CocoRosie are a divisive, if not flat-out widely disliked, band. The twee, folkadelic, fond-of-beat-boxing sister act’s last three albums have landed in the 2.3–5.1 range of Pitchfork’s 10 rating system—worse than it sounds given that the big hump of that site’s bell curve sits in the 6–8 area, making anything under 5 kind of a slap. Metacritic’s more forgiving metrics (it averages the ratings of many reviews) give those albums a mean (in the mathematical, not the snarky sense) rating of 59, 60, and 67 out of 100, respectively. In academic terms, those are Fs and (to quote Kanye West quoting
Radio Raheem) “Ds, motherfucker, Ds.”
Beyond the numbers, of course, people just say mean things about the sisters Sierra and Bianca Casady. Spin, in a zero-stars review of their 2005 sophomore album, Noah’s Ark, memorably said: “They make each shimmer of postnatal whimsy seem like an eternal gulag of the spotless mind.” One particularly bone-picking (and off-base) critic, writing for Brainwashed
.com, called them “Cocoracist” (for reasons we’ll explore later) in an article subtitled “You’re So Worldly, How’s Mom’s Audi?” Why all the hate? The Stranger attempts to get to the bottom of this pressing issue in popular music.
Call this the Vampire Weekend argument, and it’s as specious here as it is with that band. In terms of privilege, Sierra and Bianca grew up roaming the Southwestern United States and Hawaii, the children of an artist/teacher mother who encouraged them to drop out of school and a father devoted to Native American/psychedelic shamanism. The pair started the band while living in Paris, la-di-da, and recorded their first album, La Maison de Mon Rêve, in a (presumably claw-foot) bathtub. Sierra studied opera; Bianca worked as a model. This apparently luxe life rubs some folks the wrong way, especially when the sisters start dabbling in hiphop tropes or talking up the influence of the Wu-Tang Clan (cf. Vampire Weekend and Afropop, Lil Jon). But even if you’re a class warrior, it’s just bad form to discount someone’s artistic merit because of her supposed socioeconomic background. And it’s equally dense and antiquated to accuse CocoRosie’s magpie style of unfair “appropriation” when we live in a culture that is, now more than ever, cross-pollinating, globalized, and polyglot, where people can listen to and engage with and produce all types of musics without necessarily being tourists or neocolonialists, where no one “owns” hiphop, etc. (Besides, they claim Syrian and Native American ancestry, so there.)
Although, to be fair, so did John and Yoko and Patti Smith about a million years ago. But context matters, so let’s cut to the CocoRosie song in question, “Jesus Loves Me”: “Jesus loves me/But not my wife/Not my nigger friends/Or their nigger lives.” The song is obviously sung in character, its affected Billie Holiday warble (David Sedaris’s is better) and lazy back-porch, blues-guitar plucking an antique grotesquerie in keeping with the band’s frequently deployed old-timey affectations. It certainly lands like a reminder that some things from the old-timey times FUCKING SUCKED. Like slavery. And ragtime. Still, this kind of face-value blackface revivalism reads a lot less powerfully than Lennon/Ono’s or Smith’s pointed uses of epithet as analogy. If you’re going to try to shock, you better not forget to awe.
This is the argument that CocoRosie get more shit for all their lame crap than they would if they were dudes. Without pretending we live in some postgender paradise, it’s safe to say that all the hate heaped on Vampire Weekend for grappling with the aesthetics of class or, say, any number of white male rappers for playing fast and loose with hiphop’s codes of race and authenticity proves that guys get called out on this nonsense, too.
The Casady sisters have a thing for deliberately bad cover art (previously: crayon drawings of unicorns fucking) and they may like to play with hiphop idioms, but the cover for their new Sub Pop debut, Grey Oceans, has a loooooong way to go before it gets around the horn to being so bad that it’s good, à la Pen & Pixel’s mighty, Master P–fueled run of deliciously lowbrow digital excess in the late ’90s. This just looks like their avatars for World of LOLcraft.
This one hits especially close to home for some Seattleites who hold our local mega-indie in almost mythically high regard (and who, just maybe, think their demo should’ve landed them a deal before these two boho bozos got theirs). But this objection also falls apart pretty quickly when you consider that Sub Pop’s storied catalog is full of oddball, occasionally awful records alongside its grunge canon; it has never shied away from signing an unusual act, especially if it might stir up some good controversy.
