Taking the pop music world by storm, one gec at a timenote
"This song sounded like it was recorded on a burnt microwavable dinner."
— A fan
on "money machine"
on "money machine"100 gecs is an American musical duo consisting of Laura Les and Dylan Brady.
Some people describe their music as a blend of music from the last few decades and dialing them up to eleven. The duo likes to let them know they love doing what they do.
After a chance encounter in St. Louis, the duo started making stuff. People really started taking notice when their debut album 1000 gecs was released. That album turned out to be so influential that it led to an explosion of artists that are part of the Hyperpop movement, not just musically, but visually as well.
Discography:
- 100 gecs (EP, 2017)
- 1000 gecs (LP, 2019)
- 1000 gecs and the tree of clues (remix LP, 2020)
- 10,000 gecs (LP, 2023)
Tropes:
- all lowercase letters: the group name, its albums and its song titles.
- Alternative Rock: 10,000 gecs sees the duo leaning into this more than previous projects, featuring much more electric guitar and exploring much more genre inspirations through their usual hyperpop shtick. "Hollywood Baby" leans into 90s-era Pop Punk, "Doritos and Fritos" and "I got my tooth removed" feature the bouncy energy of Ska Punk, "Billy Knows Jamie" is a Limp Bizkit-esque fusion of Nu Metal and Rap Metal, etc.
- Anti-Christmas Song: "sympathy 4 the grinch." It's about stealing Santa's magic bag all because they didn't get what they want.Never gave me a goddamn thing that I want
I was good every day, but he didn't give a fuck
This year, put the top on the back of the truck
Santa's banging on the back of the truck - Auto-Tune: All their vocals have been electronically processed in one way or another.
- Bait-and-Switch: "I got my tooth removed" initially opens as a Surprisingly Gentle Song with lyrics seemingly about a break-up. Then the song shifts into an upbeat Ska Punk song with lyrics revealing that the first verse actually referred to a toothache.
- Break Up Song:
- "Ringtone" details the fall of a cute two-way crush filled with incessant calls (hence the ringtone) to the singer now feeling sick whenever they hear that ringtone.
- "I got my tooth removed" appears to be berating an ex for being an asshole causing them nothing but pain. It's actually about a toothache...
- "mememe" both laments and taunts an ex about how they (singer or ex? yes) were too busy to take time to love them or even pay the slightest bit of attention to them, and now realising that they were Loving a Shadow.
- Comedic Sociopathy: The protagonist of "stupid horse" goes downright psychotic over losing a bet in horse racing. They beat up the jockey, steal their phone and their horse, and run away still on the track while ranting about how they lost all their money. Despite this, the music has a humorous tone to it.
- Creator In-Joke: A common running gag in their interviews is constantly giving wildly different answers as to where the name "100 gecs" came from. They've claimed the band name stems from an incident where Laura tried to order a single pet gecko online, only to be shipped one hundred of them, that they randomly found "100 gecs" spray-painted on a wall outside Laura's dorm and didn't know what it meant, and that it came to them in a dream.
- DIY Dentistry: Discussed in "I Got My Tooth Removed", which is largely about the singer putting off their trip to the dentist and ignoring their toothache to the best of their ability (I might grab the pliers and just rip it out myself/But if it's gonna fix itself, I guess it's just as well), but ultimately they're forced to get it removed, implicitly professionally.
- Flight: The music video for "Doritos & Fritos" consists mainly of Dylan and Laura (or rather, kites dressed up to look like them) flying around.
- Gainax Ending: The visualizer for "money machine" is simply just the duo looking through a gift shop, but they end up taking a lot of trophies at the end for seemingly no reason.
- Genre Mashup: Listeners from every corner might point out how there are elements of hip hop, industrial, emo, punk, dubstep, nu metal, third-wave ska (just to name a few)... all taken to their sonic extremes.
- Genre Throwback: It's all not for nothing - they do appreciate the stuff they listened to growing up. Examples include:
- "xXXi_wud_nvrstøp_ÜXXx" and "gec 2 Ü", which is a throwback to hyperactive dance-pop/rave stuff popular in early 2000s flashes like "Pretty Rave Girl"/anything by S3RL and Disko Warp.
- "money machine" is a distorted pop take on hyphy anthems and Boastful Raps popular in the 2000s.
- Of all things, "What's That Smell" takes it back to dirty low-tempo crunk songs about fuckin' (namely, "Wait (The Whisper Song)" by the Ying Yang Twins), except it's about trying to get rid of a nasty smell.
- "ringtone" is their own (also distorted) take on teary-eyed teenage love-and-breakup songs popular in the early 2000s.
- "Hollywood Baby" is an ode to late-90s/early-2000s punk, pop-punk, and the bands that bridged the two, down to the ironic lyrics criticising materialism and the mainstream.
- "Billy Knows Jamie" is similarly a homage to late-90s/early-2000s druggie rap-rock like Limp Bizkit and Korn with a dash of trashy nu-metal like Slipknot thrown in.
- The beginning of "I Got My Tooth Removed" starts with the serious, acapella ballad of many a sweeping epic breakup song like those from The '50s... until the ska starts.
