Car Seat Headrest--Teens of Denial

Is there really no thread on this? What a phenomenal record. Easily one of the best guitar albums in years. It's so good I could plotz.

what a terrible band name

Yeah, it's one of those that's put me off listening to the band.

the songs are too long

I beg to differ. It's a great band name and excellent rock album and the songs are not too long.

They should have called themselves Teens of Denial instead.

thats bad too tho

Great album but yes, the songs are too long. The drummer is straight up excellent as well as the bass player (but I noticed he is playing guitar live with the group now). Going to see these guys day after Thanksgiving!

Terrible band name though.

i've listened to it a fair amount but never really got ilm-thread-level excited about it. it's good.

Maybe I'm just starved for alt rock guitar records, but this sounds like one of the best to come out in a long time. The dude knows what he's doing.

i was way more excited about the Hop Along record last year re: indie guitar records

ditto mitski re: indie guitar records

I really like this album, it's definitely one of the best indie guitar rock albums in a while (along with Mitski it's been a relatively good year for those). the track lengths are definitely pretty self-indulgent though (there's no reason the intro to Vincent had to be 2 minutes, Cosmic Hero really should be half its length, they jam out the end of songs just a little too long etc.), there's no reason it had to be 70 minutes long

a fair few of his old home-recorded albums are quite good too but this one feels like a real step up

but maybe i'll give this one more of a chance since i recall kornrulez liking some random stuff i also like. i.e. the glands. (not to mention korn, obvs.)

Yes! The Glands rule. Rest in peace Ross Shapiro.

(I only know 2 songs by korn. I picked this screen name because I wanted the most uncool name possible)

ha ha obvs

There are lots of good riffs and melodies interspersed, but the lyrics try too hard to be clever and the songs are so long that I've had trouble connecting with this record.

Everything I've heard from this has been really lumpy and midpaced and lacking in character.

Am I hearing the same record as you guys? I'm mildly confused.

I LOVE the band name but found his last record unbearably dull and uninspired. Gonna give this new record a go and report back.

friend of mine in medical school played bass on and toured for "teens of style" -- i really dug their big single, "something soon". will give this one a listen

this is definitely a big step up from Teens of Style, the songs really benefit from recording in a studio as a band and it's much more dynamic and better arranged

he'd really outgrown the home recording by Teens of Style, which tried to improve in sound quality over earlier albums but ended up in an ugly in-between

I LOVE the band name

really?

yeah, i think it's great. really bored by the record though

the music's pretty good, I just don't find his voice compelling at all

parquet courts are working in a similar sort of bland indie rock revivalism, but at least they've got some riffs and a handful of sick songs. better artwork and attitude, too. i don't find anything about this Car Seat Headrest record compelling at all.

responsible for the most banal and depressing "What's In My Bag" of all time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLGVGvO1YeE

Thread needs more car seat headrests, imo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZTa8Nh0VlE

xp Yeah I saw that What's in My Bag! Made me wait another two months to actually listen to the record. My girlfriend and I have a joke about everyone saying "I like Twin Peaks but I haven't finished it yet," also the thing about the Kurt Cobain record is so lame.

this kid's brilliant

drunk drivers/killer whales is the best one, i think. "killer whales" are a pretty potent metaphor for entrapment, sort of surprising, maybe a bit on the nose but this is indie rock

Will played with Jandek here in LA a couple months back. Was encouraged to check this out afterwards but am still pretty meh on the songs.

god, that What's In My Bag *is* super lame. if you like this band and/or his songs, don't watch it, it could ruin him for you.

I thought this was just a joke band based on this one "which black metal band's logo is this?" picture:

http://i.imgur.com/NBF4paF.png

i actually like the band name, it (combined with seeing, i think it was Whiney, roaring about it on twitter) definitely contributed to my intrigue. completely banal over-familiar object but you rarely every say "car seat headrest" so it somehow comes out sounding fresh(???)

based on Teens of Denial, they're not a great band yet but there's some promise imo. i love the power-pop punches in the chorus of 'fill in the blank' (you have no *right* to be depreeessed, you haven't tried hard enough to like it), and u gotta admit there is something about the timbre of his voice

