Why “1000 Gecs and the Tree of Clues” is a Failure
100 Gecs is a polarising music act. Comprised of Dylan Brady and Laura Les, the duo burst onto the music scene with their song Money Machine back in June of 2019, racking up millions of views. This was then followed shortly by their debut album, 1000 gecs, described by reviewers as a “fast-paced rollercoaster ride of irreverent tunes and genre-defying bops featuring elements of pop punk, nightcore, ska, dubstep, deconstructed club, trance, metal, and happy hardcore all thrown into one big internet blender and fired off in rapid whiplash-inducing succession.”
Although songs like Money Machine are obvious meme-bait, there is much evidence that the Gecs do possess genuine musical talent. Songs like Hand Crushed by a Mallet, 800db Cloud, Ringtone, and Stupid Horse all demonstrate what happens when 100 Gecs perfects the balancing act of meta-ironic anti-pop meme-bait and making genuinely good songs. You can overlook the ridiculous and banal moments of the songs because of how creative yet catchy the instrumentation is, and because of the energetic delivery given by the duo. Songs like Money Machine and I Need Help Immediately, however, tumble off the tightrope and land flat on the floor, good for nothing more than an awkward laugh and a remark of “wow that was bad but also interesting.”
The most obvious question following the release of 1000 Gecs is what’s next in store for the duo. Given that their music borders on being little more than a novelty at times and completely unlistenable at other times, how would the Gecs continue their elaborate balancing act in the future? The answer is, apparently, a remix album. Remix albums are notoriously difficult to pull off — just ask Nine Inch Nails. When done correctly, however, they add something new and interesting to the original product whilst still acting as their own unique project that can stand on its own merits. A good example would be Linkin Park’s Reanimation album.
Unfortunately, 1000 Gecs and the Tree of Clues falls flat on its face in every way — not just as a remix album, but as a piece of art. Very few remixes of the tracks add anything new or exciting, and many ruin the elements that made the song unique in the first place. For example, consider the Stupid Horse remix with GFOTY and Count Baldor. The original song was an unusual mix of ska, rock, and trap, that wouldn’t work on paper but is made into glorious reality by the high-energy delivery and creativity of the Gecs. The remix, however, swaps out the instrumental for a generic and uninteresting hardstyle-type beat, and GFOTY’s completely uninteresting delivery completely fails to sell her rewritten and cringeworthy lyrics. That’s to say nothing of the music video, which goes beyond “so-bad-its-good” and just becomes flat-out bad.
The story is similar for many other tracks on the album. The Injury Reserve remix of 745 Sticky is an absolute disaster on multiple levels. The first 30 seconds or so are completely unlistenable, and Ritchie Wit’s ad-libs are obviously out of sync with the beat. Speaking of the beat, the actual instrumental under the verses is completely slaughtered into a mess of car horns and glitched vocal cuts that sound awful. Ritchie’s actual delivery on his verses sounds even worse. His verse lacks any energy and he sounds borderline drunk. It’s arguably the worst guest verse I’ve heard of any rap song, save for Carti on Drake’s 1993 Pain or KirbLaGoop on Lil Peep’s Red Drop Shawty.
Some of the other noteworthy offenders include the Fall Out Boy remix of Hand Crushed by a Mallet — though “cover” is a more appropriate term, as very little is done with the song beyond a generic cover. It’s not an entirely offensive song, but the mixing on the song around the two-minute mark absolutely is offensive. It’s also a baffling choice of guest artists, considering Fall Out Boy’s recent output has been shockingly bad. The nothankyou remix of the song is even worse, slathered in so many layers of noise that it crosses the line from “haha lofi noise punk” to “this is genuinely bad and should never have been released on a commercial album.” The Black Dresses remix of 745 Sticky suffers from similar issues, because someone forgot to remind the artist that lathering a song in noise and distorted screams to the point where it feels like a Bandcamp noisecore release does not make you interesting or talented.
What is even more offensive is the songs that are just plain average: the ones where I have very little to say. The umru remix of Ringtone falls into this category. It’s a perfectly fine remix, but it doesn’t really stand out or have any moments that make me go “wow.” It adds very little to the original remix, the guitar outro feels derivative, and the cellphone buzz samples littered throughout the track are more annoying than anything else. The other remix of Ringtone is okay too, but it’s really just a slightly souped-up version of the original instrumental with some guest artists phoned in to perform their own takes on the original verses. It adds practically nothing to the original and is completely redundant. Elsewhere, the remix of 800db Cloud largely fails to impress, existing as a generic but ultimately inoffensive and uninteresting dubstep remix. The Danny L Harles remix of gec 2 U suffers from a similar problem: it’s a completely generic and boring remix of a song that, in its original form, was genuinely creative and experimental. The two original new songs from the Gecs fall into this category too: Came To My Show and Toothless are okay songs, but they’re obviously B-sides from the 1000 Gecs album that were left on the cutting room floor for a very good reason, and they should’ve been left there. The lyrics in the former track border on cringeworthy even by 100 Gecs standards, and the Marshmello sample in the latter track just feels like a weak attempt to be “quirky.”
The album is rounded out by two completely redundant tracks: namely, live versions of 800db Cloud and Small Pipe. Their presence makes no sense on the album and is completely unwarranted. It feels like a tacked-on addition to extend the run-time of the album even further and get more plays on Spotify. The live vocals on 800db Cloud are also not very good. A+ for effort and energy, but it sounds like there was absolutely zero practice or attempt to actually sound good. Laura’s vocals for the first minute of the track are embarrassingly bad. And why not just include the studio version of Small Pipe instead, since it hasn’t even been released? What’s so special about a live version that means you can't just put the actual version on the album? Probably nothing, since it’s a largely repetitive and boring song that adds nothing to the album.
If 100 Gecs were trying to prove that they weren’t just a novelty act and that they had some lasting value outside of making catchy but forgettable meme tracks like Money Machine, 1000 Gecs and the Tree of Clues proves the exact opposite in my eyes. Everything on it is half-baked or downright awful. The things I loved about the original 1000 Gecs album are not here. In their place, poorly-chosen guest artists, generic or bad instrumentation, poor mixing, poor tracklist choice, unnecessarily long runtime, and almost no creativity whatsoever. On all fronts, 1000 Gecs and the Tree of Clues is an absolute failure, and spells out a dark future for the duo.
