Indiecast - A Half-Assed Grammys Recap, Plus Lana Del Rey and a Kurt Vile Tribute

Episode Date: March 19, 2021

Steven and Ian kick off this week’s episode of Indiecast with a half-assed recap of last week’s Grammys. It doesn’t last long before the duo dive straight into a discussion of the aesthetic and influence of Kurt Vile in honor of the tenth anniversary of Smoke Ring.The main topic this week is Chemtrails Over The Country Club, the seventh studio album from Lana Del Rey. It’s the follow-up to Norman F*cking Rockwell, which was one of our favorite albums of 2019, and Lana seems to feel the pressure across her latest. Like her other work, Chemtrails is a cinematic affair ripe with what can only be described as “vibes.”In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Steven is bumping Ian's previous recommendation of the new self-titled album by Really From. Ian, on the other hand, has been digging into South Korean outfit Parannoul, whose releases are only available on Bandcamp.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Indycast is presented by Uprox's indie mixtape. Hello everyone and welcome to Indycast. On this show, we talk about the biggest indie news of the week. We review albums and we hash out trends. In this episode, we're going to be talking about the new album by Lana Del Rey, Kemp Trails Over the Country Club. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host, Ian Cohen. Ian, how are you?

Well, first, I just want to take the opportunity to say to all of the loyal Indicast listeners, welcome to music's biggest night. The joke never gets old, by the way. It is good. Or is music's biggest morning maybe? Does music have a big morning yet? I'm talking about the loyal Indycast listener who like waits for the episode to drop at 9 o'clock on the West Coast, 12 o'clock on the East Coast.

Wow, yeah, that's true. The real heads, the true heads. Exactly. I mean, because like the Grammys, though, they have the biggest night. I just wonder if we could corner the biggest morning. Friday morning. That's us. That's us. So, yeah, the Grammys, they were like an eternity ago, so we won't spend too much time talking about that. I mean, did you, I assume you didn't watch the Grammys at all.

No. You know, this year I couldn't even be bothered to, like, make the two tweets I usually do. One of which is that, like, Beck, you know, about Beck winning album the year, whether or not he put out an album and the other, like, posting ghetto. Actually, a Beck album won something. I think Sean Everett won Best Engineering. He's the guy who's, like, worked for a time. ton of indie rock bands, but I can't even name the Beck Alamedi won for. And also, um, is that hyperspace? Yes, that's it. That sounds about right. And also the big, the big event for me this year at the Grammys was that, um, you know, back in November, I made like some snarky tweet about black pumas about how they, you know, if they didn't exist, the Grammys would

have to invent them. And that got like, brought up when Chris DeVille from Stereo Gum wrote about that band. You know, they're obviously like a kind of a, a, a. a grassroots success off the streets of all like streets of austin texas and then uh he quoted that and then like the day after the grammies i get this response like the black pumas do exist we do exist and we're definitely more real than anything the grammies put out and it was actually one of the it was actually one of the guys in black pumas so um yeah i mean it's i felt a little guilty but you know when you're when you're making fun of vans there are real people behind it which is why I don't do it as much as I used to.

Yeah, well, you know what, Black Puma's, you know, all apologies. I don't think I've ever said anything disrespectful about Black Puma. So, like, I'm the good cop of Indycast and you're the bad cop as far as Black Pumas go. Going back to the Grammys, I watched about 20 minutes of it. I just turned it on randomly, and I was happy to have caught the In-Memorium segment because that was really the only thing I wanted to see. I feel like award shows should be like 80% in-memorium segments and 20% like montages. Yeah.

And that's it. Because, you know, like Brandy Carlisle sang a song for John Prine, the last song he ever wrote called I remember everything. And it was great. I loved it. The in-memorium segment I thought was really well done. And just the idea of like remembering people who passed away. and listening to their music, it's very nice, you know? And then with the montage, I don't know if you ever watch the Oscars,

but they do this thing. It's like three or four times during the show where they just like had these montages of like clips from old movies that really has no connection to any of the movies that are nominated in that particular year. But the idea is to, I think, advertise the cinematic experience to the viewer to be like, hey, movies are great. You should watch movies.