I'm listening with malevolent intent

Dear god this is so shit and there's 67 minutes left

it's a fantastic band name, but the guy is a nubbin and his music blows. this thing made me want to open my veins: http://pitchfork.com/news/70175-car-seat-headrest-reviews-kanyes-repulsive-beautiful-life-of-pablo/

It’s also one of the best albums I’ve heard in a long time — and one of the most beautiful. It’s very strange. My younger self would never have tolerated an album this reprehensible, this unrepentantly egotistical, yet I’ve probably listened to it more times this year than anything, aside from David Bowie’s Blackstar. Why? Well, it’s just good.

fuck off

just good music

he's like 19 years old, right?

oh here's an eight minute song. we all needed this

age is just a number man

i just mean, i'm glad no one was putting 19 year old me's ilx posts on p4k

oh totally. i posted the most colossal amount of shit when i was nineteen (and thereafter) as you're all aware, but the fittingly hardline response has meant that my idiot quotient is nowadays limited mostly to irascible liveblogs of indie rock. in a similar way i hope car seat headrest guy reads my posts and maybe changes how he makes music, or even gives up entirely

'destroyed by hippie powers' is ok though i guess

oh god

he's 24

i hate this record. once in a while it's pretty decent power pop but the songs are endless

I'm on the same boat... no sound dynamics at all... some good moments but no fun at all to be had.

this............isn't bad

wtf

good band name, absolutely loathe what i've heard

the opening track was trite and melodically non-existent, the second track almost got a good groove going but faltered and forgot to go anywhere. since then there has generally been decent quality music. definitely turned from a hate-listen into something else, not sure what though

feels like this year's The Monitor (right down to an epic track equating emotional upheaval to a famous nautical event), and of comparable quality too

Cmon now this is not anywhere near the quality of The Monitor... but yeah I liked this well enough when I came across it earlier this year. Knocking round with 20-something North American blink-182 survivors recently sent me scrabbling around for potential common ground and this was pretty much the best we came up with. I liked the lyric about there being a Van Gogh picture on the wikipedia page for clinical depression because I checked it out and right enough, there is.
Could do to be ruthlessly trimmed down though. I like these sorts of albums 12 songs long (tick) but leave your cup in the sink and be out the back door within 32 minutes or so, this one still has it's feet up on my coffee table smoking all my cigarettes and ignoring my subtle hints to leave. 70mins... oh you had a shit time at college? Get tae fuck, I got grownup matters to attend to... like factchecking your shitty lyrics, yeah I know, I'm pathetic.
tbf The Monitor also suffered from this, yeah I don't think your breakup was QUITE on the scale of the American civil war OH IS THAT THE TIME? but I preferred their brand of overemoting for some reason. Maybe beard- and Springsteen- and alcohol-related reasons. Prolly just alcohol-related actually.

iirc he was a /mu/ poster so his early championing came from there and i imagine some of his popularity comes from the ONE OF US mentality

i should like this stuff in theory but i just never really understood what he was trying to accomplish. it's like an indie rock equivalent of someone translating a book from english to french and then 100 years later someone else translating it back into english.

iirc he was a /mu/ poster so his early championing came from there and i imagine some of his popularity comes from the ONE OF US mentality

.....oh

lol yeah that explains things way better than the cult backstory

I do like a couple songs on this tbh

the single version of "drunk drivers" released today is terrible. it loses all the charm and power of the album version.

i agree with flopson, basically, about how this band is interesting mostly because they show a lot of potential.

i also get call all destroyer's complaint that these songs do seem like weird re-imaginings of not so long dead indie tropes that no one asked for and that feel much less natural than their source material. i kind of like this friction though. the album feels sealed off from the rest of 2016, like it's some album from 2004 that i missed somehow.

it's like an indie rock equivalent of someone translating a book from english to french and then 100 years later someone else translating it back into English-speaking.

Actually if there was an actual indie rock album of this I would be well into it, that sounds awesome.

that was Blueberry Boat iirc

i like the part where he takes acid and jesus shows up and calls him the "scum of the earth" after singing "ooooooooooooooooooooh"

the songs are endless

True. And also why I disliked the War on Drugs album everyone shat themselves over.

that one i at least get that "red eyes" song or whatever, that's a jam

It's not that they're endless, it's the dynamics, there's no tension and no 'groove'. The war on drugs comparison is otm but I found their songs more 'catchy' and at least there was a 'groove' to sone of their songs. I'm not sayig this record is awful but it's very unremarkable, certainly not worth the top album of the year hype it's getting amongst some critics. Meanwhile the Thee Oh Sees record which is actually good and sort of fit the same taste is getting better ignored.

