Releasing the Stems: Verticalbar Cult Leader Drops Vertically Barred Up

"It never took off. There's no point in gatekeeping it anymore. I'm dropping the stems — do with that what you will."

— Verticalbar Cult Leader

MONKE NEWS HQ — In a development that music historians will almost certainly refuse to study, the Verticalbar Cult Leader has officially released the isolated stems of his sub-par anthem Vertically Barred Up, the 2025 TuneCore drop credited to xXVerticalBarXx.

Sources close to the verticalbar Cult describe the release not as a celebration, but as a surrender. The track, once whispered about in Discord like forbidden scripture, failed to ignite the charts, the timeline, or even most of the cult's own playlists. Faced with the cold mathematics of streams that refused to stream, the leader has chosen transparency over mystique.

"Gatekeeping a flop," one unnamed Pray Pizza analyst told Monke News, "is just cosplay."

The original recording remains available on YouTube Music for anyone who wishes to experience the full, un-deconstructed mix in its natural habitat:

But Monke News has obtained exclusive access to the raw stem pack itself — twelve separate tracks, peeled apart like a banana left too long in the sun. Beat. Bass. Three main vocal stems from Grimmi, Kureepy (formerly kurumii)this is an unverified claim at this time and could be incorrect, and Jowol. Transitions. Melodies stacked like territorial claims, including left/right channel splits and sub chords. Everything the leader used to assemble the song that history politely declined to remember.

Below, readers may audition every layer at once, mute whatever offends them, solo whatever they still believe in, and download the original uncompressed WAVs. This is journalism. This is also a mixer.

Factional analysts are already divided. Verticalbar loyalists frame the drop as an act of radical openness — a leader so confident in the verticalbar that he would rather let the community remix the failure than pretend it was a hit. Pray Pizza observers counter that releasing stems for a song nobody asked for is less "open source" and more "emotional support landfill."

Either way, the files are public now. The cult leader has spoken. The gate is open. The stems are out.

Do with that what you will.

Before publishing, Monke News reached out to the Verticalbar Cult Leader for a final comment on the stem release, the flop, and whether he had any regrets.

"Yea this wasn't my best project, however my new project http://vbo.gg is what everyone has been talking about! It's a Twitch clone that—"

— Verticalbar Cult Leader

At this point, researchers at Monke News literally hung up the phone.

Whether the stem drop was an act of radical transparency or simply the opening act of a longer sales pitch, one thing is becoming difficult to ignore: the Verticalbar Cult Leader may have, finally, lost his marbles.

This reporter will continue to monitor the situation — from a blocked number.

— John B. Goofy, Monke News