Yeah, I know what you're talking about, but I don't think I've seen one. I know exactly what you're talking about, though. It's a little weird because, you know, if you're watching the Oscars for four hours, you're probably already on board with movies. You know, you don't really need, but they're not resting on the laurels, which I appreciate.

Whereas, like, when you watch the Grammys, you feel as though they're actively trying to talk you out of liking music, by showing you the grossest aspects of the music business. So, show some cool montages from old music videos or something. and cut out everything else, just in memoriam and montages. I don't know if you saw this, but ratings for the Grammys were down dramatically. I think it was a 51% drop from the previous year. And, you know, this is true of, I think, every award show and also true of, you know, sports.

I mean, really, like, the last salvation of over-the-air television are these live events, you know, because it's the only thing that people tune into because everything else is, you know, on demand, so you don't need to, you know, tune in at 8 p.m. to watch Modern Family or something. But I'm curious to see if that trend continues after COVID. Yeah. You know, once we come out of COVID, I just feel like award shows. I mean, I feel like it might go up a little bit next year, but it just seems like in general, there's just fewer and fewer viewers for this sort of thing.

I wonder if like, like, what percentage of the Grammys viewership these days are people who were writing about the Grammy's. you know, like, like, or people on social media that just want to talk about it. You know, there's, there's, I mean, it is one of the most, uh, tweeted about events during the course of a year. I mean, along with the Oscars. Yeah. A lot of people tweet about it. So I think people experience it that way. But, you know, it got me thinking because you asked me this week a really good question.

You were like, what are the significant albums that have come out in 2021 so far? Like the albums that feel that you know like, oh, this is going to be on the year end list. Yeah. For sure. This is like, controlling. the conversation. And it made me think about the Grammys, because I just wonder, you know, because of COVID and the weirdness that's been going on, it seems that, like, the narratives that the media and award shows can create about, like, what the important art is has been

really diminished. Yeah. And in this year, so it feels like these consensus albums are, like, less common during this COVID era that we're in. Yeah, especially now, because, I mean, a lot of 2020's big ones. I mean, these, they were likely albums that were created prior to, you know, the world going, like shutting down. But, you know, when I think about like we're pretty, like L'Adell, right, that's pretty much like the big tent pole of, you know, as very normal people, non-music industry people call it Q1, 2021. And I think about like, you know, through this year's almost a quarter over and what were the big conversation pieces? Like I actually, I know, Metacritic's not really the best metric

for assessing what really mattered. But when you look at the top 10, it was a Nick Cave album, you know, and there will always be, like, that's the highest rated album of the year. Oh, something from like a grime rapper named gigs, I've not heard that yet. Like a Neil Young live album,

like a posthumous album from a British composer, a British singer-songwriter named Jane Weaver, Arab Strap, Weather Station, Cassandra Jenkins, and Julian Baker. Now, I mean, some of them have got like, you know, really good reviews and like, I mean, the weather station, for example, I just got to say, like, it's a perfectly fine out. I find it to be pretty boring. But like none of these have really like captured the imagination for like more than a few days at a time. And I wonder if like that's just maybe people being cautious for the beginning of 2021 and whether like, you know, the big, the heavy hitters will. come up soon. I mean, I thought, like, you know, with the kind of void of really big ticket albums, maybe people would just, like, take chances on, like, going super hype over, like, these weird,

like, no-name acts just to have something to talk about. And I don't think that's really happened either. Yeah, I mean, I think there's something bigger going on in the culture where people in general are sort of checked out of the routine or the schedule that pop culture sets down for us every year. You saw that with sports where people weren't really talking about sports in the same way that they were. I just realized this morning that the NCAA tournament starts this weekend. It does. Which I, you know, and I'm not a huge college basketball fan, but I usually watch March Madness. But I feel like that totally snuck up on me. It's like, oh, yeah, okay. Well, yeah, I'll probably watch that. Maybe if I feel like it. It seems that there's,

