Gloomy Tunes: L’il Peep, “Better Off (Dying)”

We know we’re getting old when even Newsweek knows more about contemporary music then we do. Or, to put it another way, something was happening there, and we didn’t know what it was.

What brought on this generational moue? The death of rapper L’il Peep, whose existence we were innocent of until this moment. He was 21, and if Pitchfork can be believed, the “future of emo” (Whether emo, or punk with all the joy squeezed out, is deserving of a future is a discussion for another time.)

Here’s a song from his most recent album, Come Over When Your Sober, “Better Off (Dying),” which has the now awful, prescient line “Even if we try hard/I ain’t gonna make it.”  It’s the kind of line that could have been shrugged off as adolescent posturing a day ago, but now sounds like a depressed person’s call for help.

Steven Mirkin

Steven Mirkin’s diverse career has taken him from politics to pop culture to high art, offering him a front row seat to some of the most fascinating events and personalities of our time: writing speeches, fundraising appeals and campaign materials for Ed Koch, John Heinz and independent presidential candidate John B. Anderson; chronicling the punk/new wave scenes in New York and London; interviewing musicians such as Elton John, John Lydon and Buck Owens; profiling modern masters Julian Schnabel, Paul Schrader and Jonathan Safran Foer; and writing for TV shows including 21, The Chamber, Let's Make A Deal, and Rock Star: INXS.