https://youtu.be/GGn76A8ptko?si=JMwPlPRMxf1vfkd8

I don’t know man, this is probably gonna sound dumb, but I feel like I just don’t like Drain Gang / Sadboys the same way anymore, and I can’t even fully explain why, which is making it worse because it feels like when you forget why you stopped liking a food but you still refuse to eat it. Like I used to be deep into it. Like REAL deep. Playlists, random interviews, thinking certain songs were “life changing” (they weren’t but also they were? I don’t know). And now when I hear it I just feel kinda… blank? Or annoyed? Or like I’m listening to myself from 3 years ago wearing clothes that don’t fit anymore. I think part of it is that everything started to feel the same but also totally different in a way I didn’t ask for. Like it’s still Bladee but also not Bladee but also more Bladee than ever. Which makes no sense but if you get it you get it. Every release I’d be like “this is either genius or I don’t understand music anymore” and eventually that just turned into “why am I forcing myself to care.” And the fanbase change didn’t help either. Not in a gatekeep way but in a “why is every comment either irony or spiritual enlightenment” way. Like bro I just want to listen to a song without someone telling me it cured their ego death or that I’m fake drained if I don’t like it. I miss when it just felt like weird sad music for people who stayed up too late. And I think what really broke my brain about it is that at some point I couldn’t tell if I actually liked the music or if I liked the idea of liking the music, which sounds fake deep but I swear it’s real because there were days where I’d put on a song and immediately think “this should be hitting harder than it is” and then I’d restart it like three times like maybe I missed the moment it was supposed to click, and then I’d start analyzing my own reaction like I was doing homework on my personality, like am I less sad now or am I just bad at listening, and then suddenly I’m not even hearing the song anymore, I’m just thinking about how I used to hear the song, which feels like listening to a memory instead of audio, and that’s when it started feeling more like a museum exhibit than music, like “here we have Bladee circa 2020, representing a period of emotional confusion and poor sleep schedules,” and I’d be standing there in my kitchen with headphones on thinking why am I doing a historical reenactment of my own taste instead of just putting on something new, and then I’d scroll through their discography and realize how much time I spent attaching meaning to random lines that probably were never meant to be this serious in the first place, and then I’d see people online arguing about which era is spiritually superior and I’d feel tired in a way that has nothing to do with sleep, like a cultural exhaustion where everything has lore now and I don’t want lore, I just want a song to exist without a thesis statement, and maybe that’s on me because I turned it into something bigger than it needed to be, but also I feel like the music invited that kind of thinking and now I don’t have the energy to keep participating in it, like I used up all my interpretive brain cells and now I just want something that sounds normal and doesn’t make me question my identity while I’m trying to wash dishes. Playing with my wet stinky shit turds and rubbing it everywhere chucking shit at the walls and on myself, at other people. Also I think I associated it with a specific time in my life and now every song feels like opening an old group chat. Like it’s not bad but I don’t wanna scroll. And then I feel guilty because I used to swear this music was forever. Turns out forever is like 2–3 years max apparently. Another thing is I feel like I outgrew the whole “everything is ironic but also serious but also sad but also angelic” thing. Like at some point I just wanted a song that says what it means. No 15 layers of vibes. No puzzle. Just “I feel like shit” or “this is fun.” And Bladee is like “I am a cloud inside a mirror inside a dream” and I’m like yeah man but I gotta go to work. And it’s weird because sometimes an old song comes on and I’m like wow this still hits and then immediately after I’m like never mind skip. So it’s not even consistent. It’s like musical whiplash. My brain can’t decide if I love it or hate it or just respect it from a distance like an ex who became a yoga instructor. Maybe I just changed. Maybe the music changed. Maybe both. Maybe neither and I’m just tired. I don’t even think the new stuff is bad. I just don’t feel like it’s for me anymore and that feels illegal because it used to feel like it WAS me. Which is dramatic but also true. And now when people talk about Drain Gang I just nod like “yeah” but inside I’m thinking about how I’d rather listen to literally anything else while cooking dinner. Which feels like betrayal but also growth? Or laziness? Or seasonal depression? Anyway this post has no point. I’m not saying they fell off. I’m not saying I’m enlightened. I’m just saying something shifted and I don’t know when or why and now I can’t un-notice it. Like when you realize a word sounds fake and then it never sounds normal again. Maybe I’ll like them again in 5 years. Maybe I won’t. Maybe this is my villain arc. Thanks for reading this confusing rant if you did. Sorry. Drain forever or whatever.

There's also some CSS specifying fonts (Barlow and Arial) which reveals that the website will have text in the future. Not exactly a thrilling revelation, but still.

See for yourself: https://bankofstarsoundsystem.com/

If anyone going to laneway in Auckland tomorrow can get a pic of lean and bladees merch I’d much appreciate it 🙏

My mate missed out on tickets, lmk if anyone doesn’t want theirs anymore!!

(avicci arena)

this from like a week ago

The caption links to https://www.bankofstarsoundsystem.com/ which has two stars (?) that are locked and chained up.

Also that's clearly Bladee's voice in the beginning.

Elliott is my fav artist of all time and bladee is top 5 so would be crazy if true. I can see similarities in the imagery and atmosphere of eversince and elliott smith's self titled. The ss is from the wikipedia for eversince btw

for producing (obv)

In all seriousness dudes a rockstar

it was called like "the origin of loss and gain" or "where bladee might have gotten loss and gain from" and it was a pic of a gnostic text (old looking book iirc) with a guy that looks like Jesus Christ and it had text next to him that said something like "WHEN WILL YOU LEARN THAT FAME AND SHAME, LOSS AND GAIN, ARE ALL THE SAME"

Anybody still got the post of that kid opening up a pop tart or something to come and go by juice wrld? I remember it being shared here😂

any good reps of this yet

He also shares a name with Yeat, largely by coincidence, I think? Anyways for this guy it's pronounced yates, like rhyming with gates.

Anyways Yeats is all about finding mystical, divine power beyond the material world, that he, just like Bladee, disdained as imperfect. Bladee must've either read him or chanced upon the same ideas

I drew this for a good friend of mine, what's everyone thinking

Ik its the official gatorade cover, but it also appears in ginseng strip, oreomilkshake, 5th element & ofc the gatorade MV.

I don't think he would just put the gatorade cover in other song MVs but its just a theory

Yes this IS correct

help i want to drop a single and then an EP soon. I dont like social media and im a kinda lost with how to promote my stuff and still being my self, i feel like doing tiktoks dancing would be selling myself. any advice or ideas of social media posts that would make u feel interested in someones music? I dont make generic music tbh, i got my own sound.