On Psyops, Plants, and Polka-Dots: Marketing Music in the Age of Scam Culture
The King is gone but he's not forgotten / This is the story of Johnny Rotten
-Hey Hey, My My: Neil Young
Elvis Presley died in 1977, and when asked about it, Johnny Rotten (John Lydon) famously responded: "Fuckin' good riddance to bad rubbish. I don't give a fuckin' shit, and nobody else does either."
But Rotten and Presley had a lot in common—namely, a manager who exerted too much control, and a penchant for self destruction.
The truth is, the Sex Pistols were industry plants, just not for the music industry. Malcolm McLaren briefly managed the New York Dolls after they bought clothes from the SEX fashion boutique he co-owned with Vivienne Westwood. This gave him the idea to form a group out of his customers. Steve Jones had never played guitar before joining the band and learned it in three months on a steady diet of black beauties. Although he infamously hated Pink Floyd, Rotten was a big fan of dub music and prog adjacent acts like Magma and Can. In his old age, he supported Brexit and Trump—about as far from punk as possible. The best musician in the group, and the guy who wrote most of their songs, was bassist Glen Matlock, who claimed McLaren intentionally caused division between him and Rotten in order to replace Matlock with Sid Vicious. McLaren admits his idea for the Pistols was to compete with the Bay City Rollers, and Steve Jones admits the whole con was to sell clothes for SEX—both to the band and then to their fans. McLaren was selling the idea that anyone could be a Sex Pistol if you were outrageous enough and purchased the right uniform. And it worked.
Yet the greater narrative is that the Sex Pistols led to the creation of punk, a style of music so sweeping it defines a lifestyle and ethos grounded in DIY ethics, anti-capitalism, and anti-establishment authenticity. But reality is more complex. Before Joe Strummer was the leader of the Clash, he was a folk hippy who called himself Woody in honor of Guthrie, and later played in a rockabilly band called the 101ers. The Sex Pistols happened, the Clash were constructed, and the rest is history.
This is not to lay judgement on the quality of the music, only to question the idea of authenticity connected to a movement that safety-pinned it together and packaged it in spit and snot.
The myth of punk's authenticity is a lie we tell ourselves. But the real lie is that this "authenticity" ever mattered. The reason punk was such a powerful movement wasn't about the clothes or the cons, but about the energy it tapped into and simultaneously generated—capturing a restlessness stemming from serious frustrations with a disengaged government, stuffy culture, and outdated ideas that many people were simply exhausted with.
And here's what I'm currently exhausted with: articles about bands and artists being called industry plants, or worse, psyops. These music articles aren't about music at all, but how music is sold to us. As if that's new. Elvis was sold to us. So were the Beatles, the Clash, the Sex Pistols, and Wire. Why is this news? Why do we care? Why are we spending so much energy on this idea of authenticity at a time when virtually nothing is authentic? Where's this same concern for AI images and music, or is it because of AI being forced down our throats that we're so suspicious of genuine talent?
This brings me to today's version of this tired debate.You did a good job addressing the key components of the Project Part One assignment and organizing your ideas in a clear presentation format. I especially liked your emphasis on cultural awareness, writing with intention, and considering different backgrounds when communicating online, as these are important digital literacy skills that help build respectful and meaningful connections. Your examples helped demonstrate why inclusivity and thoughtful communication matter in digital communities. One area you could strengthen is expanding several of your responses with more detail and specific examples, particularly when discussing communication strategies and your personal strengths, to more fully address the expectations of the Project Guidelines and Rubric. Overall, you demonstrated a solid understanding of the concepts and provided a thoughtful foundation for your project. Please refer to the graded rubric for more information on your overall performance.
Getting Killed by Getting Killed Takes
There have been approximately one million, three-hundred and seventy-two blog articles about Geese this year, and given the surprising popularity of the band's third album Getting Killed last year, the hot take machine started pumping furiously. Reports that Getting Killed was marketed by a company called Chaotic Good, which used algorithm hacking techniques to create the illusion of organic virality, didn't help.
I do not care.
I like Getting Killed. Part of the reason is that it feels of-the-moment in a way punk did in the 70s. It sounds both exhausted and anxious. One moment, lead Goose Cameron Winter is shouting "There's a bomb in my car!" and a few songs later he's sleepily crooning to a lover that she can tame cobras like the best snake charmer ever. But she also could be the shame's only daughter. The lyrical contrast in a song like "Cobras"—slipping between compliments and disparaging remarks—fits the musical style, with piano and guitar lines blending in a rhythmic patter over a bubbling bassline. The first cymbal crash doesn't come until the song starts to build, and it does build in a surprising, moving way. It feels anxious and tense but weary and tired to the point of resignation, which is quite honestly how I've felt for the past two years. The cover art, an angel with a trumpet in one hand and a gun pointed at you in the other, is both beautiful and apocalyptic. The music feels similar.
Getting Killed wasn't my favorite album of last year. It might not even be in my top ten. But I enjoyed it on its own merits, and I am tired of the false narrative about the hype. My first reaction to the album was "why does this have so much hype attached to it?" Not that it was bad—it was just…weird. Is Geese a psyop? Of course not, not anymore than artists like Chappell Roan, Ice Spice, Lana Del Rey, Doechii, Yungblud, and Billie Eilish are industry plants. Terms like "psyop" and "industry plant" suggest a level of inauthenticity leveraged at artists who didn't earn their success the right way. To which I say:
Who gives a shit?
