Is organic music discovery dead? Geese ‘psyop’ debate leaves artists frustrated by growing barrier to entry

The rising Gen Z rock band is raising questions about the line between being an industry plant and just having a robust marketing budget.

[Photo: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Coachella]

BY María José Gutierrez Chavez

The world can’t seem to escape the Brooklyn-based Gen Z band Geese. Some call them “America’s Most Thrilling Young Rock Band,” while the band and their frontman, Cameron Winter, are drawing endless comparisons to their predecessors the Strokes and Julian Casablancas. Just last week, the band took the stage at Coachella as they gear up for an already sold-out tour.

But as Geese finds their footing in the limelight, suspicion is mounting over their relatively quick rise to fame—and now some are saying the seemingly indie artists might have fallen into our laps on purpose all along.

In a now viral story by Wired, the publication reveals that Geese hired digital marketing company Chaotic Good Projects to engineer campaigns for the band and its lead singer. The campaigns can take the form of various social media profiles operating as a network, creating content using an artist’s music to boost them on the algorithm.

“Whole ecosystems of interactions can be fabricated out of digital cloth, stoking—and in some cases, completely manufacturing—discourse around an artist,” Wired explained.

“We can drive impressions on anything at this point,” Chaotic Good cofounder Andrew Spelman told Billboard‘s On The Record podcast. “We know how to go viral. We have thousands of pages.” 

The story then ignited discourse online, validating users who were skeptical of the band’s meteoric rise, despite the fact that Geese had projects out before getting involved with the agency.

And still, the marketing firm’s work has been undoubtedly successful, including with clients such as Alex Warren and Sombr.

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