Geese

https://media.brooklynvegan.com/xxrzsfjkyw/uploads/2025/07/08/geese-gettingkilled.jpg

Getting Killed is the upcoming fourth studio album by American rock band Geese. It is scheduled to be released on September 26, 2025, through Partisan Records and Play It Again Sam.

1. Trinidad
2. Cobra
3. Husbands
4. Getting Killed
5. Islands of Men
6. 100 Horses
7. Half Real
8. Au Pays du Cocaine
9. Bow Down
10. Taxes
11. Long Island City Here I Come

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Phh3oVCtzBg

I think this band should get their own thread, so I stated one.

Excited for this! Loved the last one, but really don't get the hype over Cameron's solo record. Just couldn't grab onto that one.

I have yet to hear the band, but out of context I was amused by this headline.

https://i.imgur.com/SqzcL3l.jpeg

honk honk

i will definitely be checking out the new album! i like this band

new single sounds fantastic imo. classic geese! honk honk

this band should tour with Goose and call it the 'Ducks Tour'

Single is great, sounds like it's live at first and then turns into the studio version.

i thought so too but then listened on spotify as well and think they used a different mix for the video to get that effect ?

"taxes" is wonderful

I could have sworn I started a Geese thread back when I heard '3D Country', which was a fantastic song I think Bee OK nommed in EOY a coupl eof years ago. Anyway, I'm looking forward to this new one a lot.

I discovered them live as they opened for Spoon on the Lucifer on the Sofa tour. They ended up on ILMs Top 77 tracks poll.

Didn't even hear Heavy Metel, the solo album from the lead singer but looking forward to new Geese.

Still great:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m1abZODAJ0

yeah that's the song that got me into them. the last album was fun, but that remains a highlight

first track on this is absurdly promising and i look forward to listening to the rest once i'm awake

i had forgotten about this but now am looking forward

lol this was produced by kenny beats? he did a phenomenal job, it sounds fantastic

First song is mind-numbing brilliant, can't wait to hear the rest.

RYM is freaking out insanely over this even by its own freakout standards, will have to tune in

Yeah, this isn't for me, harmonically and melodically close to worthless despite the arrangements and lyricism

Perhaps, but the first song is in 13/4, so it's very much still for me :)

The first song and Half Real were thr highlights for me, more going on musically in those two

it's some decent songs that are absolutely being elevated by the production & arrangements. maybe that will mean i get tired of it before long but there's a lot to like for now

this is a bit jammier and less immediate than their previous but I'm expecting it to kick in on repeat plays

found it really boring

I have to admit I've had it on in the background around two or three times today and not that much has jumped out at me yet. It's just kind of a "noise" at this stage and no one song has really revealed itself among the others. Still think this might be a grower though

Ive never heard of this band before but wow, I hate this. I think I’m officially old. Do they have the best PR team money can buy or something?

At least their band name gives you a pretty good indication of how hard they work on their music.

I'd like to know what people HATE about them to be honest. There's nothing terribly offensive going on here to my ears.

i think the singer has one of the more interesting voices in rock n roll, and it elevated a handful of tracks on the previous album. i was particularly into the tracks that for sounded like they were approaching Steely Dan territory ... but it also seems to me that they are really really interested in projecting an image of nonchalance and that they don't take anything too seriously, and this album seems to amplify that. this coupled with the fact that whoever writes the songs is a terrible lyricist, i think ultimately is a disservice to them and their style. it's just kind of eclectic and unfocused in a way that i find really boring and unappealing, i wish they were more keen on honing the songcraft because they have style and charisma for days but it just feels like it's not being put to good use

Ive never heard this band before but wow, I love this. I think I’m officially sold. Do they have the best production team money can buy or something?

Yeah, part of the attraction of the last album was the luxuriant Gaucho-era Dan stylings of songs like 3D Country (which I still think is fantastic).

Not sure if nonchalance is necessarily what they're necessarily projecting here. Rather it's a much more stripped-down sound that leans away from their poppier side and way into a raggedy, more jam-influenced vibe.

It gives me the impression of a crazed Southern preacher sermonising paranoid rants about taxes and whatnot. It's a stylised flex, and there's a lot of energy in its delivery and the way they experimented with jazzy chops too. I'd say it's different to, say, Malkmusian slacker rock. I don't hear a lot of "can't be arsed" in here.

That said, there's not a lot for me to really sink my teeth into on this one either. Maybe it merits closer listening but this one is missing that pop element that made songs like 3D Country so great. Without it, these songs feel a bit rudderless, a bit abstract and freeform.

Like the Belgian band dEUS, they're at their best when they strike the balance between classic pop and jazzy freakouts, which isn't happening so much here

dEUS rules

That'ssomethibg we can all agree on

Oops, sorry, phone

Pitchfork gave this a 9.0. At work but will listen later.

Ive never heard this band before but wow, I love this. I think I’m officially sold. Do they have the best production team money can buy or something?

― Evan, 26. september 2025 19:20 (twenty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It's hiphop-producer Kenny Beats, and it's a really inspired choice.

I actually do like what I heard so far, but also that post was a stupid joke post mostly for my own amusement.

I'm not sure I'm sold on the production (or maybe the mastering?) There's a lot going on here but the lack of dynamics often makes it feel like a soup

Enjoying 'Bow Down'

But... after the album was over '2122' from the previous album came on and I dunno, it really hit the spot. Feels like the singer is being a lot more one-note in his style than on the previous one where he seemed to be trying out a lot of different things, from an Elvisy baritone to intense caterwauling. On this new one he's settled into this slightly irritating tenor that grates after a while

I liked this on first listen, though I broke it off in two parts. I have seen them live so I have a different tolerance for the Jim Morrison thing he has going on. The lyrics do leave a lot to be desired however. "Taxes" is a definite highlight.

i didn't mean to imply that i think the music sounds slacky or underperformed à la Pavement. what i meant was that i get the sense they lean on eclecticism and "random" lyrics in order to avoid being pinned as a band that's trying too hard to craft a set of excellent songs. i don't get Zappa vibes from them at all, but it does strike me as being a distant cousin to his brand of zany Verfremdungseffekt

i haven't paid too much attention to the lyrics yet

about half the songs here are really good and the others feel like sketches that they've done a good job at dressing up with their noodling but i'm not sure if they're going to hold up to repeat listens

I liked this on first listen. Maybe I just don't listen to enough indie rock, but the two things I heard were, broadly, an Arcade Fire/Wolf Parade pomposity and gangbusting wall of sound, and Big Thief-coded Lenker tumble of line-delivery and lyrical nakedness.

Reminds me ofl Soul Coughing (this is a wonderful thing)

I'm hearing 70s Miles in some of this. "Trinidad" sounds a lot like "Honky Tonk" from Get Up With It and the percussion (tablas?) on "Taxes" and "Husbands" is very On the Corner

One of the things I like the most about the new album is that they've now made three very different albums, plus one also very different solo album from the singer, and it makes me excited to hear the next one as well.

This was recorded in 10 days. I admire the expediency but also maybe it could have done with a bit more

I'm not a real big lyrics person. And besides, this isn't the kind of thing where I'd normally pay a lot of attention to them. What is so bad about the lyrics here?

this album is completely taking over my life. of course i was too slow to pick up tix for the ny show, and now they're $180 to get in the door

This was recorded in 10 days. I admire the expediency but also maybe it could have done with a bit more

― Now read it backwards. (dog latin), Sunday, September 28, 2025 6:31 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

if the band is ready to go and well rehearsed that's a ton of time

everyone should read the gq profile, really well done imo: https://www.gq.com/story/five-days-with-geese-americas-most-thrilling-young-rock-band

There’s no way the production/mix was done in the same ten days tbh

The production on this is awesome— the “weak link” (if one exists) is Cameron’s lyrics and bellowvoice, but if (like me) you’ve already fallen in love with his whole ‘thing’— solo album “Heavy Metal”— then one is fairly set up to fall in love with this. It doesn’t sound to my ears like he’s whiffing the landings so much as cutting loose some

I’m reminded of other flawed-but-perfect-for-the-moment NYC band albums (Interpol, The Rapture). These lyrics won’t age well but I hope the production choices inspire people— this sounds equally as informed by US Maple at times as it does by Alex G most of the time

Kimmel is in NY and Geese will be on the show Wednesday

Bristol UK show in March appears to be sold out already, which is bonkers

Just the tracking in 10 days apparently, which yeah isn't particularly notable. I love Kenny Beats as a rock producer/mixer, I'm not an Idles fan but he did some cool stuff on those records.

