firm had signed a significant deal with BP shortly before the announcement. Policies can be as populist as you like but until the scars of Boris have healed any politician seen to be profiting personally from public service is likely to be punished at the ballot box.

Fresh from an anti-ULEZ victory presumably driven (geddit) by motorists at the Uxbridge by-election, Sunak resisted cabinet pressure to gerrymander targets to stop production of fossil-fuel vehicles by 2030 at the top of the week, and has spent most of the time since seemingly making a play for the all-important petrolhead vote, on the basis that the North Sea Oil licenses will keep delicious, yummy, carbon-belching petrol affordable. Naturally Sunak has been accused of playing both sides but the electorate has a poor memory and is often bamboozled by the dizzying pace of the 24 hour news cycle so don’t be surprised if this duplicity pays some small dividends for the government.

(Alleged) Truth Hurts for Lizzo

This week, the music industry’s tall poppy syndrome appeared to infect the beloved Lizzo, four-time Grammy winner and champion of body positivity.

Three of her former dancers filed a suit alleging various violations of Californian labour law, racial harassment, assault, fat shaming and various other infractions.

The most sensational section accused the singer of sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment after she pressured one of them to touch a nude performer at an Amsterdam club and subjected the group to an “excruciating” audition after falsely claiming the dancers were drunk.

The fall out was swift. Splashes across a stream of national and international titles, Twitter (sorry, X, FKA Twitter) tirades between fans and trolls, hot takes from every pop-culture podcast on the Apple Store.  In a performance of one of her hits, Beyonce skipped Lizzo’s name during a section in which she praises a sequence of black female artists - a silence that made the loudest noise on socials (where Lizzo is allegedly haemorrhaging followers).

Lizzo took three days to respond to the accusations. In a screenshotted Notes app statement, she was non-apologetic as she denied the “sensationalised stories”, before claiming that with passion “comes high standards and hard work”. Fans were largely left disappointed accusing her of failing to take accountability and victim blaming.

Whilst the wording certainly left something to be desired, Lizzo’s statement has achieved at least some of the desired effect of making commentators pause for thought. Of course, the allegations of sexual assault must be seriously considered. But as for the rest, many music artists are infamous for their high standards and diva demands -  Mariah Carey, Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj. All are almost as famous for their attitudes as hits. Indeed, Beyoncé herself is known to be a hard taskmaster - she once stated “I’m not bossy, I’m the boss” anyone she interacts signs an NDA to stop her falling into the same hot water Lizzo is now splashing in.

Beyond the spotlight’s glare, the Lizzo episode mirrors a wider paradox within the music industry—championing self-love while navigating the discord between ambition and ethical responsibility. Does this saga evoke a symphony of unity or expose the dissonance within cancel culture’s complex melodies?

The Planet of the Bass: I’m wanting more

A parody song by an emerging comedian has perfectly illustrated both the TikTokification and memeification of the ways music becomes famous.

While research by MIDIA has demonstrated that traditional media remains more effective in establishing lasting fandom, there’s no denying the power of a viral moment to send a song massive.

And so it proved this week when comedian Kyle Gordon shared a meme captioned ‘Every European Dance song in the 90s’ featuring a 50-second clip of his own parody ‘Planet of the Bass’. Like all good parody music - The Ruttles, Spinal Tap, Tenacious D, Lonely Island, Kurupt FM, Girls5Eva, Lil Dickie- it’s funny, accurate, playfully rather than cruelly satirises its target, and a sincerely good example of its genre of choice…and it went totally nuts.

At last count the original POTB TikTok had been liked over 800k times (equating to over 5 million views) but what’s really bonkers is that it’s genuinely become one of the most anticipated songs of the summer. No less a music authority than Rolling Stone has covered its 15 August release among a plethora of media outlets clambering onto the bandwagon.

While the pitch-perfect genre parody partly explains this success it’s also important to look at the meme-ability of the song. The whole thing was initially presented as a TikTok meme and its cartoonish characters and lyrics have been perfect fodder for every social media platform, even hijacking the Barbenheimer juggernaut…

We’ve seen this before with Big Shaq’s Man’s Not Hot which went viral after a snippet aired on BBC Radio 1’s Fire in the Booth and which was lapped up as a pitch-perfect drill parody and became a huge hit.

But Big Shaq creator Michael Dapaah has never quite replicated the success of his original hit and the challenge for Kyle Gordon AKA ‘DJ Crazy Times’ and Audrey Trullinger AKA ‘Biljana Electronica’ will be to produce the tricky second song that will not just sustain the joke, but might even create sustained fandom.