- "mememe" manages to mash up the aforementioned internet-dance-rave with pop-punk and bits of metal, like something you'd hear at an anime convention before 2010.
- Incoming Ham: "money machine", one of their signature songs, begins with a heavily distorted Hey lil pissbaby . The rest of the song becomes industrial-hyphy-rap as they brag about their money and insulting your tiny-ass arms.
- The Insomniac: In "I Got My Tooth Removed", Laura says that she's "staring at the ceiling, counting seconds 'til I get to sleep", presumably having trouble falling asleep due to her sore tooth.
- Last Note Nightmare:
- "fuck teeth" goes from whimsical hyperpop to industrial-horror jumpscare. And dogs.
- "Money Machine"'s outro abruptly turns into bass-boosted Harsh Noise lacking any melodic qualities.
- Most of "gec 2 Ü" is a Surprisingly Gentle Song, with a sparser instrumentation that isn't as overwhelming as most of their songs. The ending makes up for it by assailing you with extremely loud sounds, on both the high and low ends.
- "Billy knows Jamie" is already an aggressive Nu Metal-Rap Metal fusion, but the final third of the track dissolves into one of the harshest, noisiest breakdowns in the 100 gecs catalogue (which is saying a lot), complete with squealing guitars, crushing drums, and death metal growls.
- Loving a Shadow: "mememe" revolves around how the singer(s) will never really know each other, which makes it all the easier to say goodbye.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places: The "stupid horse" remix instead has the singer fuck the horse jockey right on the race track.
- Minimalistic Cover Art: In stark contrast to the maximist noise of their actual music, their cover arts tend to be extremely simple. 100 gecs (EP) features mostly text and a black/white doodle of Gex, 1000 gecs features the two standing before a tree with "1000 gecs" crudely written in the corner, and 10,000 gecs features the two standing with their shirts pulled up to cover their faces, showing off their tattoos.
- N+1 Sequel Title: Or rather "N*10 Sequel Title". Their first EP is the Self-Titled Album 100 gecs (EP), followed by their first real album 1000 gecs, and its follow-up 10,000 gecs.
- New Sound Album: 10,000 gecs can be considered this due to the fact it has more rock-like influences than their last album 1,000 gecs.
- Psychopathic Manchild: The protagonist of "stupid horse" beats up a horse jockey for losing a race and causing the protagonist to lose a bet. The protagonist also steals the horse and rants in a childish way about how they never win their bets.Why am I never getting lucky?'
I never have any money!
I never win any money! - Recurring Riff: In the duo's more Ska-inspired tracks, they use the same soundbite of Dylan saying "Pick it up!" It's shown up in "stupid horse", "sympathy 4 the grinch", and "I got my tooth removed".
- Running Gag: Hating teeth and toothaches. There's a song on 100 gecs called "fuck teeth", there's a later song called "toothless" where Laura says she wishes she was toothless, "I got my tooth removed" is all about getting rid of a painful tooth... there's an animosity there.
- Sensory Abuse: Their music is really noisy, with every song featuring at least some part of the instrumentals or vocals that have been compressed or distorted to hell and back.
- Ska Punk: One of their genre influences, most notably with "stupid horse", loaded with upbeat guitar riffs and syncopated rhythms, done as an Out-of-Genre Experience amidst the very un-ska-like 1000 gecs. The popularity of the song led to them exploring the style more often, such as with "sympathy 4 the grinch" and more songs in 10,000 gecs, with "I got my tooth removed" adding in classic bouncy horns.
- Stylistic Suck: "Suck" may be a strong word, but the duo's sound is greatly evocative of genre tropes and songwriting clichés from the late-90s early 2000s that have been largely discredited by internet culture, just thrown into a very loud blender, bitcrushed to death, and then pumped up until the speakers clip. The hyper, noisy, over-the-top approach to the likes of emo, rap-rock, 90s rave, etc. dances around between parody that exaggerates and deconstructs those particular sounds and a sincere, futuristic tribute to those same sounds.
- Surprisingly Gentle Song:
- The unreleased "miss you" is a slow, emotional acoustic guitar ballad about missing someone close to you, with a significantly more gentle and relaxed tone than their usual sound.
- "Frog On The Floor" completely does away with the duo's usual aggressive, unhinged lyrics and instruments for a jaunty, laid-back Ska bop about a group of friends stopping what they're doing to vibe with a random frog.
- Take That, Audience!: Laura frequently dedicates "What's That Smell" to certain people in the audience during live shows.
- Vocal Evolution: In the duo's earlier works, their vocals have extremely heavy Auto-Tune and Nightcore-style pitch-shifting. The Snake Eyes EP and 10,000 gecs LP go significantly lighter on the vocal effects, resulting in vocals sounding closer to their natural voice. Laura has mentioned that voice dysphoria due to being transgender was the motivation behind such heavy editing; after undergoing vocal lessons, she felt more confident in her voice which opened the door to songs with fewer effects.
- Vocal Tag Team: Dylan and Laura split their vocals evenly, often alternating multiple times mid-song.
- Word Salad Lyrics: Occasionally. For example, the duo has admitted that "feel so clean like a money machine" is basically nonsense. The song opens up on a bizarre insult about your "tiny arms".