There's a lot of that going on. And it seems to be translating the music. I wonder, too, that if in 2021, if you're going to see a lot of the big ticket artists that would be generating this conversation, if they're just going to say, you know, there's a light at the end of the tunnel now. Yeah. People are getting vaccinated. Maybe we're going to be able to tour in 2022. Why not just wait another six or seven or eight months to put out a record? Like maybe the albums that would have come out in this quarter are going to be.

coming out in September or October or maybe even early 2022 at this point. I mean, this could be a pretty barren year for releases, which is terrible for us. Yeah, oh, God, we're really going to have to get creative. We're going to be doing mailbags like every other week, which is great. I love doing mailbag episodes. But yeah, there's not going to be a ton for people like us to talk about. But I just wonder if that's going to happen.

I mean, that makes sense to me that artists would do that. It was different in 2020 because it just seemed as though touring was not going to happen no matter what for a long time. But now maybe people feel that, okay, if I wait a little bit longer, I can actually tie this record to a tour. So why not just wait a little bit longer? Yeah. Or you could be someone's like, you know what? I want to own the country. I think a good example is like Japanese breakfast, like her being on Fallon.

Like I feel like that's like a record that's going to be kind of a big fish in a little pond. Yeah, because, you know, something's got, like something's got to happen. So I don't know. Hopefully that'll come in the near future. Or we'll just keep getting great mailbag questions and we'll just kind of pivot to that. I'm down. I'm down for either. As far as like our favorite albums of the year so far, I mean, I would say wild pink for me.

Wild pink by a landslide. That's a big indie cast favorite. I would say Julian Baker for me. I know that you're probably not as high on that. There's an album I'm going to be talking about later. on in this episode that I know you're also a fan of. It's not the Lana Del Rey record, but it's a different record that I like a lot that I would put among my favorites of the early year.

So, you know, there's always really good records coming out. It's just the responsibility of people like us to bash people over the head with them, so they want to talk about it. Do we want to talk about the Ryan Schreiber book quick? We got to just, we got to give it a mention, you know, because like Ryan Schreiber has told me that he is an indie cast listener, so we got to give a shout to him for that. But founder of Pitchfork, a modern titan of music writing.

You know, pitchfork, obviously, the most significant music publication of the last 25 years. And he's going to be writing the story of the website in a book that's coming out, I guess, in two years, 2023. Is there going to be an Ian Cohen mention in the index? Tom Brian, like a guy who both of us follow, like the first. he was the first guy to make I'm just gonna control F my name when this book arrives and I guarantee

like every writer who's like written for pitchfork for a significant amount of time is like thinking the same thing like this is I can't think of something that's been this exciting for like the music writing community or will be like I mean is music writing as we know it going to exist by the time

this book comes out you know I mean it's exciting for a segment of the music writing community that wrote for pitchfork during a particular moment in time that are going to want to see how this history is contextualized. I mean, for me, I'm pretty sure that the review I wrote of the Camper Van Beethoven album that came out in 2011 will not be mentioned in this book.

That is about the extent of my significant writing for that site. But, yeah, it's interesting. I mean, you know, I've actually mentioned to my agent once about writing a pitchfork book, because I thought this could be interesting. to explore. And he was like, I don't know if there's any money in that. So I ended up not pursuing it.

It's probably different for Ryan, I'm sure, because he's the founder of it. You know, he would have a different perspective. Although I would be interested to read either a book or an oral history by someone who is more impartial than Ryan. You know, someone like an outside writer, I think would be interesting to discuss that. I actually like snuck in some pitchfork stuff into my radio head book. I feel like that's the closest that I'll get to. to writing about Pitchfork in a book, that whole kid A review that was written.

But I'd love to see an anthology of reviews that have been taken down from Pitchfork over the years. Let's go to our mailbag segment. We're going to do two questions today because our first question is actually fairly short, but I think it's kind of funny. So I wanted to include it. It says, hello, Steve and Ian, like the show.

