Remember hearing the first How To Dress Well track and feeling like you were listening to the next step in music? And then this year he pops off his third album What Is This Heart?, and your immediate reaction was, “THIS fucking guy doing the same thing, again?” Then PC Music comes along, A. G. Cook starts slaying all ideals of progression in music, makes the sleaziest and crispest sugar-pop, and then recognizes an opportunity like remixing “Repeat Pleasure” into something WAY more.
Granted, the remix couldn’t be possible without that typical How To Dress Well touch, but “Repeat Pleasure” should have been produced BY A. G. Cook, or the entirety of What Is This Heart? produced by PC Music associates, on the whole. Like, don’t get me wrong, I ain’t a fascist, but shouldn’t people who’ve made the same album over and over look for their level-up moment immediately and/or eventually? How can you actively be within the arts as a “professional” without listening past your own nonsense? Isn’t this how regurgitation begins? #babybirdR&B
A. G. Cook changed how I listen to music about a year ago. Beyond that, I expect music now to be on the same playing field as PC Music. Not exactly glitzed and randomized as collective fronts sonically, but definitely utilizing psyche-breaking atmospheres that build a love-or-hate-it world within all listeners. Is this music funny? Can I appreciate the time it took to make this track? It’s like comparing the entirety of Yeezus’ lyrics to the instrumentals. Or the dynamic between creativity and what makes money. Which wins?
FUCK YOU, A. G. Cook has, JUST DID, and will continue to obliterate minds until the next-best-thing comes about. Maybe that next-best-thing is an in-collaboration A. G. Cook-produced How To Dress Well album. We just want what’s best for ourselves in the end, no?
Somehow, I managed to make an .mp3 of How To Dress Well’s “Repeat Pleasure” (A. G. Cook Remix), which is streaming below:
• How To Dress Well: https://howtodresswell.com
• A. G. Cook: https://soundcloud.com/agcook