Sitting in the passenger’s seat of my older brother’s black Volvo, I watch the yellow street lamps of my Tennessee suburb ease past us. We are listening to an Icelandic artist on one of my brother’s CDs as he taps his fingers on the steering wheel, gesturing to the sound system when a trumpet solo he likes plays. I do not understand my brother’s music, but I like it.
My brother’s music has always felt too old for me, not in an “this is old people music” sort of way, but more of a “I will never be old enough for this music” sort of way. He is six years older than I am, and I have spent my life trying to bridge that gap. I’ve tried food, TV shows, clothing styles and music because I knew my brother liked them. None of them stuck. Until I was sitting in one of the coffee shops on campus — procrastinating on an assignment — and I heard “Chamber of Reflection” by Mac DeMarco come over the speaker. DeMarco was one of those artists that I had desperately tried to like as an eighth grader, sitting with my brother as he watched a documentary about the artistic process of the indie icon. I did not.
Now, as I sank into the peeling brown armchair, I heard the words, “I just wanna go” drift through the speaker, as if DeMarco had tossed them in the air, and two things hit me at once.
First, I am finally “old enough” to listen to my brother’s music. Second, DeMarco’s music is terrible for you if you want to be productive.
When Canadian-born indie musician DeMarco released his first album from his home studio in 2012, he caught the attention of college crowds. Ten years later, as he works on the follow up to his fourth full-length record, why does DeMarco’s music still find a home with college students, even as the aesthetic tastes of that demographic have changed so drastically from those of 2012?
College students — although they might change in aesthetic tastes — experience college in the same way as their parents, dealing with changing social dynamics, academic apathy and the pressure to “find yourself.” It is frankly exhausting. But it does not change, from one generation to the next. The feeling of exhaustion at the continued cycle of pressure is so universal that it has been coined the “sophomore slump” — a period where confusion and dissatisfaction lead a person to lack the motivation … to do … anything.
DeMarco’s music captures this feeling perfectly, to the point where listening to his music while attempting to write leaves me staring at a blinking line on an empty page. DeMarco layers ambient, pulsing synth and minimal percussion under his vocals, which are often limited to punchy and honest phrases that are repeated. The limited vocals and almost suppressing ambiance create a space in which you have to remain with the scattered thoughts of the lyrics, only resurfacing when the next lyric comes.
Yet DeMarco’s music is not depressing, even though his lyrics are often filled with heartbreak, longing and a helplessness to do anything about it. He is casual and deeply reflective at the same time, dealing with the void left by pressure by allowing — or even inviting — that empty space. In doing so, DeMarco makes the experience of the “sophomore slump” one of intentional vacancy rather than static apathy and disappointment.
As someone currently experiencing the “sophomore slump,” I think I need to take this approach more seriously, so that I am not wasting the time that I have been given to reflect because it will not last forever.
My brother and I are still in different stages of life. Now he listens to Madison Cunningham and drives a Subaru, and it is my turn to listen to Mac DeMarco in my Volvo station wagon. But this time, I am not anxious to catch up.