And then he put in parentheses, not love. Please ask your readers to get to the goddamn point when submitting a listener question. Their questions contain too many sentences nowadays. Please eliminate three. P.S., I am not a crackpot. Sincerely, David from New York City. The main reason I want to include this is just because of the opening line when he said, like the show, in parentheses, not love.

You just wanted to make it clear his level of a pretext. of the show. He's mildly into the show, not hardcore into the show. And I appreciate his brevity too, because obviously brevity is important to David. I don't know. I like the rambling questions personally. I don't know how you feel about that. I like it when our readers ramble because they're usually pretty thoughtful when they're rambling. Yeah. I mean, well, also, I just got to point out for people who don't quite get the joke. Like this is a, this is a Simpsons joke. like it pretty much word for word except it's like grandpa Simpson

talking about how they need to eliminate several states but yeah I mean also I like like the show This is a Simpson's joke? Oh yes it is It totally like I am not a crackpot that You see this there's the good cop bad cop And there's the guy who understands Simpson's Twitter on Indycast And the guy who's less informed Oh man

But yeah day like I like like the show not love I mean that just shows we have room for growth I mean, like, we have to really be introspective here and see how we can improve so we can get David to go from like a 7.5 to a best new podcast type thing, you know. But yeah, I like the, I got to mention this. I like this question as well because on the recent, the Eword podcast, one of my favorite podcasts, like if you're an Indycast listener who likes the parts where I ramble about some emo band you've never heard of and you wish it was an hour and a half of that, That's the E word. And I mean that as the highest compliment. That is some real deep dive stuff.

But they said, they did a mailbag episode recently. And, you know, Kyle and Ellie, they said, and I quote, I wish we were more like indie cast because they thought their mailback questions were a bit frivolous. Whereas ours, they felt that they were very thoughtful and, you know, showed like a real kinship with us. So I'm just glad to see that we do get like, you know, just. mailbag things that just exist to make a Simpsons joke that maybe I'll appreciate and get you a shout out on the show. Like here are two things that get you to the top of the mailbag. Last week there was a basketball metaphor and this week it was a Simpsons joke. Like those are the two that really will catch the eye of myself, you know?

See, and I like that you didn't point that out in our outline so I would not, so I would not catch it when we said it. I just assumed you knew. Well, like, what season is that from? Is that from like the later seasons? No, no, this is prime. This is why he feels comfortable. But it's actually like one of the lesser known episodes from the primary. It's the one where actually I can't remember which one. Is it the one where I think it's the one where grandpa becomes like a ghostwriter for itchy and scratchy.

Okay. I've not watched The Simpsons in 20 years. Like I only really experience it now through your retweets really. Like through you making Simpsons memes and other people from like the emo punk Twitter world. That's the only way I experienced a Simpsons, but I have not watched it since like 1999, probably. So let's go to question two. Yes. This is from a listener named Jordan.

He says, I am from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Nice. We have a lot of Canadian listeners out there. I love it. Lots of Canadians. Actually, and this question was going to be in our episode last week, but we ran out of time. But I wanted to make sure to get it in this episode. He says, I love the podcast.

Tune in every week and listen to it. each episode more than once. Thanks for this guys. My question is about Kurt Vile. His album Smoke Ring for My Halo turned 10 recently, and it is definitely a pivotal album for me. Between that and Waken on a Pretty Days, they are often seen as his best work by critics. Personally, I like all of his records and bottle it in is right up there for me. So the question is, how has Kurt's music evolved over time? Did the albums actually give diminishing returns like many reviews suggest. Or do you think it is more about the music scene changing, even the indie scene?

Have a great day. Jordan. So, Jordan, I'm with you. I love Kurt Vile. I love Smoke Ring. I love waking on a pretty days. I'm also a fan of all of his records. I actually disagree with the premise of this question a little bit because I feel that

his albums are still like pretty well received. I think bottle it in got good reviews when that came out. I guess that was 2018 or so. maybe 2019. It's interesting to compare him, I think, to the war on drugs. Obviously, Kurt was in the war on drugs, and Adam was in Kurt's band. They got started at around the same time. But like the war on drugs now, I mean, they're significantly more popular, I would say.

