After a TikTok Hit, corook Gets Serious (Sort Of) The humor and sincerity of if i were a fish struck a chord with alum Corinne Savages listeners. Their new EP proves it was anything but a one-off.By
John Mirisola
June 9, 2023
Corinne Savage B.M. '17 performs as corook.
Image by Libby Danforth
Its a story as old as music: Have a bad day. Write a great song. Maybe have a better day tomorrow.
Thats more-or-less the experience that launched corook-the artist project of Nashville-based songwriter and producer Corinne Savage B.M. '17-to new levels of notoriety. In April, their song if i were a fish exploded on TikTok, where the video has received more than 18 million views and 380,000 shares to date. The songs core question, Whys everybody on the internet so mean? was deeply serious for Savage, who wrote and performed it with their partner Olivia Barton B.M. '18 in response to online bullying theyd suffered. But the song they pulled from the depths of that struggle was such a gloriously weird and funny celebration of individuality, and it spawned such an overwhelmingly positive and openhearted response, that for one moment in the spring of 2023, it actually managed to make one corner of the internet seem a little less mean.
serious person, Pt. 1 album artwork
This month, corook released their new EP, serious person, Pt. 1-a batch of songs that reaffirm Savages talents as much more than a social media phenomenon. With each song on the EP, corook skillfully balances sincerity and humor, unpacking serious themes such as romantic commitment, body image, and queer identity in a series of witty, sharply observed sonic time capsules.
A lot of the ideas that I have on that EP are centered around those magic moments of, I dont know what this is, but lets chase it, corook says. And in this interview, conducted a few days before they announced their first-ever North American headline tour, they dig into the craft of shaping those magic moments into songs. We also talk about the challenges of balancing internet fame with real-world connection, the significance of their Nashville Pride performance later this month, and much more.
Read the full conversation (edited for length and clarity):
From the outside, it sure seems like youve had kind of a wild couple months. Its not like if i were a fish came out of nowhere, because youve been at this for a while, but that song really did seem to put you in front of a lot of listeners who connected with you in a new way. So Im wondering how youve been processing that response, and if there have been moments in the last couple months where you really knew something was different about the reaction to that song. corook: You know, Ive only had like one other moment like that. Ive posted a lot of songs on TikTok-thats kind of what we have to do now. My song its okay! kind of had a moment. And the biggest difference between that and if i were a fish was the way that it felt like if i were a fish already existed in peoples lives. For its okay! people would take the audio and make a video to the audio, but for if i were a fish, there were thousands of videos of people singing it around the house or to their kid, or, like, a childrens choir singing it. It felt like the song had been around and had a life of its own already.
Its been kind of impossible to process. And one of the things that I did to try to process this online world of people accepting and listening to the song was, I wanted to meet people. I wanted to see if these people were real people. And so I did a little meetup in New York a few weeks ago and just asked people to come, just to see who would come. I thought maybe 25 people would show up, and it must have been like 300 people that came to this park and just showed up to sing the song.
And thats when I was like, Oh, wow. This is not just me gaining a few fans. This is gonna be an actual fan base after this.
Its difficult to be an artist nowadays because the numbers can go up and my phone can ding a bunch of times, but it doesnt totally feel like Im a successful artist. So Im really excited to have shows and see people in real life reacting to the song and just telling me their stories as to how the song affected them, because thats what really makes me feel like Im held by my community.
The internet, and social media specifically, has been an engine for a lot of your notoriety, but at the same time, clearly also a source of a lot of anxiety and heartache for you. So Im really curious, as an artist who has to work on these platforms and also is pretty critical of them in some of your writing: How do you think about your own relationship to the internet? And maybe related, how do you keep yourself grounded in the real life side of things? How Social Media Burnout Affects Musicians
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corook: I think, like anything, I go through seasons. Some seasons its really difficult to have a relationship with social media, and others, it feels just like a creative outlet for me. I think its been a weird time to be an artist because we kind of dont have a choice. We have to be online in some capacity, and it can be difficult to not only find your voice, but also to deal with the reactions coming at you in real time, whether its wildly positive or wildly negative-because theyre both there.
I havent figured it all out yet. I think Im in a season right now of it really affecting me, which is why Im really excited for these shows to see these people and to connect in real life and kind of not have to worry about the online thing for just a moment.
But yeah, I do have contradicting feelings around it because its obviously brought me such a wonderful, vast community of sensitive, wonderful people t