When I opened this thread I was pretty surprised at the acclaim, because I once again confused this band with Goose.

Oh shit, I've mixed up those two and thought until this moment that Goose moved to NYC and gotten an image makeover.

lol yeah it's very confusing

Kenny Beats? weird I had no idea. Hope he secured them a Smoke DZA verse for the remix.

really can't handle this dude's voice, sorry

As far as current popular indie / rock music goes, my forties have largely been defined by a general feeling of "this band? Really?"

I chalk this up to being old, of course, and I am also old enough to have grown comfortable with the idea that not everything is for me

These lyrics won’t age well

maybe not, but finding a bug in my car will never be the same

i love cameron winter and i love this record

as far as 00s indie comps go, his vibes are v julian casablancas, aloof rich NYer raised on the classics grows up to be indie wunderkind kinda thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YI0D5epwuI

It is shocking to me just how much he sounds like Thom Yorke on the new album, I never got that on Heavy Metal. But like, Thom Yorke on T

Yeah he sounds so much like Thom here that I cannot help but hear the album as a roundabout King of Limbs tribute

he sounds too american to remind me that much of yorke but i hear what you mean. the radiohead album it reminded me of on first listen was amnesiac but mostly just for the first track.

There are a couple of “this is mixed like a Nigel mix” moments, too— the first half of “Taxes” with its hard panning

yeah i can very much hear that

Thom spends so much time nowadays in his higher register that you can forget what he used to sound like

can someone explain which lyrics are so terrible? i don't generally listen much to lyrics on first/second/third pass, and what I have heard I couldn't really discern anything so bad?

I detect no Thom Yorke in guy's vocals either. Like, not at all.

In fact I'm surprised to hear comparisons with Radiohead elsewhere. I'm just not hearing any similarities whatsoever

The way he draws out syllables on something like Trinidad is totally Thom Yorke. And coupled with a weird groove (in 13/4!) it sounds quite a bit like Radiohead tracks like Pyramid Song, even if that song is in 4/4.

vocals on the one song I heard reminded me of Rufus Wainwright

I'm going to need to check my copy to make sure I'm listening to the same album tbh

I agree he does sound like Rufus at times.

I'd sooner compare him to Beefheart, Tom Waits or David Berman (especially on the prior album) or one of those more eccentric/idiosyncratic types than someone who's got a classically "good" voice. Neil Young at a push perhaps.

I’m not referring to whether his voice is “classically good” but to phrasing

Not saying youse are wrong - I'm just hearing a very different thing, especially on this album... To me it's a raggedy twang; raw and bluesy (and dare I say slightly irritating in an eccentric way). He worked more in a baritone register on the 3D Country album, the phrasing was tighter. Here it sounds deliberately skittery, which isn't something I associate with Yorke/Wainright etc. Anyway, I'll drop it :-)

I think he sounds like a mix of Beck & Adam Sandler and I love it.

yeah, I hear you on Beck

apparently he’s saying “there’s a bomb in my car” not “there’s a bug in my car,” too bad

hah, i was wondering about that. i heard "bomb" the first time, "bug" the next. both situations have different but potentially similar ramifications

I just listened to track 1 and was hoping so much it was a bug in his car.

Should the mainstream rockcrit establishment have survived up to this point, Joe Levy or Rob Sheffield or David Browne or Alan Light woud've shown up in the Voice or RS or Spin with a thumbsucker re: how this band and their record compare to Sombr and his record, and what the confluence tells us about the attractive, privileged white youth of NYC, with references to Dimes Square, Little Red School House, Brooklyn Friends etc etc…

I do like the back half of this thing quite a bit! I would say that this Winter kid does split the difference between Yorke and Casablancas, even though that's an embarrassing low hanging fruit claim that each of the above would make and which would delight their editors.

We have that long Grayson Haver Currin profile in GQ linked above that makes reference to those Brooklyn schools and also noting-

During the last five years, since they signed a record deal at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, a few repeated narrative threads have converged for Geese. They are upper-middle-class New York kids who started a band in high school and were about to break up when Covid canceled their college plans. They are quiet, weird, and funny—or, as Bassin puts it with a smile, “All super fucking undiagnosed autistic, terrible hangs.” They are not to be confused with Goose, because one bird can only entertain you for so long.

Geese have managed their story so successfully, in part, because Winter can be so guarded in interviews. When asked something, he pauses for so long it’s tempting to interrupt the silence and ask something else. In our five hours of conversation, I spend at least thirty cumulative minutes waiting him out. (He and his mom think this stems from a concussion he got while playing hockey in eighth grade, though his dad insists it’s simply his nature.) When he answers, the response is very often a very good joke or even a lie, like a trap carefully set in chess. He has insisted he made Heavy Metal in various Guitar Center stores around New York (not true) and once told The New York Times that Geese employed a little elfin helper named Ezekiel (I have yet to meet him).

Also this 2021 NY Times article -

“It’s definitely music from New York and all of the movements from here,” Bassin said.

Hudson first discovered Television at age 12 when he was instructed to play a version of that band’s signature piece “Marquee Moon” in a class he was taking at the School of Rock program, where the bassist Dominic DiGesu was also studying. Several of the members have known each other since elementary school; others bonded at the progressive Little Red School House High School in Manhattan.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/27/arts/music/geese-projector.html

Just no Sombr comparison

Goose + Geese + High Flying Birds could maybe do an arena tour.

They are upper-middle-class New York kids

lol tuition at brooklyn friends school is $62k/year, i guess if you're not a billionaire you can claim middle class in ny??

Sombr is more pop

Just once this century I'd like to see something like "raised outside of Findlay, Ohio by a single mother who worked as a nurse's assistant..." in the bio of a suddenly popular new indie artist

Adrienne Lenker?

Sorry, reading the GQ interview and howling with laughter at this Cameron Winter bloke. He might be a Bobby Gillespie-tier twat?

He tells me about trying to write novels when he was 11 and how he cares so little about how much money he might or might not be making he doesn’t even have the Chase app. He tears up while he plays me Nico’s “The Fairest of the Seasons,” guiding me through the chord changes and the tension of the strings as he streams it from his phone and saying that, at one point, its lyrics were “exactly my life.”

And yes, upper-middle-class? Give me a fucking break. This is the music of the 1%.

There's definitely a bunch of compositional complacency here. It's brilliantly produced and convincingly performed but the underlying songs don't have much going on imo and the whole thing is powered by a familiar mystique

I feel similar to imago. I listened to this (the first few tracks) a few days ago and thought it was sonically compelling, yet compositionally dull.

I like their last two albums enough. I'm an old cynical butthead, and I bought in. I believe them to be inspired.
They sound refreshing after wading through miles of pleasant, competent pop/rock looking for a new favorite to grab me.
Really appreciate the dynamic, uninhibited vocals. Vocal performance sort of carries the day for me.
I'm not sure they'll stick with me in the long run, but for now I dig and I crank it.

I also concur with everyone how depressing it is that indie music is increasingly a rich kid's game. I know the working class artists are out there, but the conditions are such that they cannot thrive.

i knew this sounded like rich kid rock zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

the title getting killed is funny to me for some reason.

interpol : joy division :: geese : the grifters?

really like the album a lot but i think i agree that the songs qua songs on the solo album are stronger overall. i do like mr. kenneth beats' production and the band interplay a lot, and there are a lot of moments that stick with me (beyond even the bomb bug in my car!!)

i looked at the wikipedia page for brooklyn friends school and the notable alumni does not suggest that it is a place populated by the children of the wealthy. the most esteemed people to have ever attended the school are like MCA from the beastie boys, the actor fisher stevens, a US rep for the virgin islands, wiki from ratking, and cameron winter. that's like... not at all notable for a high school in new york city, to state the obvious. it's sort of pathetic, really

close enough, welcome back Vampire Weekend discourse

“Getting Killed” is a hilarious title. Something oddly specific and yet so plain about it.