And it seems like that's by design. Like Kurt Weil to me seems to be following the example of someone like John Prine or even like Wilco, like these acts that occasionally intersect with the mainstream. but for the most part just do what they do and they have a sizable audience but they're never going to be the sort of conversation starter at the center with tons of buzz

so I think maybe that's what you're referring to where you feel like he's diminished a little bit like he's not getting the same kind of heat that he was in the early 2010s but I also feel like he's a guy I think he's probably 40 by now maybe early 40s he's kind of aged into that group now

where you wouldn't be getting that kind of attention anyway. And I would just say too that I wouldn't underestimate his influence on like the younger generation of like band camp singer-songwriters, people that sort of do what Kurt Weil does, which is take these classic rock influences like Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen and filter it through more of an internet lo-fi sensibility. I mean, that's a pretty common formula for a lot of indie artists. And Kurt Vile to me seems like a foundational influence on that kind of music. Now, I'm guessing you feel differently because, I mean, because you used to be more into Kurt Vial, right?

And you've faded. You know, it's an interesting angle to see him more as a potential influence because when I think of like, you know, who's like who's influencing like band camp artists who still like focus on guitar, I think more like Carseed Head Rest or Alex G. But, you know, when I think back to like waking our... But I think Kurt Vile was like influence on those guys. I mean, I think Kurt Vile, like, I mean, certainly Alex G. Yes, absolutely.

I mean, it seems like the younger Kurt Vile. Yeah, I mean, with Smoke Wring for My Halo, you know, one of the reasons that album spoke so much to me, and, you know, today, the reason I love it so much is that it does have this almost, like, solo artist band camp ambiance to it. Like, it's clear, like, it's not quite a Kurt Viles and Kurt Vial and the Violators type album, like the later ones. But, you know, there are drums, obviously. There are other musicians. but it just, it sounds just like a lonely album. It's mostly just like looping guitars or like drum machines. And it just creates this enveloping atmosphere.

And also, I think Smoking from I Halo is some of the best sounding guitars I've heard in the past decade or even further back to that. So I love that record. You've seen me tweet about it of late as it turned 10. I also love Waken on a Pretty Days as well. That's kind of the album, I think. think of, you know, a master of his craft type work. Like he, you know, just the confidence he accrued from making, uh, smoke ring from my halo applying it to a, a more robust sound and, you know, 10 minutes songs bookending it and, uh, like more more like overtly classic rock, like a song like

KV crimes and songs about like being a father. And it just struck me as being very like, you know, this was prior to loss in the dream. And it always seemed to me. me like from that point that Kurt Vyle was going to be the big tent artist whereas war on drugs we may have been like the side project. But you know with what happened after that, I mean, I often think of this in terms of like hip hop because they're just so much more prolific. I mean, they're the artists who like I'm obsessed with and then, you know, they kind of gradually get worse, but I overlook it. And then one day I kind of wake out, it's like, wait a minute. This artist got kind of whack. I mean, that's like, you know, ghost face or camera or a little way. And then there are the

ones who I think of who like are still good they're still like doing what is clearly like objectively solid work and then I just wake up one day I'm like no for some reason this isn't hitting you know like run the jewels or push a T and that's that is where believe I'm going down happened for me with curve vial like I cannot think of a record that I turned on more quickly than that despite like like it's not bad but I I I at When I heard it, I'm like, I hate this. It's not bad. It's actually awesome.

