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thesinglesjukebox · 11 months ago

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MCR-T & HORSEGIIRL - "MY BARN MY RULES"

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Jonathan takes us down to the farm...

[6.05]

Jonathan Bradley: Adrift in life, you've been invited on a university research trip to a secluded and secretive community. The purpose of this visit is anthropological, but you're just along for the ride; it's a solstice celebration, and you're happy to participate in whatever curious festivity these people have planned. These people adore horses, which seems kind of odd, but harmless, right? "Welcome to the farm," chirrups the woman who seems to know what's going on, or perhaps is in charge. She's dressed like a horse, too, and she trots and gallops like a horse -- or so she tells you. So do the other horses -- I mean people -- and these people have gathered for something like a rave. Their beats are heavy and simple and the effect is numbing -- or is that the hay they insisted you eat? It should be just any old club night, but horsegiirL is leading the dance -- her saddle is on, and that doesn't seem right for a human girl, but she wants to run she says -- and the horses are dancing now. Not like dressage, but also not like humans. You sweat and your vision blurs; the synths canter and the kicks pound like hooves. You should leave. You should leave. The horses are weaving flowers into your hair -- your mane -- and your friends have vanished. You smell burning; horsegiirL whinnies like a diva; no horse would dance to this. But you beam. Good mood. Good mood. Good mood. [9]

Tara Hillegeist: One hundred per cent the most normal-sounding music I've ever heard made by a furry. [6]

Micha Cavaseno: Subcultures are fascinating in that, like, it's extremely easy for them to never perceive of anything that doesn't insert itself into their culture. Take for example how hard I cackled when JoJo's Bizarre Adventure used Jodeci and how I knew there were tons of weebs who'd never heard a single K-Ci & Jojo song and maybe 10 of them would end up digging into '90s R&B the way they get really into classical after listening to enough Final Fantasy soundtracks or whatever. So similarly, I always wonder about furries because I've never had any clue what their interests are in besides songs that cater to their interests (various werewolf themed pop songs, "The Animal In Me" by Three Days Grace). "Why is Micha talking about furries?" you might ask? Well, as a dance track I've got nothing to say about "My Barn My Rules." Like, it'd make a good filler track I'd listen to once and skim over on Discogs if it'd been released in '91 and engineered by a guy who was previously in a '80s industrial group like Hula or whatever? But I did have to look at this single art featuring photomanipulation of a horse girl, so now I'm just wondering about that audience's relationship to rave music and whether this is going to be like "Can You Feel It?" for them or not down the line since, let's be real, the horse thing is the No. 1 quality to remark upon. [4]

Frank Kogan: Kinda want more from a talking horse, something more horsey -- though I don't suppose that's fair, since I don't make equivalent demands on talking humans, for instance. But I'm not really feeling the galloping fun that's intended. The beats push okay when horsegiirL starts chanting, "Saddle on, I'm ready now," but the rest is just a signified cuteness. [4]

Katherine St Asaph: The flak-driven fursona kayfabe of Horsegiirl's whole existence should bother me, and on some level I guess it does. Unfortunately, this bangs. My hypothetical Sunshine Rabbits-led fauna club anthem playlist treads one hoof closer to completion. [7]

Crystal Leww: I saw horsegiirL DJ in September, and she played "My Barn My Rules" like three minutes into her set rather than saving it for the closer, suggesting that even she knows that the stuff with MCR-T is the least banging stuff she has. The rest of the set was good -- more of the happy hardcore, Eurodance, and hard trance stuff that's been huge in Europe. It's hard to say why "My Barn My Rules" took off the way it did other than that people like boring, repetitive beats or maybe because it's one of the tracks that is on theme, but yeah, sorry I hate the horse head. [4]

Taylor Alatorre: Would rate this higher if it were an actual furry thing instead of a "Keep Rave Culture Weird" T-shirt. [3]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: A friend once told me that if you ever date a horse girl that you'll always be third in her life -- she and her horse come first and second, though not necessarily in that order. I guess that means the music comes fourth? [4]

John S. Quinn-Puerta: My wife: "I give it five bottles of Mane 'n Tail." [5]

