Walkabout: Y2K Revivalism and Erika de Casier
by Howard Cressi-Stallworth
The great absurdity that is Y2K revisionism and revivalism lies in many parts. Every era invoked comes at the cost of placing one's music firmly into one area, while relying on narrative and marketing to define the artist. With this in mind, it’s a matter of following the logic to expect the artist to be known for their awareness and display of their influences, rather than their own music. The specificity of what made the new millennium is hard to grasp, such is the nature of an era defined by upheaval—namely, the insurgence of the internet and the stratification of media accessibility—fully “pulling” from it is to call forth a lot of expectation from the audience, and put quite a bit of pressure on the artist.
Take for instance, Erika de Casier a recent signee to the esteemed label 4AD. If your artist is on 4AD, famously a label with a very passionate and intense lifelong following, you’re going to get people who will read into what the artist is doing as much as they will what is being written about them. In Erika’s case, being defined by her influences and references is firmly what she needs to survive as an artist. Outside of the bevy of collaborations she has had early on in her career, this has been her launch pad. Excluding her minute vocal appearances, her artistic existence as a solo performer is moot without the subtle nods in art direction, album titles, and writers gushing about who to compare her to in a bid to get to her first. As much as she exists within herself, she equally exists because of others.
In critical writeups there are things said such as “She revisits the past while doing something new” but what is it that is new here? If she is simply invoking all the techniques of her contemporaries, among them hushed vocals and placid beats, then is it truly new in that sense? Creative types understand that original ideas can be like unicorns, more often what we get are refinements of what has come before. The present is only affected by the past, you can’t truly affect the future by what you do now and this is what people firmly misunderstand about nostalgia embracing and marketing. There is a difference between what truly broke ground in an era and what implants itself in the cultural consciousness. Specific moments may not be remembered, but their offspring rip from their spiral bound notebook pages, and dart to the front of the room as if they’re first without giving you any credit.
This isn’t to say Erika is doing or did any of this. If you listen to her production work it’s painfully clear who she is nodding to both gear wise and musically (Timbaland, the humble Korg Triton, Brandy etc). Speaking of her age (she was born in late 1999), it firmly “doesn’t matter” that Erika didn’t experience the era fully to invoke it. To shoot that down would be heavy handedly condescending and equally just a cash grab for cred. Invoking an era has nothing to do with experiencing it in its own time. People live their own lives in whatever year or setting they please oftentimes living out someone else's life instead of their own.
In addition, Erika’s naming of her albums and releases is simply just an evocation of that shiny RnB early ‘00s era. She is not stating her work is Essential or Sensational, just throwing back to when people named their albums as such. Her work is firmly about distance, all her lyrics are about the way she says things often through her phone. None of her work is about actual experiences lived out in real time, a classic pop music ideal. Regret and confirmation of her feelings is more important than whomever she is speaking to. Even Rap music features boasts from the MC quoting their opponents or those they are dissing. Erika is young enough that her experiences of dissidence and remorse is perfect for her to write about when it is fresh. Motown became a billion dollar industry off of this plan. A young woman who is currently studying for her masters in Music Creation and in the midst of a Covid era existence at the age of twenty, one can only communicate in the way her songs convey her and her narrator's experiences. In spite of all of that, she seems to enjoy embracing the tone of the embittered dismissive ego laden RnB songstress she is trying to be and that’s enough for her growing audience.
Despite her enjoyment of that previously mentioned persona, her biggest failure is to convincingly display that same smugly dismissive personality type within her music done so well by the peers she pulls from. An early tribute to this time period “Do My Thing” is potentially the worst offender for this, with put on confidence and similar disregard for who she is singing to. If she does anything well it’s the juggling of the differing voices in her songs from delivering the choruses, semi-rhythmic sing-rapping or echoing herself in the chorus. When you’re one person you have to do the heavy lifting.
When pulling from this era and also attempting to deliver yourself as the star, the PR work she’s allowing herself to do in the videos is laughable. She not only does not look the part, but when trying to play the part of the “can’t catch me” girl it fails so astoundingly, despite when the music becomes engaging, most specifically on the song “Drama”. However the video for “No Butterflies No Nothing” is hilarious. Just look at her image on the DJ Central and Erika De Casier single for “Drive (First Mix)”. That hair and those glasses are right out of the late ‘90s. If there’s one thing that should be the first to go it's this breathy no range singing Erika is selling. The pads and drums on this are great and her vocals compliment the mood quite well, but all her songs are focused around one word songs meant to bring out moods felt by first experiences by those her age. If I told you she had a song called Missed Call you’d believe me.