I thought it might be a reference to the line “We’re talking about getting killed!” from the show I Think You Should Leave. Seems like it might be in their wheelhouse.

Speaking of references, someone on Bluesky pointed out the similarity to The Boredoms Vision Creation Newsun cover.

Another one that might be a coincidence, but could just as easily be a direct homage.

someone bringing up sombr earlier is interesting because the nepo baby stuff has started up w/ him and i think what people want to expose as a hidden wellspring of economic privilege is really more of a cultural privilege possessed by children raised in new york. there's really strikingly little difference between the home environments in which cameron winter and MJ lenderman were raised (as reported by the same writer in the same publication) -- both have parents who are culturally literate ex-musicians who took normal jobs to settle down and raise families. the main difference is that lenderman's parents settled in north carolina (after his mom spent time in new york working at saks) whereas winter's parents stayed in new york. and i think with both artists you can detect how those locations shaped their music -- winter's influences are culturally diverse and pretentious whereas lenderman's are more straightforward and humble, and as such his music codes as digestibly middle class where winter's urbanity manifests in a way that is confrontational. but i would argue that, from what we can tell, there is very likely little economic difference between these families -- if anything lenderman's parents probably have more money by dint of living for decades in north carolina.

i think what is probably a more interesting discussion is the longterm economic story of america and why we may be in a period where indie rock musicians are typically coming from quite standard comfortable middle class backgrounds as opposed to broken homes in decaying rust belt cities

a hidden wellspring of economic privilege is really more of a cultural privilege possessed by children raised in new york

you can't be raised in new york unless your parents can afford to raise you in new york

62k a year for a k-12 school is wild man

like that is an unbelievable amount of money

more than twice the NYC average

close enough, welcome back Vampire Weekend discourse

― Murgatroid, Wednesday, 1 October 2025 17:48 (forty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

why not? there's your familiar mystique

I didn’t think that j0rdan was denying dude had economic privilege.

Economic and cultural privilege are non-identical but heavily overlapping categories obv.

They tend to be conflated because we tend to collapse (other people’s) culture and (other people’s) wealth into a single category of consumptive choices.

Incredibly excitingly, in 2 weeks we get the British version of this when The Last Dinner Party drop their 2nd album *cracks knuckles* *ignores sizeable glasshouse around self*

i saw geese open for vampire weekend in ohio this spring on the rich kid rock tour

it was dope Parris Hilton Dj'd the afters

i was angered by the thom yorke comparison at first but then i realized it’s undeniably otm. it wasn’t obvious to me ex ante that it was even possible to do american thom yorke since the british accent is such a big part of it. that’s innovation. also one of the guitars on ‘getting killed’ (the song) has a clean sound doing some jazzy chords sounds just like johnny greenwood, it’s basically ‘jigsaw falling out of place’

at least Vampire Weekend is fun to listen to

*leaves thread forever*

my point isn't to deny that cameron winter is of some level of economic privilege, it's just to say that i think the conversation is a red herring. for instance, nobody ever talks about rappers from new york as being of "economic privilege" because they're from new york and not, idk, memphis. but you can look at artists like azealia banks or asap rocky and very easily locate the ways in which the cultural privilege of growing up in the vicinity of downtown new york informed their music and careers and allowed them to maneuver into certain cultural spaces and up to certain levels of fame and notoriety that may not have been available to artists in other cities. nicki minaj is definitely not someone of economic privilege, however she did attend one of the most famous performing arts high schools in the city and is absolutely of new york cultural privilege. cameron winter's parents are probably more wealthy than xaviersobased's parents but the description below of xavier's upbringing is absolutely new york cultural privilege, and the broad narrative arcs of cameron winter and xavier's careers as artists in relation to the genres they operate in/around are not all that different. the fact that both grew up in new york feels far more relevant to me than the finances of their parents

Born and raised on the Upper West Side, Xavier is quicker to call his music “New York shit” than any of the various subgenres it’s been categorized under online. His family has been in the city since the 1970s, when his mom’s side emigrated from the Dominican Republic. Xavier and his older brother, Alexander, will be visiting later this year to walk her down the aisle when she weds her partner of 12 years, Indhira.

Xavier’s mom, Evelyn, began working as a house DJ in the 1980s, spinning smooth electronic blends of techno and popular rap for decades at parties throughout Manhattan. That meant there was production software on the family computer from the time Xavier could reach the mouse. Sitting around a table of fajitas on the Lower East Side with Indhira and Xavier, Evelyn pulls up a home movie on Facebook that depicts two of Xavier’s cousins leaning up against a table stacked with her decks, rapping into corded microphones.

i think people are just shitting on rich kids because it's fun. also, there are nepo babies in all genres and people absolutely point it out so i'm not sure what your point is

i think my point is pretty clear actually but i'm not sure what yours is. that your posts are stupid and meaningless? ok thanks...?

uh.

i looked at the wikipedia page for brooklyn friends school and the notable alumni does not suggest that it is a place populated by the children of the wealthy.

vs

my point isn't to deny that cameron winter is of some level of economic privilege,

it seems like you kind of are!

And yes, upper-middle-class? Give me a fucking break. This is the music of the 1%.

― Position Position

really, how so

it seems like you kind of are!

― a (waterface), Wednesday, October 1, 2025 4:25 PM (thirty-five seconds ago)

ok. go argue with a wall

J0rdan your point about NY privilege is good, but these are definitely rich kids come on

where did he saying they aren't rich?

say*

this is only somewhat germane to the convo but is def very funny: winter’s mom has been profiled by the nytimes in a culture piece focusing on polyamory

*her polyamory

the whole point of being a rich person who raises kids in manhattan/brooklyn is the hope that they will one day make a fabulous indie rock album. if you want to breed investment bankers you buy a house in connecticut

There's a hierarchy and many levels of access within new york cultural privilege that can open up depending on your circumstance. Does a white kid who goes to Brooklyn Friends have a better chance of making it than a black kid who auditions to get into LaGuardia? My guess is yes.

On the one hand lol but on the other hand yes exactly: it’s wasteful to live in NY and it’s wasteful to be an indie rock musician. We’re all obsessed with different forms of what we consider conspicuous consumption, to the point that unconsumed wealth makes our eyes glaze over even though it’s the real driver of plutocracy.

Xpost

I'm listening to 3D Country just now and there's bits of it that vocally remind me of Tim Buckley. Not saying his voice is in the same league but I think that influence is present.

surprised you guys care enough about this to type out all these posts tbh. i would gladly listen to a whimsical bookish indie pop ep written and performed by the kids in whit stillman’s metropolitan without a second thought

Same. This argument shocked me when it came up during the VW years.

I don't care and rarely check a musician's bio tbh, even for a review.

J0rdan your point about NY privilege is good, but these are definitely rich kids come on

― gargle my bloody beet diarrhea and asparagus piss (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, October 1, 2025 4:34 PM (fifteen minutes ago)

ok but what i'm asking is why this has mattered. like in real terms. budo jeru is like "we're all here to shit on rich kids because it's fun" ok cool i get it, i've been there before. if the conversation begins and ends with "if your parents are rich that's bad" then i don't know where we go from here. but why i'm picking at this is because no one has actually articulated how this privilege manifested itself in ways that put geese ahead of artists whose parents don't have as much money. because i read their origin story and it's identical to the way thousands of artists at every rung of the economic ladder have been discovered and signed to record deals in the last 5+ years

Maybe Willie Upbin did? In late March 2020, Upbin was about to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania and take a job as an A&R scout at Atlantic Records. He was a collegiate fencer who had played music and loved the idea of the industry. He stumbled upon Geese’s Soundcloud page and was blown away. He sent the record to an attorney who said they could get a deal immediately.

Upbin shot Geese an Instagram message and told them he wanted to work together. They had a conference call. Upbin told them he’d been sending Projector to labels and that places like Sub Pop were already interested. “They were so naïve,” says Upbin. “They were kids who said, ‘This is sick.’”

