Ned Hepburn: Meade Skelton’s ‘Hipsters Ruin Everything’ may be hipster anthem we’ve all been waiting for

 This is a reprint of a now deceased article from Death and Taxes Blog printed June 20th, 2012

Meade Skelton’s ‘Hipsters Ruin Everything’ may be hipster anthem we’ve all been waiting for

Meade Skelton is a guy from Virginia who hates Obama, hipsters, and untucking his shirt. He has a blog, and spends most of the day blogging about how much he wants to sing, how much he hates Obama, how much he dislikes drums, and detailing his weight loss.

He also uploads a lot of his songs to YouTube. Now, the cynic in me wants to simply write him off as a guy in a small town with a keyboard (which he names “Bessie,” by the way) – but to be honest, there’s something about him that screams “outsider art” moreso than most any other random YouTube / blog find. He comes across like the Daniel Johnston of keyboard-based coffee shop country – a description that no doubt will set his rivaled hipsters ears on fire.

For all the vast amount of information that the internet has to offer, its rare to come across something like this; perhaps the internet equivalent of finding an old, weird, quirky album at a flea market. Meade might be a bit of an odd duck in real life but his music is just weird enough – not to mention earnest enough – to bear repeated listens. That’s what makes you listen. I might not agree with his messages 90% of the time, but he’s so cringingly honest and, well, that’s a rare quality in the age of autotune.

In his blog he laments not achieving fame at a younger age. For what it’s worth, I think he doesn’t need country stardom. Perhaps if he embraced his oddball status he’d find the fame he’s looking for.