I've no idea what the backstory for the band is but backstories are bullshit that make for cool trivia not cool music.

Autocorrect fucked pieces of my comment but I hope it makes sense.

Going off topic but I was just talking to a friend earlier about the influence of Spotify. We've noticed - and it might be a coincidence - that when a new album is not on Spotify it tampers its "influence". Thee Oh Sees album is not on spotify, per example, and almost noone is talking about it but those that have heard it (and are into that sort of music, obviously) love it. In previous years I noticed it happened with Courtney Barnett, there were some critics enthusiastic about her album, great scores overall but it sort of faded out. Another example is Kanye West this year... it seemed like a 'huge' event album, then there was the Tidal fiasco and people's interest in it sort of waned. Rihanna almost suffered the same fate but at least she had a memorable single to keep the album afloat.

that was Blueberry Boat iirc

"Buffer nabber binkity boo" isn't english no matter how many passes through babelfish it's had

Meanwhile the Thee Oh Sees record which is actually good and sort of fit the same taste is getting better ignored.

― Moka, Saturday, December 3, 2016 3:23 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The Oh Sees also have the unfortunate luck of having been around a long time, and indie rock is increasingly fickle and obsessed with novelty. It's like seniority in reverse or something. Barring some cosmic coincidence (like a high profile collaboration and / or a scandal) I can almost guarantee this thread won't be revived when this dude releases an album in 2019.

I love that Oh Sees album and even I almost forgot to list it cause I was scanning my master 2016 Spotify playlist when I was making a list on another board

I guess that sorta proves Moka's point about Spotify

I'm running a poll with some friends and I'm p sure tracks off Spotify will do worse than those on

the game is rigged

That's a shame. I realize I'm a relic but I'm still surprised by the amount of people who use Spotify that I would never expect to use Spotify. Last week I was at a record store and I asked what was playing and the dude actually said "You know, I don't know - it's Spotify." Sigh

oh it's totally a shame - but it is also a pretty handy tool

I'm still buying cds and lps, but Spotify lets me do some cool explorative listening

anyway, I'm voting for Burial's new ep in this poll I'm running, but since it's "only" on Bandcamp (can't even put it on a Youtube playlist) I'm not sure many of the other voters will give it a listen

I'm still buying cds and lps, but Spotify lets me do some cool explorative listening

same

it would be cool if bandcamp let you make playlists

listening to it again today i've gone off it again somewhat

this is the musical equivalent of alt-lit

courtney barnett is on spotify though??? and she def 'broke through' this last year or so

are you guys talking about the new thee oh sees or the newer thee oh sees? they are both great

this thread is making me want to give this another try now

Xpost: Courtney is now in there but same as kanye, took like 9 months to get her album there.

Also her song "Avant Gardener" which was sort of her breakthrough song (best new song in p4k if that means anything) was released in mid 2013 and it most definitely wasn't in Spotify until late 2015. Is there a way to check when Spotify added each album?

listening to this now and really into it. the end of "not what i needed" is kind of a blatant rip-off of their own "something soon" -- but it works, so i'm fine with it

whoa "drunk driver/killer whales" is good shit

yeah, it really is. "joe gets kicked out of school for doing drugs" is the other highlight for me.

man i'm all in on this. these songs could be 20 minutes for all i care. "ballad of the costa concordia" is killing me rn

This record eventually grew on me, but I agree that it's a crawler sometimes. I think I prefer Teens of Style. "Something Soon" one was of my favorite tracks of last year.

