173: Clown Core (F+)

Clown Core in tier list

this is unpleasant but interesting, and a lot of both. It’s not all unpleasant, but the parts that are unpleasant are unpleasant. Not only unpleasant— it’s actively aggressive and antagonistic. There’re violent sounding grunts and vulgar song titles. They wear freaky rubber clown masks. The copyright for most of it is under “8===D”. There’s a track in the first EP called “I Ate A Luna Bar and My Dick Fell Off”, and the metadata for that EP says that its genre is “Children’s Music”. They’ve got a music video where one of them takes out his penis and puts it on the keyboard. These guys aren’t friendly, they’re actively trying to be weird and frustrating and contrary. 

Clown Core’s members are officially anonymous, but everyone knows it’s Louis Cole and Sam Gendel. I know I like and respect Louis Cole as a musician, and what this feels like to me is a way for him to separate his more wild and unhinged ideas from the rest of his stuff, a way for him to be inappropriate and unacceptable in a space that people have to deliberately opt into. It’s a way to curate his music and image in a way that lets him do more instead of less. I’m for that. I’m a fan of intentionally and well designed experiences on principle, and even if I don’t like what Clown Core has designed I appreciate that they’ve designed it. All of their stuff is short enough that I can receive an idea, decide I do or don’t like it, and move on. It’s organized in a way that gives me a chance to receive it well, that gives me a chance to appreciate the parts I do appreciate. And I do think there’s stuff I appreciate. It’s very experimental. It’s often contrary for the sake of being contrary, but it also has moments that feel genuinely inquisitive. Sometimes that means there’s stuff that I think is super off, and sometimes it means they hit on something that’s really intriguing. 

That said, I do think they go too far. I am genuinely grateful that they organized themselves as separate from their other musical channels so this doesn’t become too much of a corrupting influence. That lets me really love and admire Louis Cole’s other projects that I do like despite thinking this is hideously crude and disgusting, because I do think they do too much that’s hideously crude and disgusting. So despite there being ideas here I do really like, I have to say they just do way way too much that goes way way too far for me to not give a bad rank. I’m glad I’m able to give the bad rank here so I don’t have to compromise on the good ranks for KNOWER and Louis Cole, but I’m still giving the bad rank. F+ for Clown Core