LONDON — Bedroom post-punk musician Rob Davidson begged listeners to use headphones while listening to his latest EP, apparently unaware that he would be fortunate to get a single preview through a phone speaker, disappointed loved ones revealed.
“I spent triple the usual time mixing and layering and panning on this 4-song EP, so please listen with a good, and preferably open-back, set of headphones!” pleaded the oblivious Davidson, who spent a reported $900 on convolution reverb plugins this Black Friday. “Please don’t just listen on your laptop or crappy Bluetooth boombox. And God forbid, don’t ever play it through your phone speaker. You spit, piss, and shit on my ancestors’ graves if you play these jams through an iPhone.”
Davidson’s close friend and roommate Caroline Scott is losing the motivation to humor his untenable requests.
“Oh for fuck’s sake! Does he really think people are going to go grab headphones and a 3.5mm to Lightning adapter because he makes part of a guitar solo move from left to right? Whoop-dee-fucking-whoop,” grunted Scott who hasn’t listened to a Davidson release since 2018. “I’m glad music makes Rob happy but he has no self-awareness. Albums and EPs are dead. You should focus on writing 60-second jingles in the hopes that some tween stitches it on TikTok and you go viral for 10 days.”
Longtime music producers question the effectiveness of begging the audience to consume art in specific, cumbersome ways.
“Here’s the thing—panning and mixing and compression and effects don’t make a shitty song any better,” explained legendary producer Rick Rubin. “You know what makes a song better? Drugs. And a kickass drummer. You should listen back to your music and ask yourself ‘Does this song suck?’ But that would require being honest with yourself, which is something very few musicians are capable of. If someone listens to the intro of your album through a broken transistor radio, count that as a win. Hell, start mixing specifically for phone speakers. The battle is lost. I sold my studio’s monitors and now listen to mixes via my shattered-screen iPhone XS.”
Davidson reportedly continues to force difficult listening methods upon his audience, as he decided to print an upcoming album to 8-track tape for the “retro vibe.”