My brothers and sisters in Christ, it is 2026. Do you know how hard it is to make an impression on people? Just an impression. If you're so simple minded that a fancy marketing campaign convinces you a band was good, that's not really the band's fault. Were there teenage girls who loved the Beatles more because of their haircuts and suits? Sure. Does that mean they weren't the most beloved band of all time mostly on the strength of their music? Of course not. Elvis's R&B sold to a white audience. Punk was sold as anti-establishment chaos to disaffected youth. Olivia Rodrigo is sold to emotional teens and their dads who still love pop punk. It's not how we discover the sale, it's what we decide to do with it.
And this isn't just about major-label campaigns. It's happening at every level.
Polka-Dot Plant Pain
I made a meme earlier this year about masked, polka-dotted microtonal monsters Angine de Poitrine. If you've been on social media the past year or two, you've seen a video of them playing their unique blend of math rock. The takes range from they have redefined music to they are just another talentless psyop, which is ridiculous. The duo layers guitar and bass lines with excellent timing. Sure, the double fret guitar and bass is looped through pedals, but that doesn't mean they're not playing it, and the drumming is perfectly timed with their abrupt time signature changes. Angine de Poitrine worked on their craft for years. They released their second album this year. They're doing all this behind crazy outfits and MASKS! The idea that their hard work and dedication is some sort of fake marketing campaign is absurd.
My meme did zero traction beyond being picked up by fellow music writer Gabbie in her excellent newsletter New Bands for Old Heads (which I highly recommend). Maybe I should have hired Chaotic Good. No matter, I made it as a lark because for a while there you couldn't escape the idea that Angine de Poitrine was the Geese of 2026.
But the hype is real. When I tried to get tickets for Angine de Poitrine in Boston, the show sold out minutes after it went on sale, and this is after the venue moved from a capacity of 1200 to one nearly three times the size.
I think the popularity speaks to a desire audiences have for seeing something different. We are inundated with so much information, and everything has become marketing to the point where it takes a lot to stand out. This is the root of why a company like Chaotic Good exists. You can debate the merits of being able to afford a marketing company, and how that creates a disparity, but that disparity has existed forever—nepotism and generational wealth are far from new concepts. In the case of Angine de Poitrine, their hype stems from their outlandish costumes and genuine chops. Who wouldn't want to see that in the flesh?
Sure, there are bands who have been making complex music like this for years. Horse Lords, for example, released a solid album earlier this year—Demand to be Taken Alive!—which is worth a listen. But do they dress up in polka-dotted monster masks? Nope. In an age inundated with tremendous talent and nonstop demands for attention, maybe standing out is what it takes. This is why shows have become more fun and theatrical lately. It's not enough to just perform anymore. You gotta put on a show. It's all marketing, but it's all important.
Get your Talons off your Trial Reels
Talon are a lesbian grunge-pop band from New York City who put on a great live show. They're smaller, just starting out, with one debut LP and a new single coming out at the end of the month called Britney Spears. Lead singer MK recently used a trial reel to promote a small east coast tour and was met with wild pushback in the comments.
One person advised them to just stay home. Another accused them of paying for fake accounts to leave comments. Trial Reels is a tool Meta has for creator accounts with over 1000 followers to reach people who don't follow them. If we're at the point now where something like that is treated with immediate suspicion, what are we doing here?
Again, I understand the mistrust, but the tinfoil hat conspiracy brain thing all the time is a bad look. Maybe just…chill out a bit? And listen to the music. If you don't like it, fine. But you can't blame bands for trying to make an impression in a world that's increasingly difficult to. Artists make nothing from streaming. Live shows are hard to book. Tours are expensive. Venues cut into merch percentages.
We have to ask ourselves a question: do we want new music from emerging artists?
If so, it's time to retire the idea that all the good cream rises to the top without the most basic social media tool for a band like Talon, or even gimmicks like polka-dot outfits and campaigns like Chaotic Good. Nobody is forcing anyone to like music. You have free will. But if you hate being sold things, get off the internet. That's what it's for.
This is not to say we shouldn’t be discerning. Have you ever heard of a band or artist that you just don’t like and can’t understand the hype? Hell, maybe you feel that way about some of the artists I mentioned in this article, and maybe some of them were rammed down your throat by a paid influence, as this recent article pointed out. Gross! For the record, we desperately need money to make EAR•WAX work, but we’ll never be pay-to-play.
Still, this obsession with "authenticity" was always a fiction, and it's become a corrosive one. It distracts us from the only question that's ever mattered: Does the music move you? The Sex Pistols moved people because they captured something real, not because they were real. Geese, Angine de Poitrine, and Talon are doing the same thing in their own ways, with their own tools. The packaging changes; the hunger for something that sounds like now doesn't.
So let's retire the psyop discourse. Let's stop pretending we're detectives uncovering conspiracies and start being listeners again. Yes, bands are marketing themselves and people are being paid to tell us what's good. But the music is right there. Make up your own mind. You don't have to like it, but you also don't have to write a blog post about how people have been fooled.
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