This is ok! It's just that weird thing they do (like w Tapes N Tapes and others) where they take a perfectly decent middle of the bill indie band that could be from anytown USA and act like it's super remarkable...but that doesn't make it bad. This is like a friend's band that you could genuinely enjoy and even listen to the cd sometimes

this band is on Matador

Yah I know

ums otm

as I said I only liked 2 songs on the album enough to keep on rotation and find it mostly of note because of its "promise" and the timbre of the guys voice, yet I don't like the 'could just be your friend's band' line of attack. can any guitar indie rock band make "super remarkable" music, iyo? in LJ's case i understand, cuz he has a well-known preference for ott yelpy artfuck. like, "a friend's band that you could genuinely enjoy and even listen to the cd sometimes", isn't that all we're looking for?

i was mostly agreeing with the premise that this isn't terrible - for all that it's a big indie event album i think it has some humility and awareness of its limitations coded in. like, i won't give it more than 6/10 but if it came on in public i'd probably nod fondly. we do need stuff like that

I guess I saw my post as a defense in a thread where a lot of people were shitting on it, not an attack. Like it's good solid indie rock of the type I've spent a lot of my life seeing...buy also i really do have friends that have made as good or better than this.

part of the attraction here must be cult of personality. i can't quite put my finger on what makes mr. will toledo so charismatic and magnetic, completely apart from his work, but it's definitely there.

I need to remind myself that Matador put out the first Unsane album.

Weird, I forgot that, they seem so Am Rep, but that wasn't until the third album and then they were on relapse, so wikipedia tells me

How are so many people in this thread defending this band name

Talkin' shit about Dan Bejar in this Billboard profile:

The indie circuit in particular attracts a certain type of artist that has talent but, also, attitude problems. It’s a circuit where artists can basically choose exactly how popular they want to be, and, sometimes, they’ll choose to alienate people rather than try to make it work on a larger level.

Do you have anyone in mind?

I don’t want to criticize artists, but I think like maybe someone like Dan Bejar. I really like a lot of his material, but I remember reading [an interview] where he was saying that the first New Pornographers record was shaping up to be a really big deal, so he knew that he didn’t want to be involved in that and started his own thing. It’s like come on, why can’t it be about the music. If it’s good music you shouldn’t throw it away just for the sake of your own reputation. Growing up I saw the romantic figure of the maverick musician who isn’t down to play industry games and will get successful by accident, then spend their careers messing with the heads of the industry and the audience. There was certainly an appeal to that, and then I grew up and started personally encountering artists who had this attitude. And they’re shitty people.

ums otm this is friend's band indie rock as generic as it comes. just listened to 4 songs and the effect was making me want to listen to Pavement.

Otm. After listening to it yesterday I just ended up listening to Stephen Malkmus.

I don't completely hate it, but I definitely think we don't need any more music like this.

I like this band but the early lo-fi DIY was much more weird, peculiar and interesting. Now he has a proper band behind him, his music is a bit less inspired and ordinary. A lot of the tracks are needlessly long too. "Drunk driver/Killer whales" and "Drugs with friends" are good tunes tho

that quote in billboard is so profoundly stupid.

also i gave this album a concerted shot driving around today and it actually kinda sucks, the songs aren't catchy and the performances are not good at all.

/mu/ was where his early albums first got attention & a fanbase built up there but he's denied ever posting there fwiw

i enjoy most of this but mostly because it fills a specific indie rock comfort food niche. the flaws are pretty obvious though

i'd like to see him do better but i guess it's a bit worrying that he still hasn't figured out track lengths, it's a big issue with everything he's done.

Love the record and the overlong tracks, it is part of the charm.

Yeah I think you people who don't like this record need to get your ears checked! Cause this is an excellent record, particularly the song Unforgiving Girl.

Otm. After listening to it yesterday I just ended up listening to Stephen Malkmus.

I don't completely hate it, but I definitely think we don't need any more music like this.

I should resist the urge to comment, but this could be the single silliest post I have seen on ILM this decade. Why does guitar rock get attacked for even existing? Could you imagine the outrage if someone said the same thing about a new rapper or dance band? "I tried but started listening to Public Enemy. We don't need any more music like that."

People would be livid and rightly so.

fwiw I've met Dan Bejar and he's super nice

Also, I'd take Bejar's worst song a hundred times over a minute of music by this corny indie twerp

I like Dan Bejar and Car Seat Headrest.

I like nachos

Fair enough but I don't think we need food like nachos anymore

xposts

Well...false equivalence and all that, but to address your first point - I'm not attacking guitar rock, just crushingly mediocre guitar rock.