On April 13, 2020, Upbin and Geese held a Zoom meeting with Terrible Records. It was Bassin’s 18th birthday. His mom, Annie, took notes during the call. Sub Pop followed, as did 4AD. They had, Upbin remembers, played maybe five shows.

i don't bring this all up to defend geese specifically, i've not listened to a note of their music or of cameron winter's solo stuff. when people start bringing up tom waits and thom yorke and shit... not my bag. but why i'm pushing back is because i just find the conversation to be distracting in an era where technology has done a lot of leveling of the playing field when it comes to creating music and building an audience for that music. what did cameron winter's parents money afford him, musically? gear to mess around with? the soundcloud algorithm is not able to be leveraged by wealth

i found sombr to be an interesting invocation because he is someone who also grew up economically privileged in manhattan, and as people have become more aware of him they have started to throw around the nepo baby stuff. but sombr signed a midsized six figure record deal w/ a major label after going viral on tiktok from his bedroom in what is currently an extremely ordinary way. you could accurately describe him as the julian casablancas of the tiktok era, but the reason why the connection to money was relevant to the strokes is because in 2000 being in new york may still have really mattered when it came to accruing the kind of notoriety that make rock bands successful. but sombr or cameron winter could have grown up in oklahoma and still had more or less the same chance of having their music discovered thru the internet in the fashion that it was. what living in new york via their parents money afforded them is a different and more ineffable kind of privilege that exists culturally much more than it does economically. and this to me is a more interesting topic of discussion than attempting to divine the exact nature of cameron winter's parents wealth

technology has only leveled the playing ground so much. sure, anyone can win the gamble of going viral, but the odds are still stacked against them. you know what evens the odds? money. which, as we all know, is fungible with time. people who have to work for a living have less and less of either.

none of my bitterness is intended as shade on winter or this band, who I think are just fine

my takeaway from all this that america has quaker prep schools? that's wild

you know what evens the odds? money. which, as we all know, is fungible with time. people who have to work for a living have less and less of either.

we are talking about kids who were in high school?

I'm sorry, I forgot that all teenagers have equal levels of economic privilege, my bad

i heard this once a while back, that as an artist you need 2 of the following 3 things to be successful: talent, resources (money), people/connections. the more of any of them the more likely you're going to be on a magazine cover or whatever. but if you only have one forget about it.

Yeah and who knows what Cameron winters connections did or didn’t do but it seems like he’s got all three, which is fine but to ignore his background is obtuse. Kid seems talented, and I dig some of his music! No one has articulated what difference it made because none of us know, we are just pointing it out and the pushback seems a little extreme at this point

the economic thing is less of an issue for me these days then... well, then youth to be honest. that "still figuring things out" thing. especially with artists who want to project a kind of above-it-call cool. like, i'm going to be artistically interesting and commanding and i'm 24 or whatever. no idea if geese are like this, maybe they're older, like j0rdan they aren't my bag either. just a broader thing for me with pop music, generally speaking. i like older musicians because i am older.

this is maybe spiralling too off topic but I feel that as I get older too, and I'm hardly "old." the thing is that younger artists by their nature can tap more into the "beginner's mind" thing. that allows them to find a fresh angle on things we've all heard before. whereas an older artist will potentially have more interesting things to express, but is more liable to be stuck in a creative rut or dead end. obviously there are exceptions

I think that's a largely realistic generalisation. Sometimes the more you know the less susceptible to broad strokes and wild experimentation you can be. You'd think it would be the opposite: The more experience you have, the bigger your box of paints. But experience also has a habit of creating habits, of making you more risk-avoidant, and of orienteering you down the paths of least resistance

we are just pointing it out and the pushback seems a little extreme at this point

Nah come on, there are people coming into this thread and making out this album people are discussing and enjoying is trash based solely on dude's upbringing. No wonder that's going to get challenged

They are so rich they have a song about tax avoidance

And getting killed

I want to make doubly clear that I don't mean to trash this album or artist! Like I said, I think it's fine, but I will also admit that when I find out that a successful young artist comes from a fairly privileged background, something in me just...seethes.

to end this post on a positive note, I will concur that Getting Killed is a good/funny title.

personally speaking i'm still kinda jealous of kids who get the artistically rich experience of a new york upbringing. maybe there's some of that emotion in the background here.

see getting killed is too "we are cool" for me. i get that's part of the job description here though. just goes back to "not my bag".

As far as NY based nepo-indie goes it’s a minor masterpiece, I’ve been enjoying the new record a bunch

what do you like most about it?

The production is great as mentioned by others. I’m really a fan of the vocal performance here as well even with lyrics that are maybe are a little flimsy.

gotcha thanks

what did cameron winter's parents money afford him, musically? gear to mess around with?

I think zchyrs already made this point, but...I think this is the wrong question. The issue is not what his privilege afforded him musically. What it likely afforded him is more valuable: the freedom to never need to fill out a job application, and all the time in the world to do whatever he wants

And Getting Killed is indeed a good / funny title

who is trashing the album? i came into the discussion a fan on the strength of last year's album and all i said was i was disappointed by the songwriting (or lack thereof)

at least i've actually listened to the fucking album i mean sheesh

see getting killed is too "we are cool" for me. i get that's part of the job description here though. just goes back to "not my bag".

― she freaks, she speaks (map), Wednesday, October 1, 2025 5:21 PM (sixteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i agree with this btw. a thing about the previous album i liked was the abstraction, lyrically and in terms of presentation overall. what is a "3D country"? i don't know. they struck me as maybe proggy dorks with a zany sense of humor. but i didn't get any sense of the personalities of the artists, which i think is a strength for this band the more i learn about them

OTM. I had no idea listening to 3D Country who these people were meant to be. Didn't realise they were from NY either. I imagined them as some sort of Texan experimental cabaret act, like a modern Southern US version of Deaf School or something

Totally! I had a couple of tracks from that last album on some playlist and thought kinda similarly. It was only until hearing the first single in this thread that I looked them up.

My guess is this is their down-home Exile On Main Street record. The next one will be all spacey and epic

it's a decent album that's been a bit overhyped but i think they probably have one that does live up to that hype in them

which one of their parents paid for the right to bite the cover of vision creation newsun?

which one of their parents paid for the right to bite the cover of vision creation newsun?

J0rdan your point about NY privilege is good, but these are definitely rich kids come on

― gargle my bloody beet diarrhea and asparagus piss (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, October 1, 2025 4:34 PM (fifteen minutes ago)

ok but what i'm asking is why this has mattered. like in real terms.

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, October 1, 2025 5:24 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Because they are using their privilege to make the most boring-ass nothing-ass warmed-over-Parquet-Courts-warming-over-Television music for empty-headed zoom-zooms and takes attention away from actual hard-working bands, something that is harder and harder to be in this economy

ok grandpa let’s get you to bed

i need a zoom zoom to tuck me in tbh

i think what is probably a more interesting discussion is the longterm economic story of america and why we may be in a period where indie rock musicians are typically coming from quite standard comfortable middle class backgrounds as opposed to broken homes in decaying rust belt cities

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.),

Yes, interested in this

and so we did not need those rockcrit oldsters from the legacy media to explain what Geese and Sombe tell us about attractive affluent youngs in contemporary NYC! We have a Gawker dude to do just that!