Yeah. But like you didn't, but I can see what you're saying because you're not saying it's bad. You said you kind of got your fill of him is what you're saying. What happened with him is that I think, and I say this about the national sometimes much of your chagrin. But like I think that he went from being like a very, I felt like there was an emotional connection I could make from like waking on a pretty days to like he started playing a character. called Kurt Vile, which can be effective, but it's like, I just think he became a little too self-aware

in a way that I found to be very, I don't know, not distasteful, but like, it's like, eh, like, I don't need this anymore, you know? Like, I feel like I couldn't just, I couldn't, like, emotion, it just did not resonate the way the other stuff did. And, you know, and going forward,

I mean, his music, like, I wouldn't reject it outright. Like, I heard pretty pimping on the, radio the other day. It's like, ah, maybe I should give this another shot. But, you know, with what, with what our, our reader has, like, has suggested, I think there's a tendency to conflate, like, when an artist doesn't get best new music anymore, they've disappeared from the conversation, which is not at all the case with Kurt Vile. Like, I think he's just kind of transitioned to a more sustainable, like, um, like he's got fans. Like, I don't, I don't think that he could,

If Kurt Vile ever tours again, I am not concerned that if I go to a Kurt Vial show, it's going to be like half empty. Yeah, I mean, I think he's always going to play, you know, First Avenue, which is the venue in my town, Minneapolis. He's always going to play rooms like that, I think. And it makes sense to me that the War on Drugs eventually became a bigger band because I think what they do is just more accessible to people.

And it's more about the music and the vibe that those. records create. And of course, I mean, I also think that like lost in the dream and deeper understanding are probably better records than what Kurt Weil has ever made. I mean, those are some of my favorite records of all time. But, but, um, but Vial to me, again, he, he slots in that sort of idiosyncratic lifer, singer, songwriter, Lane. And yeah, I expect him to be making records in 20 years still that will not be again committing the conversation. Although again, he is an artist that I think could always be reinserted back in. I really think that in a way that Wilco is sometimes. I mean, it seems like every 10 years, people realize,

oh yeah, Wilco's still around and they're still a good band. Let's get excited about their record again. And then they maybe go back to like making jokes about them. but he's an easy artist to take for granted, but I think he's always going to be around doing his thing, which is good. And I think in a way, that's a better path for all artists. I think if you're going to be the artist

that's going to rely on critical acclaim or best new musics, that's not a great path, I don't think, for long-term sustainability. And we've talked about that on this show, because critics are fickle, and critics get bored with artists very quickly, which could be a good segue into our Lana Del Rey conversation. It is a great segue into the Lana Del Rey conversation.

I still got it, baby. That was totally improvised, too. That was me. That was like Jerry Garcia in 1973 right there type segue. If I can pat myself on the back. Kemp Trails Over the Country Club. It's a record dropped this morning. Hopefully it did.

I mean, it's possible that this record was delayed again between us taping this episode. and it going up on Friday. But I'm going to assume it's going up. It seems pretty clear that it's going to be released. It's the seventh album by Lana Del Rey. It was originally going to come out in September, but it was delayed, of course,

because of COVID-related complications. This is Lana Del Rey's follow-up to Norman fucking Rockwell, which came out in 2019, and was extremely well-received. A record that I think was, set up on a T for critics to knock out of the park because it's the end of the year record. I'm sorry, the end of the decade record. It makes it, it's a big statement record, you know, about, I saw there was a headline in the

Atlantic that referred to it as an obituary for America, which just give it, just give it the 9.5 right there. I mean, people are going to be excited about that. I think pitchfork called Lana Del Rey one of America's greatest, living songwriters in its review of Norman fucking Rockwell, which is high praise indeed because there's still a lot of great American songwriters who are alive. So, you know, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Carol King, Smokey Robinson, all these legends, Lana Del Rey being put right in that company.

It is interesting, though, with this record that in a way she seems like she's being set up for a letdown. because of some things that have happened, I think in this album cycle, you know, I mean, this was before the album cycle, but she got into that spat with Anne Powers from NPR. There was that argument. There was that comment she made about the Capitol riot

where she seemed to be defending Trump a little bit, but then she said that her words were taking out of context. And also just this record, it's not as, I think, deliberate in catering to, like, what critics would like. It's a smaller record in a lot of ways. It's more intimate. I think that's intentional. But just makes me wonder, like, how is this record going to be received?

