Dreamy, fuzzy, warm, and quiet kind of music, bedroom pop. The new “Do It Yourself” genre of music is slowly rising to the top of the music industry. Singers, songwriters and producers who make music in their bedrooms or houses fall under this newfound music category. A mix between alternative, pop, Hip-Hop, and electronic.
Claire Cottrill, known by her stage name Clairo, is a 19 year old artist from Boston who started posting covers on Soundcloud when she was 14 for her own enjoyment. Now she has her own EP out called “diary 001” with six tracks including “B.O.M.D” ; “Flaming Hot Cheetos”, “4EVER” and others. When Cottrill produced a music video for her original song “pretty girl” on PhotoBooth in 2017, it received more than 19 million views.
Cottrill is often associated with soft, intimate, personal vocals. Her music surrounds listeners with a dreamy vibe that is hard to stop listening to once you begin. Her more recent songs are fully produced, new equipment in a studio, due to the fact that she has been collaborating with other artists such as Cuco, Burns Twins, Ashwin Torke and Deaton Chris Anthony. She has finally stepped onto a platform bigger than her bedroom.
Another artist included in the new alternative wave of music is Omar Banos, who is known as Cuco. Banos, just like Cottrill, he is 19 years old, and started making music in his bedroom in Los Angeles. Cuco makes Spanglish love songs and Hip-Hop/alternative music. Clairo and Cuco released a single together called “Drown” on July 31, 2018. Cottrill mentions in their “behind the scenes” video on Youtube that “ It could be about something stupid but be a really good song,” showing us just how easy it is to make music in a bedroom.
The artists who fall into the “bedroom pop” genre of music have taken their songs from their own personal space to media platforms that can be shared around the world. Many of the artists, besides climbing up the top charts of different music platforms, have sold out shows in towns they’ve never been in before.There are a plethora of different genres and listeners that you must gain attention from. It takes time to get recognition in the music industry and some artists are doing whatever it takes to get it.
After Cottrill released her original music video “pretty girl’, the FADER posted an interview featuring her on their Youtube channel. Fans soon started to discover that Cottrill’s father, Geoff Cottrill, has connections with FADER and companies like Converse and Starbucks. This fact does not lessen the quality of her work or decrease the amount of effort she has put into every single song, however it leaves the question of how real the bedroom pop genre is. Are fans going to continue to listen to it because all these artists started from their bedroom and made their way to the charts? Many see this as a stopping point for Cottrill, people will stop listening to her music and shell stop making it altogether. However, Cottrill made music when nobody was listening, why would she stop now?