Speaking of the latter, her songs do follow the modern (last ten years) trend of pulling one word out of a hat that most sixteen year olds use and turning those ideas into choruses. Space’s production is so referential to the past it feels like it was built off of a Groovebox as a demo. The Organ 1 preset, the painfully standard cymbal crashes and flute is not unprocessed for a reason, Erika is trying to tell us something. She loves the early ‘00s and you should too. While Essentials was of an earlier Erika, specifically “What u Wanna Do” and “Puppy Love”, one would hope she would embellish the better production tactics of the time period she pulls from as opposed to becoming a vocal talent.
The music classically pulls from another era, whether it lies in the plug n’ play rhythm and deep bass guitar on “Polite” or the John Mayer guitar and string pads of “Drama”, she clearly “gets” what the music needs, in this case it's “Drama” being worlds stronger than “Polite”. It is incredibly clear not just by her music guest production remix “gets” (Dua Lipa, DJ Central) the unavoidable shift from bedroom producer to vocal talent is as unsurprising as the day is unchanging. Listen to the middle section of No Butterflies. There are production tricks that simply wouldn’t exist without its namesake having more interest and experience in that world of production first. Only now she is placing it firmly in the background for her vocal tendencies.
Stardom and notoriety is what Erika clearly wishes for herself and she will do so at any cost. It’s a timeline we’ve seen again and again. She’s been slowly notching vocal credits year after year, but it's clear she is following the model of the “bedroom kid with an ipad looper” model, just as long as she’s working alone. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they promote her as someone who came up using production as a tool and by album three she’s handling zero production. Except of course when filmed in the albums “creative process” only to then be seen performing on stage with just a microphone any time after that. Time and time again we see producers turned singers, whether they’re born with an MPC or use it as a jotting down tool, it becomes an important authenticity signifier for creative types and even a class signifier.
Erika does little to add to the form or style yet retreads on the familiar path of hushed vocals in place of writing a solid melody and far more important, in place of greater use of vocal talent. That’s not to say Erika has to use her vocal range to craft this style of music, many of note have done so before her (Dave Gahan, Fred Schnieder, et. al.) but in an unfair comparison to those, the music was so startlingly strong it was raised up by all parts working together. Sometimes working on your own lends itself to a lack of editing or even solid execution.
Her potential aid to this issue to all of this is one Natal Zaks. He’s been releasing music for over a decade under various guises from Mitro to Central making rather safe House, Downtempo, and IDM influenced releases with touches of RnB and Hip Hop elements throughout. Ultimately a project named Alle is what garnered him some attention combined with guest features from Erika. Now if Natal is going to be picking up the pieces and allowing Erika to flourish as a personality and singer, I’m fully in belief that this is just a stepping stone in allowing her to become a star off of the backs and work of generations prior. Natal will be just one of the few in a long line that are pushing down doors to break the next girl whose biggest inspirations are Avril Lavigne and Monica (did she hear these artists when she was like, three years old?) He will also be the first in a long line to make her into a star, and I assure you he won’t be the last.
It’s not worth it to be suspicious of how someone her age and placement within upper society got the recognition she did, she was more promoted to young writers focused on a type of music comfortable with the pop music of its day coming out of the poptimism movement. Erika, her music, her image, and her references would’ve survived and popped to the top of the trending articles list regardless of who was in control of her career. The waning style of journalism focused on the love of her same influences, not at the least compounded by the fact that she is new, helps because journalists always want to get there first.
It’s one thing to revisit an era and utilize it as a framework for your own art as we do not progress without this, but to promote yourself as such and to be able to see the outcome is not surprising. Nothing like using music from a time from when you weren’t even born to then bolster yourself up as a would be pop star using modern tired and true techniques. Ultimately in seeing the performance Erika gives on Youtube and in various print form interviews and statements, if never given the platform from 4AD she’s going to be the most exciting performer on stage this side of the band Low.
The point of revisitation of genre and era isn’t to perfectly replicate it but to use it’s various forms to go above what has been done before and utilize it using new technology and approaches to create new forms of great music. Ultimately Erika is getting within those heights but just can’t replicate the heroes and sounds of someone else's past. If she wants to play adult dress up that’s fine, but doing it on a budget of bedroom level affordability while being promoted of a high brand medium is questionable since the music does occasionally reach its own pleasures. However when you can see how her career and creative arc is going to play out ten yards in front of the pitch you feel more comfortable lounging on the sidelines and calling the plays before they happen, wondering who will be next to play by the same runs. If her career continues the way it is being promoted, Erika will most likely be earning fans for what she endorsed more for what she said or did.
This video is Erika de Casier incarnate. Let the world see her for who she truly is.