Buddy Crime Move Around Is an Album Cut Still Finding Its Audience
Louisville Solo Artist Keeps a 2022 Track in Circulation on the Strength of Its Video
Move Around is track two on 3D Printed Pop Star, the Buddy Crime album that went up on Bandcamp on 1 July 2022. It was pushed again as a single in June 2023, and the official video followed on 13 July that year. Buddy Crime is a solo artist working out of Louisville, Kentucky, and this cut is the one from that record that has kept moving on its own.
You can listen to our full playlist which contains the artist’s music, and know more about the artist’s work by scrolling down the page.
Who Buddy Crime Move Around Is Actually For
Start with the sound, because it tells you the audience immediately. This is electro and funk pulled through synth pop, with the ’80s worn openly rather than smuggled in.
The clearest marker sits right at the front. The intro lifts the bass line most listeners recognise from Seinfeld, then hands off to synths and keys. That is either a joke you are in on or a joke you are not. The record does not stop to explain itself.
So the listener this is built for already keeps Chromeo, Toro y Moi or DāM-FunK in rotation. Chromeo made the case that funk pastiche can be sincere and funny at once. Toro y Moi covers the woozier end of the same territory. DāM-FunK is the deepest reference of the three. This record shares his commitment to the synth palette.
The Structure Is Patient, Which Is Unusual for the Genre
The track runs three minutes eleven and it does not open at full volume. The vocal starts low in the mix. The bright stabs and the fatter synth swells arrive around the two-minute mark. The “move around, turn it up” hook lands after that.
That is a slow build for a dance record. It also explains why the cut works better on a full listen than on a fifteen-second clip. The video did the rest.
Charlie Pollard directed it. Given how much of the track’s second life came through the video, that credit earns its place.
The Early Response, and What It Says About Who Found It
The record picked up coverage with no label pushing it. That is the part worth noting.
Obscure Sound ran a piece on it in September 2023. Mike Mineo described a stylish ’80s nostalgia and a video that leans all the way in, with a laser-lit floor and neon shapes. Four months later Os Garotos de Liverpool, a Brazilian site, covered the same track and the same video in Portuguese.
That second one is the useful signal. A US electro-funk cut from an unsigned artist reaching a Brazilian music blog four months later is not a marketing outcome. The track travelled on its own, and the audience sits nowhere near the artist.
IndieMusic.News curator team: “The interesting thing here is which listeners found it and how. This is a 2022 album track that got a second life from a video, then a third life from a blog in another hemisphere. None of that is scheduled. For a self-released artist it is also the only kind of reach that is genuinely repeatable, because it comes from the record rather than from a budget.”
Look at where he actually turns up and the picture fills in. He played Treefort Music Fest in March 2024, then Elsewhere Fest in Wichita that June, on the Saturday of a two-day bill. His own channels show dates continuing since, Los Angeles among them.
The following is small and it is real. Around 3,200 people follow him on Instagram, a few hundred on Facebook, fewer again on TikTok and X, where his handle simply reads 3D Printed Pop Star. Nothing there looks bought.
The album behind those numbers runs ten tracks, from Always Love You through Crime Line, Screenshot and My Disco. Move Around is the door into it rather than a standalone.
“We were thrilled with the initial reception of ‘move around‘ back in 2023, and it’s been incredibly rewarding to see the music video extend its life and reach even further,” said William Carpenter of Buddy Crime.
Where to Hear Buddy Crime Move Around
Buy 3D Printed Pop Star direct from Bandcamp, or find him on Apple Music and SoundCloud.
There is more at the official site, and he posts on Instagram, TikTok, X, Facebook and his YouTube channel.
