Struggling Florida musicians must hate Mike Diaz. He’s the young man otherwise known as Millionyoung, a palm-trees-and-sunshine-bred electronica artist who’s been getting lipstick-kissed love letters from indie blogs around the country for his radiant, downtempo electronica.
And he wasn’t even trying.
Diaz owes his success to a Tumblr account. The social networking site allows users to post pictures, YouTube clips, and in the case of musicians, embedded audio and video of their music, like Myspace but with less aggravation. In July of 2009, he posted an EP he produced in his spare time, his intended audience his girlfriend and some friends. But several stalwart taste-making indie music sites caught wind of the release and his prominence snowballed.
Gorilla vs. Bear praised his “blissed-out” sound while Pitchfork.com doted on his “soft pulsing rhythms, dream-washed melodies, and nostalgia-inducing electronic patterns,” all hallmarks of the genre Millionyoung inhabits that’s been dubbed (with much debate) as “chillwave.” Chillwave derives its name from the overcast mood it evokes and the sonic similarities to ‘80s New Wave.
Whether or not Millionyoung actually belongs in the category is up for discussion. Perhaps his sound does owe more to his gloomier influences — The Album Leaf, Radiohead, Panda Bear — and his choice of blood pressure-lowering tempos, in particular, may be informed by these doleful electronics-wielding rockers. However, the more buoyant elements of his music can be traced back to his recent ‘60s rock and doo-wop kick. When I spoke with him by phone a few weeks back, he told me he’d been listening to lots of Phil Spector-produced recordings by artists like The Ronettes and Diana Ross, and that he’s intrigued by the lyrical and instrumental contradictions of that era’s music. “A lot of the time, the words are really sad, but the song seems really hopeful.”
This article appears in Aug 12-18, 2010.