I think it is fair to sat that until the 90s, popular music in the U.S. and the UK emanated from the working class in the 40s-60s, joined by the middle class in the 70s and 80s. It was not until the late 80s/early 90s that it was acceptable for the well heeled to get involved in, for instance, indie rock. It's very easy to excoriate others for signing to major labels and making all number of commercially-minded decisions to when you have had the benefit of a safety net your entire life.

i think what is probably a more interesting discussion is the longterm economic story of america and why we may be in a period where indie rock musicians are typically coming from quite standard comfortable middle class backgrounds as opposed to broken homes in decaying rust belt cities

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.)

gonna sound like a dumbass here but i honestly had no idea that there was ever a shift to the latter "rust belt" indie you describe, it seems like the standard line has always been the former "comfortable" folks in cities with cultural capital like NY etc

neil young's from canada iirc

there have always been indie and punk bands from more middle class backgrounds and it's always been a mix. not sure how you would gauge how or to what degree that has shifted over time, seems like a lot of moving parts. it seems to me that genuinely poor background bands and artists tend to not want to make that their identity while bands and artists that come from a little more cush can be more strident about their outsider status but it's maybe foolish to make that generalization.

i could see that being the result of an economic shift from the label's role in subsidizing the artist to the artist having to carry that load more

i'm interested in the idea of cultural privilege is there a thread for that? is that where your parents play you television and the ramones or where your grandpa taught you to play guitar?

i think it makes more sense just to look at wealth polarization at large across the population. when people say 62k a year for a private school is an obscene amount of money they're right and it's telling you something. i get how it doesn't make sense to flatten cultural nuance with 'omg wealthy' but at the same time the actual numbers themselves have become obscene. and who is to blame? no one of course. "the system" "capitalism" whatever diseased organism directs our destiny as a population regardless of individual feelings choices or morality.

but sombr or cameron winter could have grown up in oklahoma and still had more or less the same chance of having their music discovered thru the internet in the fashion that it was.

i don't think this is true at all. we have a recent example actually, that pig-rock band from oklahoma that was hyped last year i think? can't remember their names. i have a feeling the odds are pretty stacked against them as far as longevity goes. what are they gonna do after the internet / algorithms move on and leave em back where they are in oklahoma? it used to be that bands from places like that could tour every year, record, make a name for themselves and have a decent shot at keeping it going in the indie ecosystem. all of that has blown apart pretty much. i mean i think i'm at least somewhat wrong here, bands still stick to it and tour and make it work somehow. but it's harder than it used to. because the wealth is obscene and it's held among an obscenely small number of people. and everyone else, and this still very much spreads out geographically regardless of the internet, has to give up any hope for security because of its increasingly cancerous demands.

the school of rock stuff is an interesting new element. i have friends that put their kids in those and they are stupidly expensive. imagine having access to that as a kid tho. they put you on stage at these decent midsize clubs (the black cat of instance in DC)! i def never had anything close to that stuff as a kid. it took me until college to meet someone who played drums

pig-rock band

err pig-fuck rock band i mean. chat pile.

and it looks like they have a couple of shows on the west coast in october. so remains to be seen etc. i have no horse in this race as i didn't really care for the album much.

mazda drivers catching strays

but sombr or cameron winter could have grown up in oklahoma and still had more or less the same chance of having their music discovered thru the internet in the fashion that it was.

the fact that this claim is narrower than i was reading it is telling actually - it seems like you were trying to support your larger point that somehow the internet has made cultural and actual capital less relevant, and you had to snip off a lot from this hypothetical. (and let's be clear, most of what we're talking about is actual capital even if it doesn't look like it within the rarefied ranks of new york culture.)

A person I went to school with in the midwest had his parents buy and rent out an apartment in Brooklyn just so they could claim their band is from Brooklyn. Geese actually growing up in NYC is refreshingly pure.

my only cultural capital was an older brother who recorded episodes of 120 minutes on vhs

I literally have no idea when the discussion around Which Particular Artist is going to start to concern itself with "their family wealth". With consistency, the most extreme examples of 'inherited American family wealth' in the music industry continue to escape examination while 'some kid who didn't have to pay for his post-secondary education' will become a target. Added to this, brilliant music-making colleagues of mine who literally grew up in trailer-park single-parent families and continue to require side-hustles to survive, they don't get any bonuses from these discussions.

As somebody who is acutely aware of "who has the dough" amongst the people I've worked with, I can assure everyone that there is zero actual correlation between these discussions and the actual facts of who is among the 1% in the creative roles. Furthermore, I myself have the opinion that there is no better place for the children of the 1% than in creative roles, better that they're footing the bill for some studio sessions than pouring that money into world-destroying investments.

gee, it's not a very high bar is it

there's a special place in heaven for animal lovers, that's what i always say

Because they are using their privilege to make the most boring-ass nothing-ass warmed-over-Parquet-Courts-warming-over-Television music for empty-headed zoom-zooms and takes attention away from actual hard-working bands, something that is harder and harder to be in this economy

― gargle my bloody beet diarrhea and asparagus piss (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, October 1, 2025 8:09 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

lmao empty headed zoom-zooms is an instant classic

the economic thing is less of an issue for me these days then... well, then youth to be honest. that "still figuring things out" thing. especially with artists who want to project a kind of above-it-call cool. like, i'm going to be artistically interesting and commanding and i'm 24 or whatever. no idea if geese are like this, maybe they're older, like j0rdan they aren't my bag either. just a broader thing for me with pop music, generally speaking. i like older musicians because i am older.

― she freaks, she speaks (map), Wednesday, October 1, 2025 5:59 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i had no idea they were young until reading this post. listening to the album i was fully thinking it was made by 35 year-olds

lol, thought this an ILE thread, wasn't expecting class discourse here.

I feel like it's probably absolutely true that the ecosystem surrounding indie has corroded, and the class background of the participants has changed accordingly. We would probably know a lot more about it, if the economics of cultural criticism hadn't collapsed at the same time.

I don't think Chat Pile is a very good example, though. They belong more to a metal ecosystem, and that seems in better shape. They will be ok, even though they are from Oklahoma. Come to think about it, indie has moved away from the big cities a bit lately, with several of the biggest hypes coming from Asheville. Or Waxahatchee Creek.

I love it when Wikipedia biographies of, say, Leonard Cohen go "At first he was going to be a poet, but there wasn't enough money in it so he decided to turn to music".. . It implies there was a time when 1. Being a poet was a potentially livable trade 2. Making music could be lucrative even right at the start.

With regard to the latter, forming a band in the first place is expensive. Instruments and their upkeep is expensive. Hiring practice space is expensive (unless you're lucky enough to have access to a big room away from neighbours). And as rock/indie/whatever is hardly burgeoning right now, even if you're really talented it's unlikely you're going to be raking it in anywhere close to the start. This is Geese's fourth album, and it's the first one as far as I know which has garnered even more than a rough speck of attention.

Obviously it didn't used to be like this. The music industry could throw a bunch of cash at XTC, a non-touring band with a medium-sized following, so they could make their silly Dukes Of The Stratosphere side project. And in the 90s you only had to sound vaguely like Stone Temple or Shed Seven and you'd have a good chance of getting snapped up by a label and sell a good wodge of the one half-decent song you wrote.

i could see that being the result of an economic shift from the label's role in subsidizing the artist to the artist having to carry that load more

― Tallahassee Coates (Heez), Wednesday, October 1, 2025 10:56 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Hadn't considered this, but I do think this is a big part of it

well, consider how in the Good Old Days the bands had to pay for their own videos

yeah, even bigger labels won't throw money to anyone other than huge-selling artists. indie labels don't "sign" people either, they just release the music and if there are royalties, the artist might get some.

Furthermore, I myself have the opinion that there is no better place for the children of the 1% than in creative roles, better that they're footing the bill for some studio sessions than pouring that money into world-destroying investments.

otm

3 albums in 5 years
less than a million followers on Spotify
most people, who have taken a listen, have said no thanks.

so many words and so much passion...
over an insignificant band
over who their parents are?!
are people trying to say they couldn't have achieved such modest success
after 5 years of plugging away, without their parents or NYC?

lol what, they are getting insane levels of gas, levels most bands could only ever vaguely dream of

xp uhhh...

joining the Geese train. new record is a very exciting listen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tw91e6Nurfc

Kimmel crowd not too impressed

Sorry but nearly every line of your poem is inscrutable.

3 albums in 5 years is... normal?
less than a million follower on Spotify is... still quite a lot for an emerging alternative rock band in 2025?
most people, who have taken a listen, have said no thanks... did you poll them, or?
so many words and so much passion... welcome to ILM
over an insignificant band see above
over who their parents are?! it's easily the least interesting thing about the music, but it does open a wider conversation about who can be successful these days compared to, say, new york in the 60s or the 80s
are people trying to say they couldn't have achieved such modest success after 5 years of plugging away, without their parents or NYC? people are saying it likely helped, as does privilege in pretty much every facet of society and culture today

Fwiw I heard a lot more buzz about that Cameron Winter solo album (or maybe I just ignored any mention of Geese bc I thought it was a jam band). And while it's not quite my thing, his voice is more interesting a weird spare acoustic context than in a rock band.

