Huge | GFOTY (DJ GURL POWER remix)

Today I was listening to my release radar trying hard to find a song that really connected with me to write a Song of the Week article. Very few managed to get my attention. I found myself that I couldn't stop listening to a remix of GFOTY song, Huge, produced by DJ Gurl Power. Personally, I try to avoid writing about remixes. I don't have anything against remix culture, I just find a difficult time separating the line between talent from the original artist and giving credit to the remix artist. Nonetheless, I found myself entranced by the pop star of GFOTY and feel compelled to write about the phenomenon that is Girl Friend Of The Year.

Polly-Louisa Salmon aka GFOTY is a British musician signed to PC Music, a label and art collective publishing surreal, self-aware pop music. PC Music is known for its roster of female pop singers backed with production featuring pitch-shifted vocals and highly synthesized, layered backing tracks. PC maintains an image that many of its stars embrace; namely a post-ironic love affair with consumerism and cyberculture This aesthetic is a common trope in other contemporary electronic genres; namely vaporwave with artist Macintosh Plus and future-funk with the now defunct Saint Pepsi aka Skylar Spence.

Much of GFOTY's music sounds like the over-produced rich teeny-bopper tracks like Friday (Rebecca Black) or Hot Problems (Double Take) on a first listen. After about a dozen listens, which won't be hard considering the almost calculated catchiness of GFOTY's tracks, you begin to notice that her music has an extra layer of art. There is a layer of self-awareness to her music that feels like GFOTY is rolling her eyes at you once you 'get it.' Just as you start to understand that her work is ironic, she seems to kick that idea out the window and begin to identify with the culture that she is lampooning. 'This is kind of lame and fake but its also a lot of fun so enjoy it anyway' GFOTY seems to say in her songs. Musically, I could describe GFOTY as an act that grew up listening to Carly Rae Jepsen as a kid and became entranced with trap music and Death Grips as she started going to house-parties in high school.

Similar to how pro wrestlers begin to lose sight of the distinction between their stage persona and the person they are, GFOTY seems to intentionally blur a line Polly-Louisa Salmon and the pop star. She has been quoted as describing the persona of GFOTY as "a state of mind which can only be achieved by the deepest level of meditation on a beach in Barbados surrounded by cute jetski instructors." The entire persona uses an exaggerated feminine style that seems to be made to cover up a deeper, sinister element of the character who even Salmon doesn't believe is 'particularly cute [sic]'.

I am utterly fascinated with GFOTY and think that artists like her are zealously creating an avant-garde movement that I think will be an important part of examining Millennial and Generation Z culture.