#SELFIE Is Self-Serving Junk From The Chainsmokers

Well...that'll teach me to get the idea in my mind to review a band based on how interesting I think the music will be because the band in question has a slightly titillating name. The Chainsmokers are an NYC DJ duo consisting of Andrew Taggart and Alex Pall. There's nothing wrong with promoting house dance music. There IS something annoying about a ditty wrapped entirely around the latest cultural habit that one person starts and other people like Rhesus monkeys, join in on in an attempt not to feel uncool. What is it about snapping a picture on the camera in one's phone that's so very necessary for the proper evolution of human existence? Taking pictures is fine. Making memories is far from objection worthy. But a selfie has to be one of, if not the most self-serving "Hey look at me! I'm special patterns of behavior that's ever rolled down the pike. It's sort of on a par with texting to provide commentary on the most bland details of one's everyday life. Listen people, and trust me you'll thank me for sharing somewhere down the road, I, for starters, don't text and, for finishers, wouldn't text someone about something as TMI as, oh, say, the shape of my bowel movements because a private life is called a private life because it's...how to drop this bombshell gently...PRIVATE. Now then..."#SELFIE" does contain dialgoue from two heretofore anonymous young women. They're discussing such world altering concepts as why is the DJ playing Lorde's "Summertime Sadness" when it's not even summer. They also wax judgmental on the short girl who's tacky enough to be caught dead in a club wearing cheetah. Mensa material if ever I heard any. I have reason to believe Andrew and Alex might be basing their mad skills and flammable fiesta sounds around joining with me in making fun of airheads who honestly think selfies make them part of the vanguard of totally cool chicks. In the second verse one lady wants her caption to be clever as the dickens. She also comments about how she's only gotten ten likes in the last five minutes. There's something that'll keep you up at night in utter misery, huh? Andrew and Alex's "sound", if you can call it that, isn't anything more substantial than whatever Lady Gaga or Ke$ha performs to. Electronica? For sure. Anything better than disposable electronica? Not on your life. Didn't need the echo effect of the word "selfie" either. Don't really care how it's voice modulated either. As usual in these sorts of tracks there's the dance crazed drumming, the percussion cousin, not once removed of a balloon being inflated to where it unavoidably pops. The manufactured buildup of intensity lifts higher and higher and higher until the cosmic clouds burst. We're supposed to get caught up in the magic, the pixie dust, the aural illusions but instead the trick of ear is neither sound nor fury. How many of you out there thought The Chainsmokers hinted at a performing arts act that was going to alter your reality forever? Me too!! So why are we stuck with skinny white girl conversation and club mishmash that really deserves a better showcase than this? Ask Adam Alpert. Who dat'? He's the guy who runs their management company 4AM. I'd have to be listening to "#SELFIE" at 4AM, in an exhaustion induced haze no less, to conclude that this song has cultural relevance on any level at all. The Chainsmokers blow way too much smoke, and fail to leave a tangible, amusing listening experience in their wake. You'd be better off indulging your yen for a pack of prime cigarettes. But hurry.CVS may develop a new pang of corporate responsibility any day now.