Though I'm firmly against violence, my coworker got me thinking: Maybe going out with a bang would be the ideal way to depart. This was somehow happening at the same time that my coworker ( and noted k-pop aficionado) Dan Kahan and I were debating the merits and ethical implications of a violent revolution in the case that Trump gets re-elected. It read, "I don't know if I'm being soothed or murdered right now but all I know is that I'm jamming out in the process." And it's true: Some songs just sound like they'd be perfect soundtracks to murders.Ĭhildish Gambino - Redbone (playing in an empty shopping centre) Because the Popdust offices are fundamentally chaotic, soon enough we all quickly began discussing the best songs to listen to while being murdered. While I listened to it, I scrolled through the comments as I normally do, and I stumbled upon one that resonated strongly. It was "Redbone" by Childish Gambino, except also altered to sound like it was playing in an empty mall.
The song also reminded me of my favorite New Yorker writer, Jia Tolentino, who writes so beautifully about the cursed alienation of late capitalism and social media and who of course has written about the empty-mall version of "Africa."Īfter I finished listening to "Africa," the next video that YouTube's algorithm had queued began to play.
Like me, the main character in that novel lived in Brooklyn and worked in Times Square-until the fever hit. This reminded me of my favorite book I've read recently, Severance by Ling Ma, which is about a post-apocalyptic world where the few survivors of a deadly fever wind up taking shelter in (spoiler alert) an abandoned mall. It's also profoundly sad and comforting at the same time, either because of the nostalgia it evokes for old times spent wandering through physical spaces that have been replaced mostly by digital ones, or because of the sad hollowness of mall capitalism, or because of a confection of both. Toto- Africa (playing in an empty shopping centre) The sound of "Africa" reverberating through an abandoned mall is as chilling as you'd imagine. Someone had Slacked the link to Toto's "Africa" but "playing in an empty shopping centre." Over the past few years, apparently amateur audio engineers have been remixing songs to sound like they're being played through the halls of an empty mall, or refracted into other physical spaces, like bathroom stalls. On Monday morning, I entered the office, and, as usual, found myself in the midst of a conversation about a strange Internet phenomenon.
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