Hardcore five-piece Fucked Up have responded to James Blake’s ‘Like The End’ single artwork, which bears some resemblance to the album art for their 2018 release ‘Dose Your Dreams’.
Blake announced the new single yesterday (November 13) and shared artwork showing a big smiley face on what looks like the Las Vegas Sphere on fire.
As their ‘Dose Your Dreams’ artwork also features a huge smiley face in the middle of a big city, Fucked Up quoted Blake’s tweet announcing the single and simply wrote “wtf” as a response, before sharing a fan-made image of the electronic singer-songwriter and producer’s cover combined with their own photography.
It seems all in good humour, however, as when Stereogum reached out to the band they confirmed that “it’s just fun.”
Your move, @jamesblake pic.twitter.com/bFFzRmJR0h
— simpsonsXcore (@SimpsonsXcore) November 13, 2024
The soulful, heartfelt new single follows Blake’s collaborative album with Lil Yachty, ‘Bad Cameo’, which was released on June 28, his feature on Normani’s debut album ‘Dopamine’, and his single ‘Thrown Around’, which was his first release as an independent artist. He announced in April that he was no longer with Republic Records, which he’d been signed to for over a decade.
At the time, he explained, “It feels good to be independent because I’ve wanted to take things into my own hands for a long time,” and added: “After over a decade on a label it feels scary to go independent but here we are. As someone who hates spam, I promise not to send you annoying emails. Just trying to break free of the algorithm gods gatekeeping art.”
Over the summer, Blake also released the surprise EP ‘CMYK 002 – Let Her Know’, explaining that it wasn’t a sequel to his 2010 EP ‘CMYK’ but a new release on his independent imprint of the same name.
Meanwhile, he spoke out against the “monopolies” that come with touring, amid ferocious debate surrounding mailing lists controlled by external companies, hidden fees, and social media algorithms all making it more difficult for fans to buy tickets to see their favourite artists.
He said: “I’m sick of the control over every single aspect of the live experience meaning that means everyone who actually works on the show can be squeezed until a career in live music being a rigger, tech, sound, lighting, producer, tour manager, all of the amazing people who make it possible for us to be in a room together playing live music safely, is harder and harder to justify as a career path.
“For so long artists and fans have been kept in separate rooms, and prevented from talking to each other about how bad it’s been getting. I wanna be in the same room as you, figuratively and literally. And while they kept us in different rooms they were robbing you and robbing the artists.”
He also said: “I’m not having my fans ripped off by people who don’t care the way we do about live music.”