Okay, so this one is subjective, but it’s also the only good reason for hating the band. It’s not damning that they engage with hiphop or affect old-timey mannerisms; it’s that the results are so facile and fallow and precious. It’s that their songs somehow manage to be both grating and yet so flimsy that they’re barely even there. Your ears will prick up for the nicked Eastern rhythm and melody (and ignorable playtime rap) of “Smokey Taboo,” for instance, only for the tentative goodwill to be dashed by the cloying ragtime intro of “Hopscotch Teardrop.” The appealingly múm-like lullaby and hollowed-out trip-hop beat of “R.I.P. Burn Face” turns over into three straight songs of raspy babytalk nonsense. You’ll enjoy the music for a moment before those damn elfin, have-one-on-Joanna-Newsom vocals kick back in and you notice the daft lyrics. Repeat ad nauseum.
Or better yet, don’t. 
@51 I agree with you except that I think they are very sexy. They remind me of my wife in her teens. I’ve only seen pictures, but she had this awful style, because she was trying to crack the budding box she was stuck in. Bad hair, bad clothes, great young, fresh and some borrowed ideas. Male artists aren’t subjected to this sort of antagonism rebelling against their masculinity. Bowie, Jackson, Prince, Poison got huge props from female fans. Going against the grain and rebelling is sexy. Even when you are trying to break the sexy mold you are formed from. Guess CCR haters are too blinded by the graininess of the image to appreciate the rebellion. Anyhow, I would much rather be in a claw foot tub with the two of them than a king-size bed with a postcard princess — I’m positive it would be way more fun!
Yes, Cocorosie make the most awful music. As for the aesthetics issue: I have no problem with their appearance (masculine, feminine, both, whatever, it’s fine). I do have a problem with the narrative attached to their aesthetics, which I find totally disingenuous, pretentious, and contrived.
For example, the whole idea of them being Native American. Cocorosie are a quarter Cherokee, maybe less. Their father was a white dude who went around acting like a “shaman.” They grew up totally as rich and privileged white people without ever identifying as or having been treated like a Native person. That gives Cocorosie no right to claim a Cherokee identity and prance around in headdresses, not to mention to use this so-called heritage of theirs to attach some kind of mystical earth-mother shamanistic we-are-so-much-more-spiritually-elevated-than-you element to the music/band’s image. This is worse than just an annoying gimmick.
It’s part of the reason why I do believe they are indeed racist, albeit probably not consciously. They are like many white people who appropriate the shit out of other cultures and thereby promote harmful generalizations and stereotypes (ahem Neon Indian).
AND, I have a problem with their privilege because I DO think you can discredit Cocorosie’s credibility based upon their socioeconomic background. So much of their music is lauded as coming from “artists” who are “free” and have some kind of preternatural insight into what it means to be a “child” or live outside of cultural norms. Well, it’s easy to be a total weirdo and a “nomad” if you have never had to work a real job in your life and your mom pays for you to travel and to live her in french countryside house.
Aaand I’m spent.
Yes, Cocorosie make the most awful music. As for the aesthetics issue: I have no problem with their appearance (masculine, feminine, both, whatever, it’s fine). I do have a problem with the narrative attached to their aesthetics, which I find totally disingenuous, pretentious, and contrived.
For example, the whole idea of them being Native American. Cocorosie are a quarter Cherokee, maybe less. Their father was a white dude who went around acting like a “shaman.” They grew up totally as rich and privileged white people without ever identifying as or having been treated like a Native person. That gives Cocorosie no right to claim a Cherokee identity and prance around in headdresses, not to mention to use this so-called heritage of theirs to attach some kind of mystical earth-mother shamanistic we-are-so-much-more-spiritually-elevated-than-you element to the music/band’s image. This is worse than just an annoying gimmick.
It’s part of the reason why I do believe they are indeed racist, albeit probably not consciously. They are like many white people who appropriate the shit out of other cultures and thereby promote harmful generalizations and stereotypes (ahem Neon Indian).
AND, I have a problem with their privilege because I DO think you can discredit Cocorosie’s credibility based upon their socioeconomic background. So much of their music is lauded as coming from “artists” who are “free” and have some kind of preternatural insight into what it means to be a “child” or live outside of cultural norms. Well, it’s easy to be a total weirdo and a “nomad” if you have never had to work a real job in your life and your mom pays for you to travel and to live her in french countryside house.
Aaand I’m spent.
I like CocoRosie.
In fact, I love CocoRosie’s music.
The whole “oh it’s bad music” bullshit is an OPINION, rather than a FACT.