Rachel Saywitz: I used to watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic when I was a teen because I needed happiness in the form of quick 15-minute brightly-colored animated episodes with magical ponies who loved each other, but I dropped off of it when I realized that most of the people who were obsessed with My Little Pony were men who didn't actually like women who liked horses, so I just want to say I fully support the literal horse girl renaissance! [7]

Kat Stevens: When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I played with My Little Ponies and listened to rave music as a child: but when I became an adult, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. [9]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: When he died they took Old Billy's skull and put it into a museum; they also, separately, taxidermied his skin and put into a different museum. Now, two centuries later, the third part of his self has found a true and honorable resting place -- not in flesh nor bone but in the magic of song. [8]

Aaron Bergstrom: Don't you dare drag Old Billy into this. [3]

Ian Mathers: The amount of shitposting I consume has left me curiously immune to whatever dark magics are being invoked here. I respect it, but I am unmoved. [5]

Michelle Myers: The intro was funny the first time, but the mediocre hip-house failed to impress. [4]

Brad Shoup: You don't have to pick a lane. You can drop into many points on the horse-ownership spectrum: reading the Wikipedia page for "horse" to your partner as you entertain the fantasy of, one day, purchasing a horse; going classic Horse Girl mode; actually inhabiting the body of a horse. But you probably shouldn't release a track that sounds like a working session of you writing through all of these scenarios. Only in the last minute do they even find a decent hip-house melody. Lots of great lines and chants here, but at a track length of nearly 4:30 they're stretched thin; this feels like the dub. Give me some galloping gabber! [6]

Will Adams: The original track is 4:26 long. The video version is 2:03. This feels important. [5]

Scott Mildenhall: If you keep your ear close enough to the ground at this time of year in the UK, you may hear Mr Blobby's seminal Christmas number one, "Mr Blobby." If your ear is particularly well tuned, you will also notice that it is a fine piece of music. It could almost be on Very. Conceptually, it's watertight, and builds on Blobbyland instead of just visiting it. While you can elevate a generic track with simple novelty, you can do a lot more to make it stick. This is all to say that the funniest thing about this song is the way it caused Arielle Free to be wheeled unceremoniously out of the Radio 1 studio. [6]

Nortey Dowuona: horsegiirL is a very distinct vocalist. As a rapper, her voice is thin fluffy and light, being overpowered by the fast, steady pass of the kicks and the higher but just as brisk pace of the bassline. As a singer, her voice is just as fluffy, but also clammy, and once certain runs happen over the first thin synth note at the first chorus break, it fails to display much range and awkwardly riffs as her rapped bars come back in, both immediately clashing with each other. Once she is looped and dropped back in, as the song has switched basslines to compete with the sawtooth topline, her rapped voice fits more comfortably and sounds more pronounced. But her singing clashes, bouncing off it until it finally is taken off with a whinny, which has more presence than her voice. [8]

Dorian Sinclair: As mentioned in my Amaarae blurb, I'm a Sagittarius. I was also born in the Year of the Horse, making me doubly equine and causing me to feel a strange sense of kinship with the enigmatic horsegiirL. And while I'm not a huge novelty-song person, "My Barn My Rules" at least is decently funny and has a pretty solid beat. These modest accomplishments are enough to set it apart from the pack herd. [6]

Will Rivitz: As a longstanding member of the Singles Jukebox consortium, I can understand on an intellectual level why it's worthwhile we, as pop music writers, level our collective critical eye with an artist as perfectly lathed to elicit strong responses of all kinds as horsegiirL, and I am genuinely delighted to see what others from around these parts, both those who loved and who hated this song, have to say about it. At the same time, I think it's worth voicing a counterargument to the forking paths this song lays out: fuck that, it slaaaaaps. Anything that could be said about "My Barn My Rules" is violently wrested away from me as I'm pulled without regard to my current state to the dancefloor, to 3 a.m., to screaming every single word with my friends, sobriety only vaguely remembered as somewhere we perhaps once were and will perhaps have to contend with once again sometime in the distant future. For others, there are plenty of ways to vivisect and examine these four and a half minutes in a way that will resonate with those interested in engaging honestly and openly with this art. For me? No matter how much I turn over this totem in my head, I always come away with the same mantra: good mood. good mood! good moooooooooood! [10]

Claire Biddles: The kind of cultural product that demands either a [0] or a [10]. [10]

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