(also the Thom Yorke thing what first came to mind when I heard it, and Rufus Wainwright)

"most people, who have taken a listen, have said no thanks... did you poll them, or?"

sorry, I thought this was the thread for sweeping generalities.
Last two albums got a lot of critical attention. I just assumed it would
have prompted a lot of music lovers and nerds to at least check them out.
also plenty of response right has been negative.

*right here

I think this the camp is fairly split:

- "I'm glad there's an actual indie rock band providing a good, imaginative take on the genre in 2025"
- "This is overhyped trustafarian trash"

every 20 years, we Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away

maybe I just ignored any mention of Geese bc I thought it was a jam band)

ya a lot of people have confused them with the band goose. which is a gen z jam band.

it's funny to imagine if radiohead released the bends and everyone confused them for a ska band named radioface or something

Oh, wait, so Geese didn't do the 30 min Vampire Weekend medley...

poll

I'm just ignorant as to what being big or successful is nowadays. Their level of success just doesn't seem like overhyped excess to me. I did love that first CYHSY album. How well off were their parents?

this band is Cave Your Nick and Say Yorke

Every generation throws a heir up the pitchforks

I'm not going to reread the whole thread, but I think "parents" is a bit of a red herring? I thought the earlier posts were more about economic-or-cultural privilege and financial stability / being able to afford hobbies instead of working. Obvs their parents are key to that but I don't think who their parents are is that important; it was already mentioned that the singer (?) went to a private $62k/yr high school

who do you think paid that tuition?

I just think it's strange to boil down the earlier discussion to:

so many words and so much passion...
over an insignificant band
over who their parents are?!

maybe I'm misreading though

Only meant that as the discussion related directly to the band. I understand the broader context of the benefits and the inequity of privilege. It just seemed like some people were using that to discredit the band mostly for that upbringing. They should not be shamed solely for their good fortune of a head start in life. They can still have a genuine love of music, a passion to perform it, a talent for it, and a work ethic to develop that talent.

I'm suddenly hearing about this band from every corner of everywhere. The Best Band Ever hyperbole is nuts, reminds me of early 2000 ott NYC hype.

I don't get that as they seem like acquired taste. I probably wouldn't have known about them until now if I hadn't seen them live.

I was out for a drink with a friend Tuesday night, and Geese came up in conversation, with the assumption that I've heard them (I haven't yet) and like them (tbd).

Actually listening to this now, I like how all the drums are completely crushed and have no dynamics (a very hip-hop approach), so the verses just have textural changes and/or simply mix them down.

Never got into the Strokes and actively despised Vampire Weekend (they always sounded "try hard" and "wannabe", vying for something that was never attainable, and actively duping their audience into thinking they had it). So, is this is another take on that general band aesthetic? I'll give this a go, but it does feel like this thread is a more high distilled class conscious "authenticity debate" than either prior band. I suppose these times make that distinction ever more so sensitive.

But ultimately for me it boils down to this: is the music good? I only heard Taxes and it wasn't bad.

jim morrison's dad was an admiral. gram parsons came from serious florida orange grove money. david crosby was a silver spoon, michael nesmith's mom invented White Out, lady gaga's dad owns restaurants, lana del rey is whoever she is, trey anastasio's dad was an Educational Testing Services executive, arcade fire, vampire weekend, and many many many et ceteras

networking savvy is way more important than instrumental mastery. punk won

we gotta keep people down so they can keep bringing us good indie rock music

william burroughs lived off burroughs corporation money

Bryan Ferry was a slave to love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9STHqt_vsCc

not jim morrison and trey anastasio and arcade fire!!!!

Unsurprisingly these discussions tend to collapse a lot of overlapping but conceptually distinct propositions, which results in people talking past one another:

1. Is the music good?
2. Do the artists come from economic privilege?
3. If the answer to (2) is "yes", has that privilege facilitated the music's existence and relative level of success?
4. If the answer to (2) is "yes", has that privilege helped in some way to shape the sound of the music?
5. If the answer to (4) is "yes", can we identify where, how and why with confidence and precision?
6. If the answer to any of (2), (3) or (4) is "yes", can that potentially render the music inauthentic?
7. If the answer to (6) is "yes", has it done so in this case?
8. If the answer to any of (2), (3), or (4) is yes, am I entitled to ignore this music on that basis?

For me, the answers to those questions are:

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. Almost certainly
4. Almost certainly
5. Notionally yes, but this is trickier than most people think and they normally fuck up their attempts to do so
6. N/A (meaningless question)
7. See (6)
8. Do what feels right for you

posting this for whiney. geese's dad makes production music.

https://i.discogs.com/Wt-cUc5YIUrD3pHsTMUt_AnWWlB5xLb4Hz08Bxri9tk/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTI5MzA2/ODQyLTE3MTQ5NzE5/MzEtNzM2MC5wbmc.jpeg

https://i.discogs.com/7-7kEABhassMIenQ3D-zJVZtwgmUHPdUyIV-c4c9K7o/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTI5MzA2/ODQyLTE3MTQ5NzE2/OTEtMjk2OS5wbmc.jpeg

https://i.discogs.com/Nd8VxCwTqHvuss0CeJS1OCs0zDUxLTVu0lNKV24JX74/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTI5MzA2/ODQyLTE3MTQ5NzE2/OTMtOTIzNi5wbmc.jpeg

https://i.discogs.com/k9szuTmmykrU9lAz6NfVhvK4VT95L-Z7YW8rsUROQzU/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:600/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTI5MzA2/ODQyLTE3MTQ5NzE3/MDgtMzQ1MC5wbmc.jpeg

https://www.discogs.com/artist/923917-Stewart-Winter?superFilter=Credits

https://www.videohelper.com/artists/profile/staff/stewart-winter

geese up hos down

Never got into the Strokes and actively despised Vampire Weekend (they always sounded "try hard" and "wannabe", vying for something that was never attainable, and actively duping their audience into thinking they had it). So, is this is another take on that general band aesthetic? I'll give this a go, but it does feel like this thread is a more high distilled class conscious "authenticity debate" than either prior band. I suppose these times make that distinction ever more so sensitive.

But ultimately for me it boils down to this: is the music good? I only heard Taxes and it wasn't bad.

i don't think this album really has much at all to do with the strokes or vampire weekend stylistically (who also don't have that much in common beyond there being attached class discourse), except that the singer sounds a bit like casablancas. the music is good but doesn't live up to the out of control hype.

listened, was way different than i thought it would. was kind of appealing ramshackle in a lot of places, almost like a indie skip spence or something? liked the percussion a lot. definitely didn't feel nailed down tight like the strokes or vampire weekend.

could the dude's voice/singing style ultimately wear on me? possibly.

skip spence is a good comp that i haven’t seen elsewhere

yep I can hear that too

overall, i got as many or more early late 60s early 70ish vibes as I did 00s indie which was a surprise

Same.

I also get a bit of a "James Chance and the Contortions played at 33 rather than 45" vibe as well.

https://www.reddit.com/r/geesebandofficial/s/9Mw2k88RGd

i actually don't think they're overhyped at all, it's just very good imo

overall, i got as many or more early late 60s early 70ish vibes

that's why I hate them almost as much as Father John Misty

The Swans namedrop in the GQ piece and the King of Limbs (my favorite Radiohead album by some distance) namedrop here has got me listening. What a pity that the lyric in the first song *isn't* "there's a bug in my car"! Serious missed opportunity there.

Yep it would be a much better lyric

After one listen, I'm in the "check back in with this writer in 5 years" camp. It feels dark and serious in a mannered way, and like someone in the band, or a producer, is always thinking, "What will people think of this when they hear it?" I'd like to hear what will happen if, instead, down the line, Cameron Winter stops giving any fucks whatsoever and makes his own Tropical Dandy.

Once again I am urging people to check out 3D Country, which by comparison is a lot tighter and more immediate. Maybe why this one hasn't clicked for me is because I was hoping for something more satisfyingly bold and playful. Winter's voice is deeper and less grating too - a deep and confident baritone as opposed to the creaky Jaggerish bowl on this one.

