Premiere: Rosie Tucker Shares New Single 'Paperclip Maximizer'
New LP UTOPIA NOW! Out March 22 via Sentimental Records
February 26, 2024
Photo by Jon Del Real
Over the past few years, Rosie Tucker has quietly built a career as one of indie rock's most crafty and thoughtful up-and-coming songwriters, crafting records packed with razor-sharp hooks and an endlessly intelligent lyrical voice. Mock Supreme, their last full-length album, arrived in 2019, just before they dropped from Epitaph Records. Now newly independent, they returned last year with a collection of short songs, aptly titled Tiny Songs Volume 1followed by a new single, “Unending Bliss”.
The latest release was also the first taste of their upcoming album UTOPIA NOW!, which they announced last month with the record's second single, “All My Exes Live In Vortexes.” Today, they follow up with another new track, “Paperclip Maximizer,” premiering on Under the Radar.
“Paperclip Maximizer” is another in Tucker's latest string of new singles, sharing vocals.
A major theme of the record lies in Tucker's relationship with their art. Listeners watch as they break down what it means to make music as a 'career', exploring how the act of creating has been commoditized and monetized as part of a mindset of never-ending growth. “Paperclip Maximizer” plays on these themes, weaving them into Tucker's thorough and intense style. Fuzzy guitar textures and stiff hooks intertwine with Tucker's talkative vocals, creating a strange alchemy through which their honest lyrics come out sharp and instantly catchy.
Tucker says of the track, “'Paperclip Maximizer' is a cautionary tale about watching from afar as a former loved one pursues continued career growth and accolades with a total, universe-crashing. The song is partially inspired by seeing ex-boyfriends pursue outwardly impressive music careers while completely destroying their private relationships. When I wrote it, I felt alone and undervalued in my attempts to articulate how my interactions with the music industry often left me feeling isolated, angry, and distressed. When I started trying to channel my frustrations into art, the resulting songs weren't just critical of the artist's experience but of capitalism as a system.
It's kind of impossible to explain the song without sounding like an actual dork, but here goes: philosopher Nick Bostrom first described the link maximizer in a 2003 thought experiment intended to show how artificial general intelligence could pose an existential threat to humanity. I find some of Bostrom's thoughts harmful and regressive (he's a proponent of the long-standing, latest garbage ideology that tech billionaires try to pass for moral integrity) but I really liked the metaphor, not as a statement about AI, but as a description of the destructive dangers of capitalism, especially when its logic is internalized and recreated in our personal lives.
People seem to fear that new technologies will oppress and dehumanize, even as we already degrade and exploit each other with great efficiency. It's like, if you think it's scary to be controlled by a machine, wait until you find out what humans have done!”
Check out the song and video below. UTOPIA NOW! out March 22 via Sentimental Records.
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