No nachos? If someone said that about vegetables people would be livid.

another night on the message booooooard

🍸

so livid rn

i am also feeling livid

livid is way too vivid for the mehness of contempo grrtarro

so terribly lame to mention bejar by name

Do I need to repost this guy's episode of Amoeba's What's In My Bag?

just watched it. it's really not that bad

come on man

he's just a shy guy who likes indie signifiers with an annoying voice

Fair enough but I don't think we need food like nachos anymore

― Treeship

i like nachos, but i don't think we need a new nacho recipe that tastes just like all the other nachos i've eaten in my life. like, your nacho recipe has 12% more green onions than the nachos at chili's? well sign me the fuck up.

I always "need" new music, because music's not like food. when you're hungry any food tastes good. bad music doesn't sound good when you're starved for music. also, I like nachos, but I eat nachos maybe twice a year. when I like a song, I listen to it a million times in a week and then effectively discard it. then, every once in a while, when reminded of it, I'll put it back in rotation for a bit. I'm not just like "well, i have 75 Pavement songs, guess I'll never need another indie rock band again because I can just listen to these ad nauseum" it doesn't work like that

nachos only exist in the moment you're eating them

More reason for some to hate him/them:

NPR Tiny Desk guy Bob Boilen has this as his #1 album

Teens Of Denial lifts me out of my day-to-day routine. I admire a lot of music, but this is what I want from music

http://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2016/12/08/504579202/bob-boilens-top-10-albums-of-2016

this is what I want from music

this is both tragic and pitiable

he also lists lucy dacus which is a great indie rock record by a 19-year-old

lucy dacus >>>>>>>>>

I haven't listened to this yet, but legit question- does ilx not like this because it's actually a weak record or is it more because ilx is adverse to blatant "indie rock" tropes/styles that generally appeal to demographics younger than this site regardless of the strength of the record itself? Like is the defensive cynicism a bit thicker than normal prior to listening to it? It's way up on almost every year end list and I'm getting a resentment vibe here. There must be something special about it. kornrulez6969 is right in the sense that overt indie rock as a genre is least likely to have the amount of apologetics pop/dance/rap does around here from what I've seen.

All that being said, if I finally get around to it perhaps I'll agree it sucks who knows.

it's def over-rated but not without its charms

i thought this was pretty decent and there are def some good songs but i felt like i heard way catchier indie rock albums this year

Going to stop trying to defend a throwaway comment because yeah of course people shouldn't stop making indie, and it's not awful or anything. I like a lot of things that sound exactly the same as a lot of other things, I just don't like this thing that much. But I guess it is irritating when the critical attitude doesn't seem to move forward that much. There are any number of amazingly creative indie albums that came out this year, but it's things like this that get all the hype and it just seems a shame. It's not bad, but for me it just lacks passion.

i love identical death metal records and identical ambient records and will take 1000000000 more of them pls

i don't think this is necessarily "more of the same" indie nonsense, it's clearly got some sense of ambition, i just think that ambition actively detracts from the songcraft, which is merely ok

really the beef as ever isn't so much with the artist as with the tiresome as fuck music hype machine that renders this arguably mediocre fare inescapable while something like, say, the new Votaries album Psychometry gets next to no hype at all despite purveying arguably superior music. the beef is therefore a reaction against this critical process, because while all criticism is subjective, sometimes that subjectivity ends up pandering in am arguably lazy way towards records that have had their momentum ready-generated, for whatever reason. this is a beef towards a new criticism. my criticism. which you are free to ignore.

see also everyone tripping over themselves to praise frank ocean's new clothes, largely because the critical momentum is already there

no, my beef is with the artist--even if we limit ourselves to "indie rock" i don't think this is very good music, and that was my opinion way before year-end list time.

i think 'will toledo' can make whatever the hell he wants tbh, although that doesn't mean we might need or like it

xp Dave otm

call me...yeah Dave's fine

I don't get the Parquet Courts comparison, even if I put aside the fact that I prefer Parquet Courts.

i don't really see much musical ambition as maybe this dude never played shows much before he wrote so he never got to see what it looked like when ppl started going to get beer or take a piss during the boring stuff?

agreed w/alfred wrt parquet courts, feels like ppl just are throwing 2 names together

Dave

It's a good record... if you enjoy the genre? I'll add that it's an even better story, perhaps the hype is music journalists zeroing in the story more than the actual record? Seems to be a common trope with publications that covers indie music. I haven't read a single year end list that doesn't mention CSR's bandcamp origins. As it has been said above, the genre produced better albums this year and not receiving half of the year end coverage CSH is getting. (My Woman is my prime example).

