Despite both of Peep’s parents being Harvard graduates, neither was seemingly upset by Peep’s decision to drop out of high school and get his diploma online. It’s not that one took more talent than the other, it’s that Peep was of two worlds and fusing them made the most sense to him.īorn Gustav Ahr in 1996, in the town of Allenstown, Pennsylvania, Peep’s early life was defined by his close relationship with his mother, an elementary school teacher, and his grandfather, a Marxist scholar (Peep’s father stopped being involved in his life when he was a teenager it’s been implied by many that he was neglectful and/or abusive towards Peep). His voice, whiny and youthful, was just more suited to writing blink-182 or Taking Back Sunday-caliber choruses than the mumbly auto-tuned warbling of many of his peers. Not just because Lil Peep wasn’t really a rapper (he sang more than anything), but because the influence of emo and pop-punk was palpable in everything he did, from his producers’ extensive sampling of artists like Mineral and Death Cab for Cutie to the way that he constructed his vocal hooks. For someone like Lil Peep, who absolutely wanted to be famous, it was a no-brainer to embrace hip-hop as a dominant musical style.Īnd yet, his music wasn’t pure hip-hop. Not only did the advent of simple-to-use and free music software make hip-hop more viable than pop-punk (which requires knowing a whole bunch of people who can play instruments and a studio to record in), but platforms like Soundcloud made it frankly easier to produce and distribute songs than ever before. The main difference between him and the kids who, a decade earlier, were forming pop-punk bands, is that he came of age in an era where hip-hop was the most accessible and immediate form of self-expression for the youth. Lil Peep was objectively talented, an instantly charismatic presence with a knack for constructing indelible vocal melodies. To me, the parallels are undeniable here was a disaffected, deeply depressed teenager making extremely emotive music with an unshakeable DIY ethic, who eventually achieved fame that was ultimately detrimental to him. A long time ago, when my writing was much more flippant and obnoxious, I called Lil Peep’s brand of music the closest thing we would get to a crabcore revival. I’d like to walk that back a little bit– Lil Peep wasn’t so much the reincarnation of Attack Attack as much as he was an update on what “emo” meant in the early-mid 00s (ie, the focus of this recurring column). For one thing, Lil Peep was far too prolific for me to do my usual format– not counting his two studio albums, his five mixtapes, and his eleven EPs, he also released literally countless loosies and collabs, and there’s still probably untold unreleased material– and for another, he wasn’t a band, and this column will probably not be focused solely on him.
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