“DIIV GOES POP.” We know that’s true because the cover of the Rolling Stone proclaims it. The edition you’re seeing is the fictional Rolling Stone, anyway. Likely not the genuine article. I haven’t checked. In the video for DIIV’s new track “Trillions,” the members of the band stride in pricey suits, laze within glamorous, expensive-looking homes, fan themselves with crisp $20 bills, and skim magazine pieces about how their sound is evolving. Print media, baby! It still has its uses!
It’s hard to gauge how much irony is threaded through DIIV’s forthcoming album ZIRP! The press blurb claiming DIIV embody the “New Alternative” movement alongside peers like Turnstile, Slayyyter, and Eartheater — that’s probably a prank, right? It must be. I’d say I’m at least 80% convinced it’s a joke. Yet we’re still signing up for the hype anyway, since the first two ZIRP! singles, “The Fountain” and “Kid,” both landed on our list of the week’s best songs. Also, I’ve heard the record, and I think it’s fantastic, regardless of whether it’s meant to function as an extended joke about hype and genres and stuff like that.
DIIV truly did go pop, at least to the extent that they cut ZIRP! with real pop figure A. G. Cook and then tipped their hat to fellow Cook collaborator Charli XCX in São Paulo. But their new single “Trillions” feels perhaps a touch less sincere. It’s a heavily Auto-Tuned computer-pop track about plotting for financial success “I will have the fastest car and a big ol’ brain/ And I’ll have a boat and some kind of big ol’ fuckin’ plane.”
A press release claims that it belongs to “a new genre for music’s optimized VC-funded super deluxe remixed AI-enhanced algorithmically perfected wild west 2020s, where a million streams is great, a billion even better, and a trillion well within reach.” Very good line. The accompanying song genuinely rules, even if its intentions are murky. Check it out below.
ZIRP! is out 10/30 on Fantasy.