Going through as many Yankee Hotel Foxtrot reviews as I could when I got obsessed with the record in 2009, I realized most 'indie music' publications could write about is the label war that birthed the record and the music itself was pretty secondary.

bandcamp artist makes good, fucking fairytale of 2016 right there. i stand with the bandcamp artists who will never make it *folds arms*

Neverban Dave Jagger

The record is ok if forgettable (the tapes n tapes comparison is actually pretty otm). It's the hype that annoys me, like everyone is pretending this record is actually one of the best records this year when it's so average. If I read one of those reviews and listen to it I'd go "huh? THIS is the best rock album of the year!? What a shit year for rock it must've been then". I know I shouldn't care what everyone wants to listen to but I feel they're inflating the importance of this record and band. by the next record (two record tops) the same people that are so passionate about the band this year will elicit the same meh I'm getting from them. Mark my words.

don't think the Angel Olsen album is the best example since it was deservingly better reviewed and is getting more EOY list placements etc.

is it? I was under the impression CSH is getting way more attention, my bad.

feels to me like csh is getting more run too

by the next record (two record tops) the same people that are so passionate about the band this year will elicit the same meh I'm getting from them. Mark my words.

― Moka, Thursday, December 8, 2016 1:50 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is sadly otm but could also be said about p much 90% of the bands whose names appear in mid-sized font on any 2016 festival bill you can name

Tobias Jesso Jr, anyone?

whom

Angel Olsen >>> Car Seat Headrest. Is anyone questioning that? CSH is good in a different way -- they're more of a minor act

You wont hear it from me. The Angel Olsen is good... not the sort of record I play usually but I can see its replay value over the years whereas CSH will inevitably get replaced by 2017's best new indie darling.

Yeah they are in totally different categories. Watching high school basketball games is fun but it's not the nba

That said the people viciously criticizing car seat headrest are heartless monsters

Tobias Jesso Jr will possibly end up as an industry songwriter - he's written stuff with Sia, Adele and John Legend already

Like the Semisonic dude

and Desmond Child

Lucy Dacus is sort of an indie-folk PJ Harvey, which I guess is a bit more original than Car Seat's 80s and 90s retro rock, although sometimes he's more catchy than her despite being derivative

there's no reason the intro to Vincent had to be 2 minutes

but it's the best part of the song :P

how is it possible no one has mentioned toledo has listened to much modern lovers way too much

One band not mentioned as an influence (possibly because they weren't on Matador) is Archers of Loaf, and his vocals sometimes sound like Bachman in subdued mode, as do some of the more anthemic bits of the better songs. I like a few tracks on this a lot, think he'd be better with a better band but that might be coming, and don't see any reason to dislike him for not being more than he is.

This squonk wishes he was half as good as Archers of Loaf

half would be generous

I love AoL, but really don't see the need to run this guy down. He's put out a pretty good throwback indie rock album in 2016. Of all the people to criticize, he seems pretty low on the list. It's a catchy album, decent band, decent recordings, and Butterglory got an awful lot of press back in the day. (And I still like them ok as well). Just seems silly for this band, of all bands, to have a backlash at all.

Wait ... what does Butterglory have to do with this? I'm missing something.

can we run down people whose idea of rock is so narrow that this is the album that determines how good of a year it was for it

like with a car?

throw car seat headrests at them

i don't think this is necessarily "more of the same" indie nonsense, it's clearly got some sense of ambition, i just think that ambition actively detracts from the songcraft, which is merely ok

― who is extremely unqualified to review this pop album (BradNelson), Thursday, December 8, 2016 5:11 PM (one year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is doubly true of the twin fantasy remake that just came out

it's so so bloated! the original was long enough at an hour and then he added another 11 minutes onto it

Only on my first listen but I can't tell if this record is amazing or an overindulgent mess. There are great moments in it and I like its "this-record-will-save-your-teenage-self"'s level of ambition, but aahhhh I just wish he'd write a strong, simple hook - something that so many other bands can do with songs that aren't 12 minutes long. It's a good record and I understand it's appeal, but it's emotional weight doesn't always translate into greatness. Also that "I am a good person" monologue is cringeworthy as hell

someone should edit his stuff down and put it on Bandcamp like that one dude did with JT's 20/20 Experience

i...quite like this

whyyy

like, much more than TOD which imo wasn't very good

super into twin fantasy, "Body's" in particular.

