{"id":612020,"date":"2026-09-02T07:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T07:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/612020\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T07:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T07:36:10","slug":"get-up-get-breakfast-noise-the-teen-going-viral-for-enduring-all-400-of-merzbows-ear-splitting-albums-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/612020\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Get up, get breakfast, noise\u2019: the teen going viral for enduring all 400 of Merzbow\u2019s ear-splitting albums | Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Instagram Reel<\/a> that looks like an 80s coming-of-age movie pops up on your feed. It\u2019s four teenage boys in an American-style basement \u2013 comfy sofas, guitars, ping pong table \u2013 jeering and laughing. But they aren\u2019t secretly drinking beer or planning on sneaking out. They\u2019re brandishing a vinyl copy of Pulse Demon<\/a>, the most popular album from the cult Japanese noise artist Merzbow, and subjecting themselves to its brutally harsh sound in full, for fun. \u201cI think this is the Book of Revelation: The Soundtrack,\u201d one guy blurts out, a vague look of fear in his eyes.<\/p>\n

Merzbow, real name Masami Akita, is the world\u2019s most renowned noise artist. Since 1979, Akita has released more than 400 recordings, which range from a 10-hour long album<\/a> misleadingly titled Merzbient (it\u2019s anything but ambient) to a free-noise supergroup<\/a> called Flying Testicle. Since February, Sam Andrews, the video\u2019s 18-year-old creator, has been attempting to listen to every one, and is documenting his progress online each day. \u201cI think of my day in album-size chunks,\u201d he says, laughing. \u201cIt\u2019s like, get up at seven, get breakfast and then headphones in: noise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of Andrews\u2019 videos have garnered half a million views, and drawn attention from Akita himself. More than just a stunt, they are also prompting conversation about how listeners engage with challenging music in an age of streaming services, algorithms and short-form content always pushing us towards the next thing.<\/p>\n

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Aside from the penchant for harsh noise and a love for experimental bands such as Swans and Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Andrews is a pretty regular teenager. His messy bedroom is blurred behind him on our video call. He lives in Georgia, wears a T-shirt from summer camp, is passionate about his Christian faith and tells me he works part-time at a cinema in between mainlining Merzbow and applying for college. \u201cWith Merzbow, I need to take breaks on Fridays,\u201d he says. \u201cI need time off.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Akita, Andrews got into music through drumming, but began thinking critically about it after discovering YouTube music critic Anthony Fantano<\/a> and using reviewing services such as Rate Your Music (RYM). He keeps a colour-coded spreadsheet documenting his Merzbow listening and rates every release on Instagram<\/a> and RYM<\/a>. His favourite so far is 1990\u2019s Rainbow Electronics, which he gives an 8\/10 for how intentional it feels. The worst: 1996\u2019s Merzbow Loves Emil Beaulieau. \u201cThe whole second half of the album is 30 minutes of one frequency,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s like tinnitus. That was my breaking point. I was like, what am I getting here as the listener?\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrews\u2019 videos are absurd in character, a testament to how music criticism is changing online and a nod towards Akita\u2019s own unpredictable ethos: his commitment to animal rights and veganism, sparked after raising four pet bantam chickens in 2002; more recently, a strange and unpopular choice to use AI art in his onstage backdrops.<\/p>\n

Merzbow performing at No Fun Fest at The Hook in Red Hook Brooklyn in 2007. Photograph: Aviv Small\/ZUMA Press Wire\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Despite his age, Andrews comes from an older school of music lovers that values full albums and discographies, rarely individual songs or playlists. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like a medal of honour to say that I had actually sat through an impossibly long discography, one that no one would ever do in its entirety,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Merzbow\u2019s music isn\u2019t alien to younger listeners. Online, gen Z wield its shock factor to soundtrack everything from trolls telling older people to play the music on their Alexa<\/a>, memes comparing noise and K-pop<\/a> and cinematic shots of broken tech<\/a>. Andrews sees this short-form content as more mind-numbing than noise music. Deep listening, he says, will \u201cdo wonders for your attention span: being able to sit down and see something as a 40-minute piece rather than a song that you\u2019ll hear 30 seconds of and skip\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Merzbow has about 23,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, but those numbers \u201cdo not accurately reflect his relevance\u201d, argues Andrew. As Anohni says in Liz Pelly\u2019s book Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist<\/a>, the fact that you might only ever want to listen to highly impactful music twice isn\u2019t a comment on its value. Challenging music such as Merzbow forces listeners to think outside an economy where quality is often conflated with popularity, worth measured by consumption.<\/p>\n

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Andrews has been shocked to see how much people who don\u2019t usually engage with experimental music have to say when they\u2019re exposed to it. \u201cI had a sleepover and convinced my friends to sit through Pulse Demon with me. What I expected was: \u2018What is this? That\u2019s just noise.\u2019 But one friend said he could hear the silence afterwards. One hated it, but he still had more to say than I thought he would.\u201d Even at church, his friends\u2019 parents ask bemused questions about how he listens to such abrasive music. \u201cI love explaining to them how I feel, and they do genuinely listen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, only 1.6% of Andrews\u2019 audience are his age; most viewers are in their 30s and 40s. \u201cI\u2019ve had people comment things like: \u2018I remember back in my college dorm listening to Merzbow in 1990.\u2019 That\u2019s an insane thing to hear. Not only are those people interested in my content, but he really did have a dedicated fanbase back when you had to know a guy who knows a guy to even get your hands on his music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Akita himself also found his way to Andrews\u2019 page. \u201cStrangely enough he followed me, liked a reel and collabbed on a post, only to remove himself from the post and unfollow me. The hothead probably saw a comment criticising his use of AI or just didn\u2019t like a score I gave out, who\u2019s to say?\u201d Nevertheless, Andrews remains in awe. \u201cIt\u2019s fun to take a mic and mash it into the floor and throw things around. But in terms of actually sticking with that and experimenting, making it something that people really want to listen to, that\u2019s admirable. Fifty to 100 years in the future, people will still probably talk about Pulse Demon and Venereology.\u201d<\/p>\n