I still can't hear any Radiohead or Thom Yorke similarities here, but The King Of Limbs comparison is likely apt. I find both albums frustratingly unsatisfying in their impressionism and ephemerality. Both albums sound like they're made of tinder. A thicket of dried twigs with little to hang a song on or propulse it, rather a sound for the vocalist to skitter around in a semi-improvised fashion.

I just find that sort of twiggy, insubstantial sound and production hard to cope with, and I say that as a fan of both Geese and Radiohead. With Getting Killed and TKOL there's no oomph, no drive, little to latch on to for me. It's an unsatisfying experience for me

*bowl = yowl

But i also think the word "overrated" is unhelpful in this context. My impression is that 3D Country reached a lot of critics' ears too late for them to get their flowers, so there's a wellspring of enthusiasm for this one to make up for it

idk i listened to 3d country and it’s fun but imo much weaker. he was still experimenting with the voice hadn’t figured it out yet, just cycling through impressions of different rock singer styles. and the band are doing too much goofy stop start mathy wanking instead of locking in

LIKE A SAILOR IN A BIG GREEN BOAT

LIKE A SAILOR IN A BIG GREEN COAT

Xp see, that's the absolute inverse of how I feel about the two albums. New one is skittery, the production is thin, his voice is one-note and grating, and the compositions are a mess. 3D Country, to me, sounds solid, chunky and like they know what they're doing

If it's true that he's done experimenting with different vocal styles, I'd say it's a shame he's settled on this high, wavering creak where the notes are held way longer than they ought to (and he seems to be able to manage).

I'm also surprised that a hip hop producer should be so averse to low-end in his mix. I'm really not into rock that sounds like it was played on a cutlery tray. Reminds me of the GAPDY years

just like every other single new album that causes a multi-hundred-post thread on ilx, this album is fine

No! You must have an opinion!

My opinion: it exists. (For I have not heard it, therefore my opinion is based on available fact.)

But i also think the word "overrated" is unhelpful in this context.

it's generally not a helpful term or discussion ever, but especially in stuff like this where you could stop 100 people randomly on the street and ask if they've heard Geese and they would just stare at you like wtf are you talking about?

honk if you've heard geese

i recently played a show with a band called the Gooses, a dude from a local punk band on acoustic and his 9 year old son on Casio keyboard, they did funny songs about poop and cats and stuff, pretty awesome

stuff like this where you could stop 100 people randomly on the street and ask if they've heard Geese and they would just stare at you like wtf are you talking about?

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, October 3, 2025 1:25 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

the funny thing is I bet this would also be true if you replaced Geese with Aphex Twin, Pavement, or The RZA. A good reminder that we all live in a bubble that can seem a lot larger than it actually is

absolutely

honk if you've heard geese

― imago, Friday, October 3, 2025 1:41 PM (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

actually an excellent bumper sticker merch idea for them

i liked a geese video on TitTok so now my FYP has a bunch a young people that are vibing it

i recently played a show with a band called the Gooses, a dude from a local punk band on acoustic and his 9 year old son on Casio keyboard, they did funny songs about poop and cats and stuff, pretty awesome

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, October 3, 2025 1:53 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

OK fine they can have a P4K BNM too however the best I can do is an 8.2. Hope that works

haha thank you i'll pass it along

Finally gave this a listen, sounds good, I could imagine it being better live. Reminds me of ... Dirty Projectors or something? Singer can be a bit much. Like all the percussion. Jammier than I expected, given the distinction people have been making between this and Goose (who I assume must therefore sound really jammy).

the funny thing is I bet this would also be true if you replaced Geese with Aphex Twin, Pavement, or The RZA. A good reminder that we all live in a bubble that can seem a lot larger than it actually is

I don't know, Aphex Twin might have eclipsed this. I was reading the Disco Pogo book on him in public (on the train, at the gym, etc) and quite a few people commented on it. Certainly more than I expected. I'm sure Pavement is far more obscure now than they were even at the turn of the millennium when they played the first Coachella

has anyone mentioned red red meat/califone? similar clattery percussiveness. music is ok and it times good, the singer is going to be black licorice for a lot of people.

I don't think the band itself sounds particularly like either of those bands, but yeah, that sort of chaotic percussion element rings a bell.

It is shocking to me just how much he sounds like Thom Yorke on the new album, I never got that on Heavy Metal. But like, Thom Yorke on T

― We're sad to see you. Go! (flamboyant goon tie included), Monday, September 29, 2025 8:52 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah he sounds so much like Thom here that I cannot help but hear the album as a roundabout King of Limbs tribute

― Tim F, Monday, September 29, 2025 8:56 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm, this is basically american southern rock late radiohead, and it's amazing

Pavement went viral on TikTok a couple of times recently, I think more young people know them than we might think.

someone mentioned his name earlier, and I found the reference pretty puzzling, but now listening again, “half real” kind of really is an adam sandler song. but a very nice one!

Am I the only person hearing Ween in this? Without doing a deep Goose dive, it sounds like they're fucking with rock signifiers in a similar way, and it's tricky to know wether they're for real or not. Like what if Ween grew up later, feeding on more modern sounds instead of Pink Floyd and the Residents.

Maybe there's some Ariel Pink but Geese feels more expansive than that.

no i def heard a lot of ween in 3d country, less so in the new one

Such a surprise to hear an indie rock album this good in 2025.

needlessly cruel to Hamilton Leithauser

Such a surprise to hear an indie rock album this good in 2025.

― treeship 2, Monday, 6 October 2025 01:59 (thirteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

You didn't check that Water From Your Eyes out then

In that GQ article Winter also mentioned Van Morrison Astral Weeks, Television and many more, so I think their influences go beyond just Thom Yorke and Radiohead.

Van Morrison was the first thing I thought of when I heard this

lots of van sounds on his solo album too

Unless I'm reading the charts wrong, Getting Killed didn't even crack the Top 200 on the Billboard album charts.

the prophecy came true!

btw free money to anyone who can do a cam'ron winter/goose set mashup album

no i def heard a lot of ween in 3d country, less so in the new one

― harper valley paul thomas anderson (voodoo chili), Sunday, October 5, 2025 7:50 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

^^ cf. "i see myself"

i think the thing i miss most on "getting killed" is the background singers. they really, uh, tied things together on "3d"

In that GQ article Winter also mentioned Van Morrison Astral Weeks, Television and many more, so I think their influences go beyond just Thom Yorke and Radiohead.

― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 7 October 2025 04:49 (fifteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Great live cover of Marquee Moon here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLrztT8kED0

i think the thing i miss most on "getting killed" is the background singers. they really, uh, tied things together on "3d"

It's that "pop" element I like and miss from this new one. I've listened to Getting Killed several times over the last few weeks and other than Taxes, which I heard before, I can't remember a single song or hook. It just kind of "happens", then it's gone. 3D Country was like David Berman fronting Steely Dan with a tendency for the occasioanl self-sabotaging freakout. This one sounds like Mick Jagger fronting Grizzly Bear with an aversion to catchiness

Billboard was not updated until now. Getting Killed actually debuted at number 96, ninety six! Which means it really isn't that big or that hyped after all.

Idk, isn't that pretty huge for an indie rock album in 2025?

was trying to think of other indie rock band releases in 2025 that i've listened to and can't come up with much

I don't look that often but I feel most are in the Top 50.

Wet Leg, from this year, debut at 45 for example.

I don't look that often but I feel most are in the Top 50.

― music for empty-headed zoom-zooms (Bee OK), Tuesday, October 7, 2025 1:54 PM (sixteen minutes ago)

definitely not true. the first five words you typed here are a clue

I'm not surprised that Wet Leg is bigger than Geese. Neither of those positions seem that high for each band compared to their hype.

But i also think the word "overrated" is unhelpful in this context.

it's generally not a helpful term or discussion ever, but especially in stuff like this where you could stop 100 people randomly on the street and ask if they've heard Geese and they would just stare at you like wtf are you talking about?

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, October 3, 2025 12:25 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

what was the breakout indie band before Wet Leg? cant recall.

i'm down with the Geese, Cajun Man Headrest

Bon Iver Sable, Fable from early this year debut at number 11.

also a record I've heard no one talk about since the week it was released

it didn't cut the mustard

I will say, these guys have sent me on a Radiohead and The Smile kick. Been a spell since I had one of those.