Skimming thru this thread, I'm surprised at the reactions to "ToD"... I thought that album was absolutely terrific -- big, ambitious, funny, anthemic, audacious, self-effacing; great/quotable lyrics ("I felt like a walking piece of shit / In a stupid-looking jacket"; "The effects are so good these days / If there were gears behind those big brown eyes, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference"); hot production, super rockin', "1937 State Park" blasting at full volume; really "going for it," not afraid to be corny or "mainstream"; communicating "big ideas" through crowd-pleasing rock 'n roll in a way that very popular rock artists did in decades past but seems to have fallen out of favor recently (...I'm aware I may be setting myself up with that last one).

The fact that it sounds "like '90s indie rock" seemed incidental to how great it was -- though I admit that I love '90s indie rock, and that very well may have helped!

I also dug the "Twin Fantasy" redo, but have only listened to it a few times....

That chorus on '1937 State Park' pulls off the very rare vulnerable/anthemic and blows me away every time.

that's the one song i like off tod, i appreciate the inward digging his stuff aims for but that track besides it feels mostly like inward trudging

is there a new album

Another lyric I love:

I’ve been waiting all my life
I’ve been waiting for some real good porn
Something with meaning, something fulfilling
I’d like to make my shame count for something

I feel like there’s something (half-)ironic, or subtly tongue-in-cheek, about the pathos on this album — a gentle, straight-faced mocking of his own drama — which elevates the proceedings, and is part of why the lyrics are so great. I guess Lou Barlow presents a rough precedent for this kind of “dry self-awareness about the singer’s own melodrama.”

By contrast, the lyrics of Twin Fantasy are more straight-up emo (Will was actually a teen when he wrote them, no?) — but still very good!

(One thing to add is that I’m not usually much of a “lyrics guy” — but Will Headrest’s lyrics are so good, I find myself really aware of & focusing on them.)

there's an eye for detail that reminds me a lot of Courtney Barnett actually.
In the 'I did not transcend, I felt like a walking piece of shit in a stupid looking jacket' the jacket lyric so perfectly captures the feeling of alienation.

...and she’s my other current rock fave!!

The "new" one is a great record, IMO... it and the new Parquet Courts have been enough to scratch any "indie rock" itches this year.

while this is good, what you just wrote is hideously incurious and lazy

also fuck parquet courts

Yeah, but I don't give a fuck what you think.

you're such a dull cunt

Also, the new Arctic Monkeys album is one of their finest yet - it's been a decent year for this kind of stuff.

'this kind of stuff' - would you seriously call the CSH album the same 'kind of stuff' as the AM album ffs

No, but I'd call you a dull cunt.

GOAL TURRICAN (Turrican)

Turrican 1 - 1 imago

The Northerner responds just a minute later, in identical fashion - a scrappy equaliser, but they all c(o)unt!

Like, keep hinging your entire existence in presenting to the internet how esoteric you think your tastes are in order to draw attention to yourself in some sort of "please love and respect me" exercise and perhaps one day - you can only hope - some poor deluded fucker will ram their tongue straight up your shitpipe.

Buoyed by the goal, Turrican knocks it around confidently in midfield. The crowd have started to find their voice!

^ Imagospeak for "Look at me, internet people! Please tongue my shitpipe. Anybody!"

It's starting to get a bit repetitive and momentum has been lost. The crowd starts to drift out, unsatisfied

^ Your lasses glittering review of your bedroom technique.

omg just make out already

Those Boys

Anyway, while I can't help but wonder what happened in his life that he ended up like this in the first place, I wish LJ well in his quest to convince the entire internet to kiss his arse, I really do.

(Not holding my breath, though.)

I <3 a good Britfight