My Opinion on Sewerslvt

Intro

I wanted to write this because over the course of the last sixth months or so the impact that Sewerslvt has had on me has become very clear. Not only was she one of the artists that caused me to become so autistically obsessed with DnB music but I feel like the more I listen to her music the more captivated I become by it. Her music paints disturbingly relatable paintings and inspire me to do such with my own music. Despite the many Sewerslvt ripoffs there are in this world (more on them later) I don't regard the inspiration I take from Sewerslvt to be unoriginal at all, because to me musical inspiration is harnessing the strong burst of passion that is cast upon you from a piece you truly connect with, and morphing it into your own unique artistic creation. Many other producers have been doing this as well thanks to Sewerslvt's music being so unique and touching. Particularly touching to us transfems who spent to much time on the internet as a child!

How I Discovered Sewerslvt

I discovered Sewerslvt in December 2021 when I was 17, so I was pretty late to the game. I was sitting in the passenger seat of a car with my friend and we had just picked up our other friend. Our plans for the day? Explore our city and find some silly shit to get into. We were taking turns playing songs in the car, I probably played some dubstep or something. The friend we picked up was your pretty stereotypical Sewerslvt fan, in fact, if I had known who Sewerslvt was at the time and had to guess what she would play on the aux I would have very likely guessed Sewerslvt. BUT ANYWAY, she played a song off of the latest, and last Sewerslvt album we had good times together, don't forget that. We were all chatting and not paying too much attention to the music, but for the rest of the day I couldn't stop thinking about what we had just listened to. This wasn't my first time hearing breakbeat music before but it was the first time that I was enthralled by it. The atmosphere, the cover art, the name Sewerslvt, all of it seemed to click for me.

I remember this day very vividly, not only because it was a crucial bonding experience between me and these two people, but also because this was one of the first times I ever took interest in this style of music, having no idea how much it would change my life. It would take me about another year to truly develop a passion for DnB music, but over the course of that year "Sewerslvt" was a name that was familiar to me and I checked out some of here tunes from time to time, enjoying them but I had yet to be fully captivated. During this time I mostly listened to metal, I was obsessed with all kinds of metal it was kind of my personality, I also really loved bass music but that was the only type of electronic music I really loved. I was even making some very shitty bass music at the time.

we had good times together, don't forget that holds extra significance to me due to having discovered it in this time period I look back on very fondly, even though I am no longer friends with either of these people who I discovered Sewerslvt with, the name we had good times together, don't forget that strengthens the significance this album has to me. Jvne's music became even more important to me later in life, and I will elaborate on that later.

Why do I Love Sewerslvt?

Simply put, well, actually I don't want this to be simply put, let's get pretentious as fuck here. Jvne's music captures all forms of negative emotion and weaves them together in a chaotic flurry of beautiful vivid production techniques. The themes of her music are at the forefront of it and that is something that can be very challenging to maintain when producing Dnb. How many DnB artists can you say have made you cry before? This style of music can certainly be as emotionally impactful as any other, but it's rare to see an artist do this as articulately as Jvne does. Still to this day I cannot find any atmospheric DnB artists that pull on my heartstrings as much as Sewerslvt. THIS IS PARTIALLY DUE TO MY PRE-EXISTING NOSTALGIA AND ATTACHMENT TO SEWERSLVT, I want that to be known, but from musician to musician, I think Jvne is a master of her craft. I am very clearly not the only person who feels this way either. It wasn't just her luck with the Youtube and Spotify algorithms but also her music being so stylistically unique that it spoke to so many people on a deep level and reached a demographic of people that needed to hear it (This demographic being terminally online transfems with adhd/autism and other genres of neurodivergence).

Sewerslvt Inspiring me and Many Others Alike

As stated in the introduction, I am not ashamed to say that my music is very inspired by Sewerslvt. My songs Faceless and Born2Kill take direct inspiration from her tracks. I like many others found Jvne's music to be extremely inspiring and without this passionate inspiration we wouldn't have music as we know it today. I am aware that this surge of inspiration that that Jvne is responsible for came with the price of spawning tons of blatant Sewerslvt ripoffs, many being less original than others and sounding pretty low effort. How many times am I going to see an EP with an anime girl crying on it containing some very samey and unadventurous songs that are just a few Nexus pad presets and barely chopped breaks. Finding Sewerslvt inspired music that sounds anywhere near as good as Jvne's work is pretty challenging. The way I see this though, is that it sucks how there are so many unoriginal musicians who are gaining a lot more recognition than a lot of better and more original producers in the genre simply because they sound like lower grade Sewerslvt, but at the same time I think it is incredible that this shared inspiration for Jvne's music exists now as its own offshoot of DnB. I do however, think that the line between breakcore and Sewerslvt's style of atmospheric DnB has been very blurred unfortunately. Causing there to be a lot of misunderstandings about the genre now and what breakcore actually is. I'm not very into being stingy about what genre a song or artist is, but I know some people are SUPER pressed about how Jvne's music has caused the definition of breakcore to become very loose. The people most upset by this are understandably seasoned breakcore fans who have been invested in the genre before Sewerslvt even existed. Being a newer fan to the genre, I don't hold the original definition of breakcore all that dearly to my heart, but I understand where the frustration comes from and I do think the differences in style should be understood. This is similar to what Skrillex did to dubstep but on a smaller scale, the original definition of dubstep has been more or less lost in the wake of what Skrillex has done to essentially coin the genre as their own. If I were a dubstep fan in 2009 when Skrillex came around and started making an entirely different style of music that I didn't like (even though I like skrillex and some dubstep), which ended up stealing the name dubstep from the actual genre then I would be pretty upset and likely be prone to hating anything under the new dubstep label. Maybe the Skrillex style of dubstep would have its own name if people didn't try to call it Brostep. Seriously, who is going to say that shit come on now.

