Black Dresses "will no longer exist," following alleged TikTok drama; music taken off streaming services
UPDATE: Black Dresses confirm the breakup in a new statement (but dispute and clarify some of the details).
Experimental Canadian duo Black Dresses have been releasing music at a prolific rate over the past few years; their 2020 album Peaceful as Hell was the follow-up to 2019’s LOVE AND AFFECTION FOR STUPID LITTLE BITCHES, which was their second album of that year (Thank You came out in February). They were also set to play one of their first shows outside Toronto earlier this month, opening for Sleigh Bells in NYC, which wound up being one of many coronavirus-related cancellations. Now it appears uncertain whether Black Dresses are continuing on as a project at all. According to a post by well known Reddit user u/Nessfull in the r/indieheads subreddit, the band’s Devi McCallion posted the following message to her since-made-private Instagram account:
After much thought Black Dresses will no longer exist after the songs we have already finished but have not released have been released. once the songs we already wrote are out so are we. fuck black dresses. thanks for your support and also your repulsive parasocial stalker rage directed at hurting us.
The rest of the r/indieheads post reads:
There’s been a ton of intense drama surrounding Black Dresses in the past 24 hours, after one of their songs blew up on Tik Tok. Details are hard to pin right now, but it looks like Devi got upset about the song blowing up because it was about her being sexually assaulted as a child, and teenagers were making cosplay- themed Tik Toks to it. She tried to stop more people from making the videos, but ended up getting harassed on her socials for it. She posted this image to her instagram story before going private.
While Black Dresses’ Bandcamp is still active as of this posting, their music appears to have been taken off streaming services, including Apple Music and Spotify where they currently have 97,862 monthly listeners. You can read people’s reactions on Twitter, below.
Stay tuned for any updates. UPDATE: Black Dresses confirm the breakup in a new statement (but dispute and clarify some of the details).
https://twitter.com/Grim_Dinomancer/status/1264504105894100992
Black Dresses are off Spotify pic.twitter.com/hcTIwiLfCa
— Spider (@anactualspider) May 23, 2020
I KNOW BLACK DRESSES DIDNT DELETE ALL THEIR MUSIC OFF SPOTIFY
— marin (@mustbdreaming1) May 24, 2020
https://twitter.com/d0gslut/status/1264397876131594241
THEY TOOK BLACK DRESSES OFF SPOTIFY???? IM GONNA FIGHT SOMEONE @Spotify pic.twitter.com/xmvfg3qyQy
— Kade Schoenfeldt (@kadescho) May 24, 2020
https://twitter.com/ryehat64/status/1264313424386887680
Black Dresses breaking up bc they asked tiktok cosplayers to stop doing cutesy edgy lipsync to a song about child sexual assault and got harassed for it, i truly will be burying myself alive
— largest rodent (@capybaroness) May 23, 2020
the whole black dresses situation makes me so upset. devi didn’t deserve all the hate she got for simply not wanting her music to be used for fucking homestuck tiktoks. now because of this, black dresses is broken up and taken off streaming
— spew (@5H4D0WH34R7Z) May 24, 2020
black dresses being taken off spotify has made quarantine 10x worse.
— bombay james club (@j_phughes) May 23, 2020