Maybe this is a regional thing, but outside of ILM and a brief conversation with my barber, who's up with his music knowledge, I've not heard a soul mention Geese

sit at the bench at a park with a pond for a while. it'll come up.

*BUZZER NOISE*

after listening to this album a bit, i still think it's pretty good but i've realized that like 85% of what i like about it is winters' singing. these songs would be a lot more boring with a different singer. sometimes he makes me think of hamilton leithauser of the walkmen, they have different vocal qualities but both have big expressive voices that swoop up and down

watching a few live clips and then listening to the album again, i realized that a lot of the songs are kinda blues-rock? it's a lot more noticeable in the live footage. i also keep thinking about tom waits - they don't sound like tom waits at all, but just a distinctive voice over fragmented blues guitar and bass and rattly percussion/drums.

yeah this is as blues-rock as it gets really, with superficially waits-ian idiosyncracies sprinkled throughout

If you want me to pay my taxes
If you want me to pay my taxes
You better come over with a crucifix
You're gonna have to nail me down

Salem Country

This band reminds me a bit of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, another hipster NYC band of yesteryear, repurposing traditional forms. The singer sounds nothing like Jon Spencer, with his campy Elvis tics, but there is a similar bravado to his persona, and also possibly a similar hip-hop influence on the drum sound, as noted above. Also the busy-ness reminds me of early Roxy Music. Again the singer sounds nothing like Bryan Ferry, but there is a similar willingness to push his voice beyond reasonable limits.

Yeah i can hear that. And I'd go so far as to say there are lots of similarities between his and Jon Spencer's voice

Thus album is really good. I'm not playing often and just sort of absorbing it when I do. Every time I play it just a bit better. I still like the last album more but I can actually see that changing in the future.

im finding myself lopping off "trinidad" and the last two tracks to make this perfect, "au pays du cocaine" really should be the closer too imo

scratch that, i have let "long island city here i come" back into my life

only one i skip is the opener

They played here last night (and are playing again tonight; both very sold out). Paraphrased report from an Actual Teenager who went (with his parents): "Their recent work doesn't translate that well to live performances because it has a lot of back up vocals and other production that they don't make any attempt to reproduce. They're solid performers, seem really young and not sure why they are industry favorites."

I just noticed that the guitar player was a women so I looked it up. Emily Green transition recently and missed that until now.

Baby, you can stay with me and nobody would care:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGE-JRsJ2uo

xp interesting, i would have thought the 3d country songs would be more difficult to translate live. clips i saw from last nights show looked great

Au Pays Du might be my favorite tune on the album. I’ve heard it said the song is about the relationship between Cameron and his polyamorous mother when he was a young child. The music video definitely doesn’t dispute that. Heartbreakingly beautiful song.

flopson - right? the new stuff sounds a lot more raw and "live" than the 3D Country stuff which is back-ups galore

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6EJxjdRPAw

They played here last night (and are playing again tonight; both very sold out). Paraphrased report from an Actual Teenager who went (with his parents): "Their recent work doesn't translate that well to live performances because it has a lot of back up vocals and other production that they don't make any attempt to reproduce. They're solid performers, seem really young and not sure why they are industry favorites."

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, October 16, 2025 6:45 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

cameron winter also has two solo shows at the rockefeller chapel at u of c in december, which seems preferable to me to seeing geese at a bigger venue, but they are also very very sold out (stubhub has a couple of tix for like $300)

the clips I’ve seen of those chapel shows are amazing

i saw a kranky records anniversary show at rockefeller chapel a few years ago that was amazing, they had a sick light/laser show on the walls
also saw ellen arkbro perform an organ piece at different u of c chapel last year - i think it was supposed to be at rockefeller but got moved

I saw Low there, and it ruled.

The hype is really insane, tickets on the second hand market are going for 4-figures at some venues.

Impressive, now I want to hear the full song.

i don't bring this all up to defend geese specifically, i've not listened to a note of their music or of cameron winter's solo stuff. when people start bringing up tom waits and thom yorke and shit... not my bag.

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, October 1, 2025 5:24 PM (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

i actually think j0rd might like getting killed. i don't like tom waits either and it's way better than anything by radiohead. there's definitely something to the thom yorke comparison but he's not being british makes a big difference

i actually think j0rd might like getting killed.

I blinked three times at this wow

lol

going so far as to italicize the threat for emphasis seemed a little gratuitous

Ok I know people hate Radiohead for extra-musical reasons these days, but lol at the idea that this record (which I enjoyed!) has anything happening on that level.

(same with Tom Waits in a different sense, but I know some people can't take the voice)

For other uses, see Getting Killed (disambiguation).

the vox remind me more of cold war kids or cage the elephant than waits or yorke. "half real" is the keeper for me.

if the waits thing came just from me, I said specifically he does not sound like tom waits. I was making more of a vibe comparison, they both have a big/distinctive voice over rattly percussion and warped blues guitar. but overall they sound very different

i don't think it came from you per se -- Jordan s/t in the Heavy Metal thread in May: "Heard him described as Tom Waitsian without actually sounding like Tom Waits"

this album is a bit weirdly sequenced. i don’t dislike any of the songs on the first half but it’s really backheavy. i find i often just listen to ‘100 horses’ through to ‘long island’

xp- i’m not a radiohead hater (for reasons musical or extramusical), i respect their game, but it’s not something i would ever put on voluntarily at this point, and id probably be mildly irked if i was subject to listening to it out in public for an extended period.

thanks for reminding me why I will never read any of your posh bullshit melt posts, flopson

“taxes” is the posh melt geese fan’s song of choice

obv this taxpayers alliance op of a rock band are just everything you love about music!

oh good calzino is here and doing posts

keep your beef out of this poultry thread

https://i.imgur.com/h4fiuFX_d.webp

what the hell, calzino

sorry I won't bother this thread or poster flopson any more, I'm gone!

posh melt geese virgin vs chavvy radiohead chad

geese up, hos down!

good morning!

I want to like this even more after just how mad the album made Jim DeRogatis. Greg Kot hated it too, but I've not heard DeRo get this mad about something in a long time. He called it one of the worst records he's ever heard in his life.

lol

https://www.gq.com/story/how-to-get-cameron-winters-hair-according-to-a-hairstylist

I just bought some cleansing cream and hair wax

Hilarious hockey-hair ref

It’s instamatic and it has such flair.

maybe it would sound better if the guy closed his mouth after each word? idk

Geese - You Get What You Give (New Radicals cover)

What a cover 👏🏻pic.twitter.com/Ytq6aYnuVu

— The Rock Revival (@TheRockRevival_) November 5, 2025

I despise that song so much.

lmao if you cant vibe with cam's mush mouth delivery why are you even in this thread

"vibe with"

correct

https://www.stereogum.com/2328953/new-radicals-gregg-alexander-reacts-to-geeses-you-get-what-you-give-cover/news/

Now, frontman Gregg Alexander (of the New Radicals’) says “Geese must truly be the coolest new band since the White Stripes, because my phone ain’t blown up like this since New Radicals announced reforming for just one day for the 2021 Presidential Inauguration in defiance of the raid on the Capitol,” Alexander begins. He continues:

So I was confused at first by the dozens of texts I awoke to in Nashville Wednesday. Pals forwarding me headlines that there’s “Geese performing live” on BBC ONE who are taking “You Get What You Give” to artistic new heights?!

So I rushed on-line to discover Geese’s music, and by the end of the first chorus of their instant classic “Taxes,” I realized they’re not just the coolest band in decades…they’re one of the best. What a lyric, “Doctor, heal yourself!…I will break my own heart?!

Get What You Give is great lol but im not emoitonally prepared to hear a geese version rn

^^^ dreamer's disease imo

William Tyler, confirmed Geese hater

I wish

— william tyler (@williamtylertn) November 8, 2025

you're doing the lords work

— william tyler (@williamtylertn) November 8, 2025

NOOOOOOO it's SOOOOO bad hahaha

— william tyler (@williamtylertn) November 9, 2025