WLFM Blog

Written 10/03/2026

By August Betke

Hello internet world. You’re reading the return of WLFM’s infamous blog page. My name is August Betke and I’m a DJ here at WLFM. I got asked by the suits at the station to get boots on the ground of the ancient art form of blogging. Why did we ever stop? I personally love to blog. Anyway, let’s get to the real point here: what is the point of it? What is a “point” in the first place? Well, I can’t even begin to have an answer for that and I think that anyone who does is full of shit. Let’s talk about something else because any time you get people thinking too hard about what meaning is, it tends to bum people out. At least me.

What’s the deal with music these days? And more specifically, music on Instagram? Some folks like to call it “burger music”, or “reels music”, or as us music critics (am I a music critic? What’s the qualifications for that?) put it, “terrible”. I think you can all imagine what I’m talking about- when you’re doing your daily 5 hours of dopamine ejections and you come across a band making music that just sounds like Tame Impala, or Noah Kahan, or some nonsense pop-folk group like the Fleet Foxes. A bunch of Brooklyn-looking hipster jerks all smiling like nothing’s wrong in the world. And the worst part is, the music that they’re making is never anything of note. It all sounds like commercial muzak that you’d hear in a Target. There’s nothing wrong with being happy, I’m only a nihilist sometimes, but these guys all seem to thing that their obnoxious ripping off of the worst kind of popular music is okay. There’s zero edge to these Instagram bands. And what really gets my goat, is the annoying methods of promotion. I’d be more okay with these Backseat Lovers clones if they actually weren’t annoying assholes about how they present their art. The way these people do it is they either copy some terrible skit trend, have an obnoxious (I’m going to use that word a lot) stomp-clap-fake shot on film filter music video, or are insufferably dickish about how much they love fellating themselves.

I’ve coined a term for this type of self-promotion I see frequently on my feed: nonchalant arrogance. You’ve totally seen it. Someone making an exceptionally boring song in the most oversaturated genre like “folk” pop, “art” rock, or “shoegaze”1, and then they simultaneously brag about how much a genius they are while acting like it doesn’t even matter. It’ll be stuff like “yeah, don’t worry about me, I’m just reinventing rock and roll in my bedroom as an 18 year old” and then their 15-second clip of a song will just sound like Radiohead. (On that note, Radiohead didn’t really do anything super cool until In Rainbows. Fight me). So tell me this- if you are actually are reinventing rock and roll, why be shy about it? Why act like it’s not a big deal? Why beg for likes and follows on the internet if you’re that confident in your work? And why pretend that your shit is genius? You think the Beatles were

begging every tabloid in Liverpool to say “please promote us we are reinventing all of music and if you follow and comment we’ll give you free backstage passes to our first show!!!!!!!!”? Maybe instead of jumping straight into promoting your terrible Spotify slop you should focus on actually trying to book gigs and get some real good things recorded instead of meandering your apartment filming yourself in an outfit you put on solely for the video while you look nonchalantly out your window to show you’re attractive enough to make art that people like.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying nobody should make music. Make whatever shit you want to make. Nobody is going to like anything. My tastes are different from yours. But show some goddamn humility, and stop acting like you’re the most special person in the world. You’re no more special than the rest of us, because everyone is equally special because we are all the only one of us on the planet.

My preferred method of promotion is just showing you playing the song, providing a small background, and saying “this is art I made. I’m proud of it, and would appreciate you listening to it. Thank you.” What ever happened to thank you? Now it’s all “me this, me that, me make best song”. If you’re confident in your art, which you should be because it’s a beautiful thing,2 why do you feel the need to engage in this self-masturbatory behavior?

Anyway, if you want to hear the kind of music I enjoy so you can decide whether you hate my opinions about music or love them, listen to WLFM. Not only are there tons of great DJs on there, but I have a show too- called “Half a Canyon” every Monday from 6 to 7 PM central time. Take a glimpse into my musical ethos, because I’m reinventing the radio.

1 None of the people who I talk about tend to actually adhere to the ethos of the genres they draw influence from, so I put the styles in quotations to emphasize the lack of respect for art these people have.

2 The creation of art as a whole is a beautiful thing. Just because I have been disparaging of a certain kind of art does not mean that I think it shouldn’t exist or has some sort of negative value- anything that I say that implies that is because I am a hypocritical bastard as we all are. Art is a thing that separates us from the rest of the universe. The existence and creation of it at all is a beautiful thing period.