Addressing the Controversy and the Tragedy

Despite being so influential and loved, Jvne is no stranger to controversy. Many writing off her music because of this. The controversy starts with her name, both the alias "Sewerslvt" and the name she chose for herself "Jvne" (short for Junko). These are both derived from the horrific kidnapping, abuse, rape, and eventual murder of 17 year old Junko Furuta in Japan, 1998. I'll spare you the details but here's a link to them if you want to read about something so horrible that you'll never forget it no matter how hard you try. Turning the tragedy that this girl went through, into the name "Sewerslvt" is pretty fucked up. Even if it's for the purpose of art and in Jvne's own words "Junko has taken on a different meaning to me." It is still pretty strange to be using her identity for your DnB music. Here's a good video that elaborates on that. Jvne stated that the purpose of the name and using Junko's murder as a main theme in her music is to illustrate the horrors of humanity, and to some degree I respect this. Music that is as extreme and uncompromising as possible is what captivates me the most, and using this horrific tragedy as a theme most certainly fits the label of extreme. I too want my art to disturb people and using real disturbing events as a theme for your music is a good way to do that. So do I think that Jvne using Junko's torment as a theme in her music is wrong, no. I do however believe that the name Sewerslvt is insensitive, and naming yourself after her is a little weird and obsessive to say the least.

The controversy continues with one of Jvne's albums that was released before she was Sewerslvt, it is named THE LITERAL N-WORD WITH A HARD R. Like, bro... you cannot be serious. My response to this is that, I don't tolerate actively being racist on the internet and I too unfortunately have a past of internet-racism. Both Jvne and I grew up and have stated that we no longer condone that type of behavior. Jvne, like myself, was a child who was likely exposed racist people on the internet and had her impressionable teenage brain tainted by neets from /pol/. People change. There is a tweet of Jvne stating their regret for these actions however her account was taken down and I can't find a screenshot anymore. Consider that Jvne is from Australia and use of the N-word is generally taken a lot less seriously there, the country has a much different history with racism than America and most western countries. Not to say that makes it ok, but it's worth understanding that the N-word is perceived to be much less offensive in Australia. Jvne even refunded fans who purchased her music and were hurt by her use of the N-word in the past. I am not black and I cannot dictate how anyone else how they should feel about this, but I believe Jvne's apology to be sincere and not worth holding against them.  

Now for what I believe to be the worst of Jvne's controversial actions. The use of loli hentai in her artwork. I think this shit is disgusting and I'm not even going to link any of the censored stuff here cuz I think it is fucking gross, go find it yourself if want I guess... Both the covers for the Starving Slvts Always Get Their Fix and the Cyberia Lyr 1 contain loli hentai. Even though Jvne stated that this is supposed to paint sexual degeneracy in a bad light I don't think using loli hentai on your album cover is a very smart move. I can't find any sort of public apology for this but even if I could I'm not sure if I could excuse this. The use of loli hentai in her artwork doesn't come off as "illustrating the horrors of humanity" like using Junko's tragedy, but more so just being ridiculously edgy with no substance.

There's some more controversial Jvne behavior I could dive into but there's the gist of it all. 

I do not condone the harassment of Jvne as a response to this controversial behavior either. Perhaps she would still be making music as Sewerslvt if she was not harrased off of the internet. In a strange way I think that Sewerslvt being "dead" is what makes her music even more enthralling to me. I do wish that the project was still active however, I have been enjoying her new project AgonyOST quite a bit though.

In Conclusion...

Myself and many others have been deeply inspired by Jvne's music. The Sewerslvt discography expresses feelings of despair, self hatred, grief, anxiety, and much more in a very unique style that had never been done in such a way at the time. I have yet to become bored with her music and I doubt I ever will. Her music is so emotionally genuine and captivating to me, if I had to chose only 10 albums to describe myself as a person than we had good times together, don't forget that would be one of them. Sewerslvt is an inspiration to me and I really do not care that much about her music being "real breakcore" or not because I know it isn't real breakcore, I'm not a fucking /mu/ nerd I actually get bitches and don't get that pressed over genre misunderstandings. If you don't want to listen to Sewerslvt because of Jvne's controversies I understand, If all I knew about Sewerslvt was that she used to make racist statements online and used loli hentai as artwork for their music I would probably also refrain from listening to her music, but I didn't know that so I then became obsessed with her music and I can't pretend that I don't hold it very dear to me.

If you actually made it this far, thanks for reading! This was a lot of fun to write and it feels good to get this off my chest. Feel free to drop a comment I'd love to know how y'all feel about Sewerslvt, even if you disagree with me.