Todays rip: 26/02/2024
Shopping on Star Road
Season 2 No Album Release (Read More) Game Over (OST Version) - Super Mario World
Ripped by sadkey
Requested by bobthetacocat! @bobthetacocat
There's a part of me that really doesn't quite know how to approach this rip in particular, for a few reasons. Sure, I've covered hip-hop themed rips on the blog before, including other lo-fi ones like Yoshi's Cookie World and Stickerbrush State of Mind - but with those and others, I've felt like I've had a story attached to them to tell, to sort of make up for my lack of knowledge on the rap scene in general. I still heard the name "Lil Peep" around from time to time, but knew nothing about the guy or his work - and further wasn't even aware that he's now been away from us for close to seven years, after his passing in 2017. Like I said with Through the F-F-Fire and the F-F-Flames, there's an added difficulty in talking about someone's legacy after the fact when you never really felt like you knew them to begin with. Those were, at least, the thoughts I had when receiving the request to cover Shopping on Star Road. And then I listened to it - and then, I dug deeper.
On SoundCloud's official Wikipedia page, Lil Peep is one of ten artists listed as examples under the "SoundCloud Rap" sub category, a label many of you are likely more familiar with than I've ever been. I recognized the names of several of the other listed examples, of course - XXXTentacion, Playboi Carti, Juice Wrld - yet never put it together that they were all born under the same umbrella, the umbrella of SoundCloud as a platform. This community formed of creators expressing themselves with as much honesty and raw emotion as possible, a sort of re-emergence of emo expressions as told by individual rising stars...The more I read, the more fascinated I became - and, of course, given my brainrot, I couldn't help but draw parallels to the SiIvaGunner channel itself.
Much of the joy of SoundCloud as a platform is how...unrestricted it is, as a platform. There's little in the way of licenses, little moderation, no reason for quality control - from what I've gathered without using it, its able to act much like your average social media in that you can post practically anything (that isn't hate speech) and have a chance of getting noticed. There's little pressure to perform, little direct monetization: it is, in its purest form, an audio playground. The idea of "SoundCloud Rap" came about from that culture as a result, to just perform and release something without the pressure of a perfect mix, of perfect vocals and mastering, effectively "venting" in the form of music. There's an aura of sincerity to rap music like Lil Peep's Star Shopping, with a simple beat that sets an immaculate vibe alone, with vocals that speak from the heart, with flow carried by emotion despite the music's simplicity.
And, like, I know it sounds a bit insincere to draw a connection between this thing that I'm not very invested in, and the thing this blog is about that I am VERY invested in, but...that sort of sincerity has always been a huge part of SiIvaGunner's appeal to me. Be it in stupid bits where the mask of the parody occasionally slips with a laugh, such as Can't Say Goodbye to Yesterday - as performed by Bob Dylan, or mashups where you can feel that each source was picked out with affection like vs SAYU (Based Version), there's an aura to many SiIvaGunner rips that make you feel...connected to the people behind them. A connection not all too dissimilar to the one formed between the artist and listener with music as unfiltered as SoundCloud's often is.
There's that, and of course that several of the team's oldest rippers, such as toonlink of Dr. Soulja fame, initially got their start doing the very same thing they do now on SiIvaGunner, but on SoundCloud. It was this messing around with other "rippers" as part of what was then called the "SoundClown" community that SiIvaGunner creator Chaze the Chat cites as the primary inspiration for starting the channel all the way back in Season 1. With this shared history in mind, Shopping on Star Road gains a new sort of meaning - a sendoff from one side of SoundCloud's old guard from another, in tribute to a rapper who passed just as SiIva's own first season ended. It obviously helps that ripper sadkey has a fantastic ear for what he does, and would later go on to make one of the channel's most underrated rips of all time in Unstable Connection. sadkey, Lil Peep, the sentimentality born from the shared history on SoundCloud, and the Super Mario World Game Over theme itself, come together to make Shopping on Star Road one of the most soul-healing listens on the channel.
I never knew much of Lil Peep, nor know much of just how much he impacted people. But I can feel a connection to both him and the people who miss him through Shopping on Star Road and its comment section alone.
