Artist Spotlights: Default Genders’ Masterful Songwriting Brings a Modern Dystopia to Life
Through her fusion of breakbeat production and early Taylor Swift songwriting, Jaime Brooks' Default Genders has not only carved her niche in the pop landscape, but created the soundtrack for plights of the internet age.
Artist Spotlights introduces you to artists that may not be on your radar yet, but should be. With recently cancelled tours and income loss for small artists, there’s no time like the present to find new talent to support.
Written by Joshua Troncoso
Image courtesy of Jaime Brooks
Recommended if you like: Black Dresses, Taylor Swift, Tom Waits
Since 2009, Jaime Brooks has released music with different groups under different monikers, but her latest output under the name Default Genders is her best act yet. Her blend of breakbeat music, bedroom pop, and nostalgic, story-focused songwriting à la early Taylor Swift has helped her stand out amongst her contemporaries and amass a small cult following. A Canadian native based in Vancouver and Tempe, Arizona, Brooks is no stranger to releasing music. She has several EPs and mixtapes from her time in electronic music group Elite Gymnastics with fellow musician Joshua Clancy. The duo’s experimental catalog, along with Brooks' association with electro-pop star Grimes, is what put Brooks on the industry map. Since 2013, however, she released three albums and an EP to critical acclaim under the name Default Genders.
Brooks’ 2019 release, main pop girl 2019, is her most polished work to date. The lo-fi breakbeat production is dreamlike and hazy, as if it were gently draped with the dense smog from a polluted city. Brooks’ vocals are buried beneath each track, and the autotune and distortion she places on it alter the sound to the point of unintelligibility. “Sophie (emphasis mine)” is arguably the album's most impressive song. The lyrics detail Brooks’ dreams of a perfect world where a trans woman like her could go out and buy a dress “like it was nothing.” This song also discusses how personal growth can foster thoughts of regret and wishes that the pain and turmoil caused by personal development could be avoided or “fixed.” This theme is heartbreakingly exemplified when Brooks faintly sings, “I had a dream that / I was fifteen / And I could see everything that was about to happen / And I could stop it.”
This year, Brooks released pain mop girl 2020, a remix album of almost every song from her previous work, with a couple new tracks thrown in. Despite its tracks being mostly remixes, pain mop girl 2020 maintains the same level of sophistication from that of Brooks' last album. The ash nerve remix of “checking in with the old gang” ditches the original’s guitar-backed instrumental and replaces it with pulsing bass hits, turning the song into a nightclub anthem. One of the few new songs on the album, “am i gonna die?,” has Brooks caught in the midst of a depressive episode as she wonders if her life has had any meaning at all. Her voice, mixed so quietly in the song, cowers behind a simple yet charming drum break that meshes well with the forlorn tone of the song.
Brooks uses meta-internet era nomenclature in her song and album titles, as well as her lyrics, to amplify her music’s themes of alienation and tragedy. The song “heart emoji xo” is a clear example of this, but the internet references go beyond the titular nod to texting language. In "heart emoji xo," Brooks references the red pin from Google Maps while discussing a man’s struggling relationship. After having an encounter with a sex worker, he traces his path home on Google Maps while idly waiting to say something to the already-detached sex worker. When discussing how modern internet personalities sell out to big companies in “vietato calpestare i prati,” Brooks also mentions adblock in the line, “Companies that used to have you hitting adblock / They hit you up one time and you're like, ‘ads rock.’” Brooks also embraces online interactions with her audience through the Q&A social networking site CuriousCat, where she often responds to fans with long and detailed explanations about her musical decisions.
Brooks' ability to take older musical stylings and conventions and update them for a modern online audience is another talent that sets her apart from her contemporaries. The track “christmas card from a scammer in minneapolis” is an obvious reference to Tom Waits’ similarly titled “Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis,” but the music itself has some key differences. Waits’ version is a '70s gruff and defeated-sounding blues ballad, whereas Brooks' rendition is bright and upbeat over a pulsing electronic rhythm accented with crisp drums. In addition to a fresh musical approach, Brooks also updates the song's original storyline as she muses about the “scammer” who sells stolen clothes to thrift stores (“In the fitting room fiddling with the blade's edge / Cut off the tag so I can walk it away and / Take it to everyday people which is adjacent").
Songwriting is Brooks' strongest skill as an artist. In a verbose fashion, many of her songs tell stories of downtrodden characters who have fallen through the cracks of society. “Reverse chronological order (part 2)” tells a short story about a couple’s drug abuse over a spacey, driving beat. Brooks' detailed lyrics paint a clear picture for every line in the song. In the last verse Brooks writes, “in some deep dark corner we'd all find each other / and try to detach from the mob / just to dissolve into laughter without ever speaking at all,” showcasing her remarkable world-building ability. Brooks is not a one-trick pony, however, as she can also write typical pop tunes that are lyrically sparse but earworm-y as hell. The trance-inducing beat and catchy melodies in “pharmacoma (for ben deitz),” exemplify Brooks’ versatility.
Default Genders’ unique breakbeat-influenced sound, creative aesthetic, and amazing songwriting ability deserve to be heard. Brooks’ incorporation of internet lingo and modern struggles grounds her music in a reality that feels all too familiar. She uses slang and her meta style to tell stories about how the problems of today are simply updated versions of older issues.
Listen to Default Genders on Bandcamp. You can find her on Twitter @elite_gz