CocoRosie is fucking incredible! Their music just kicks my ass all over the place! People worrying about their “privileged backgrounds” and
“appropriating culture” crap are dumbshits! Who gives a shit? Shamanism is awesome! And dumbshit actually wants to to slag them for being part Cherokee! WTF? Why do you think they need some kind of pc permission to be into the shit we should ALL be getting into. I just think these pseudo-intellectual critics are a fucking joke and CocoRosie rocks! They’re a credit to Subpop or any record label. You think three chord grunge is the fucking height of musical expression? CocoRosie is miles ahead of 99% of the bands out there. It’s really sad that people rip on a brilliant band like this so hard. You better think again fools.
Wow, hold the fuck on you guys, I understand your reactions, CocoRosie being off the beaten track and everything but WHAT? Pretend-Cherokee racist rich white kids that haven’t had any real jobs? That’s offensive. What do you know about their economy, what their job experiences have been like or how they’ve been treated? And, accusing someone of being racist is pretty serious, you should at least research it before you decide it’s true. http://www.splendidezine.com/features/co…
Besides, CCR are actually saying something about the limits and rules, we, you guys, are making for what is “normal” or “good”. Do you find a particular CocoRosie vocal track, narrative or piece of clothing annoying? Chance is, they do too, and it is included for that very reason.
Claiming that people dislike Cocorosie for being women, is just as discriminative as them being “racist”. Your like or dislike for a certain music style should not be based upon an artists beliefs. I am not Christian, but I listen to my fare share of Christian music. Should I dislike them because they preach a different religion? Not at all. You like what you like and leave it at that, stop bringing gender and beliefs into a place it doesn’t belong.
Everyone is so stupid. Honestly, I wasn’t at all surprised CocoRosie’s message and aesthetic went over everyone’s heads. They are way too smart for the American music scene.
Truth is you’re going to have artistic CLASSICS complementing and in complete awe of CocoRosie on a wide variety of reasons (which they actually have, Including Yoko Ono)…
Whereas, if “artists” like Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift and Katy Perry were to listen and view the music and aesthetic. They would do as so many others have done and just consider it shit without having any idea what’s going on.
There is a whole set up behind their music that hasn’t obviously been very throughly looked into. Do your homework before you claim to know your shit.
This band is only cut out for the people that can understand real art and respect unique details without a closed mind.
5 reasons why people dislike CocoRosie:
1) They’re whiny, non-leftist yuppies claiming to be (so-called) Liberals that have nothing better to do with their bored, mundane existence but make fun of/condemn someone/somebody who happens to be more original than them.
2) Because their stupid (really, really, really stupid).
3) They don’t read and or enjoy, deliberately, being illiterate (otherwise, they’d shut up and go read Schelling’s “Oldest Program Towards a System in German Idealism” among the many Fruhromantik works out there available so that they might expand their tiny little brain cell just enough to actually realize what the hell the band is getting at).
4) They’re Hipsters.
5) They’re incapable of appreciating anything beyond the extremely limited, boring, bland, and capitalistically driven/dominated Hip-Hop culture.
5 reasons why people dislike CocoRosie:
1) They’re whiny, non-leftist yuppies claiming to be (so-called) Liberals that have nothing better to do with their bored, mundane existence but make fun of/condemn someone/somebody who happens to be more original than them.
2) Because their stupid (really, really, really stupid).
3) They don’t read and or enjoy, deliberately, being illiterate (otherwise, they’d shut up and go read Schelling’s “Oldest Program Towards a System in German Idealism” among the many Fruhromantik works out there available so that they might expand their tiny little brain cell just enough to actually realize what the hell the band is getting at).
4) They’re Hipsters.
5) They’re incapable of appreciating anything beyond the extremely limited, boring, bland, and capitalistically driven/dominated Hip-Hop culture.
I didn’t know so many people hated them! I’ve loved them for years, and have never even seen a negative comment on their Youtube videos save for one criticizing a knot in Sierra’s hair. I was browsing and was very surprised and somewhat insulted when I came across this article.
haha dante, you obviously know nothing about cocorosie, stfu please.
hahaha very funny, dante. you dont know what you are talking about are you??? stfu please.
I know my sister just loves them, but I thought that was because she went to a very expensive women’s college.
I love Cocorosie. The first song I heard was Lemonade. I love Bjork, Portishead and Billie Holiday and could not figure out why no one showed me them before. Being a female in the US, the same age as Cocorosie, I feel like there music really relates to me. The styles I grew up with are all there. I’m a child of the 80s, I’m white, I love HipHop, I went to raves in my early teens, I grew up on my baby boomer parents music. Many of their lyrics, I think, are just artistic expressions of the contradictions we were taught as children.
Don’t expect anyone to appreciate cocorosie.
People can get very shallow. Cocorosie make experimental music and it’s very inspiring.