I mean, what are your initial feelings on it? I mean, just as a spectator of the game, as it were, like, this record is doubly exciting to me. You know, because it's, you know, I think she is up there as far as, like, the most compelling American songwriters. like best is, you know, a very subjective term, but she, you know, deserves our attention. But I think this is like the... I don't know if I would say songwriter. I don't know if I would say best songwriter. I would say...

Vibe curator. I don't know. Or just, or, you know, indie star or personality. Yeah. Because I feel like what she does, and I think this is true on this record, it really, like, asserts her as a master of vibe. You know, there's a very... cinematic quality to her music where I think if you deconstruct it, if you are, if you break down her lyrics or you break down the music, it can fall apart a little bit because I mean, there's some

clunkers on this, on this record lyrically. And I think that's also true. There are on every record. On every record. But if you just let it like kind of waft over you, it, it does get into your system. I mean, it does set a tone. I think it a really good, it really matters. It really masterful way. I mean, she creates a world unlike pretty much any other indie artist and maybe any other pop star. Like, there's, there's like Lana Del Rey World. Yes. You know, that she brings you into. And I think this record in a way is like a return to that. Whereas Norman fucking Rockwell was like looking at the wider world. It's like, I'm bringing you back to my world now with this record. And I think that's super exciting to me because, you know, this is like, I think the first really big pre-pandemic art. Like, a 2019, like the last year before the pandemic. Like this is the first heavy hitter album to come from like the class of 2019. So we can do a real before and after, you know, type evaluation of it.

And this is exciting. Also because like unlike a lot of the, you know, consensus picks over the past couple of years, like I think that like Llan Del Rey is like one of the few who might actually face a backlash. Like I can't imagine like. whatever Casey Musgraves puts out or, you know, Mitzke or like, I'm trying to think of the other consensus. Oh, Fiona Apple. Like, you know, I think whatever they do, like I think they're just so likable as personalities that no one's going to like, you know, conceive of a backlash against them. But like Lana Del Rey has this, like you mentioned, like her words may get taken out of context a lot

in her, you know, press quotes. But I think, I think, I. wish I could come up with a better word than like there's kind of like a shittiness about it. Like not that she's a shitty person or the music is shitty, but like there's this kind of bad vibes to her sometimes in the word she says that can leave open the possibility of like her making something that is really poorly received. And that's exciting to me because I think with a lot of the big consensus artists, there's just this air of inevitability where like we're supposed to root for them. And don't get me wrong.

Del Rey has a Stan army as Anne Powers knows, but I don't know, her album seemed more like battlegrounds. And like you're saying, this one brings us back to her world in a way that I find very pleasing because I think a lot of celebrities in 2020 tried to, you know, show they could empathize with like the average Joe who was stuck in their house when, you know, in a lot of ways for like the super elite, life didn't really change all that much at all. And the first song on this album is about how she sort of wishes she was like not famous again. So like the in-person Lana Del Rey and the on-album Lana Del Rey, like both seem like people who would just kind of exist like not really being affected by all the, you know, turmoil of the

past 20 years or the past, well, the past year, which felt like 20. And it mentions the first song about listening to Kings of Leon. What a move. I just, I love that lyric right there. Yeah, that's a great line. That's like the most quintessentially like Lana Del Rey moment on the record, I think, the Kings of Leon reference. I mean, you mentioned White Dress being this song where she's singing nostalgically about

being 19 and working as a waitress and essentially like reimagining her life if she had never become famous. Yeah. And that really sets the tone for the rest of the record because these, lyrical themes recur in a lot of the songs where she's talking about leaving Los Angeles, you know, moving to suburbia, basically, and like living more of like a normal person's life. Like the title track is about her, you know, fantasizing about essentially like living in the suburbs and, you know, taking kids to soccer practice and and having, you know, these sort of like romantic

interludes like with, you know, like the middle-aged dad and you're the middle-aged mom and you're going to hook up in the suburbs and all that. I mean, that's the fantasy on this record. And I feel like there's been this narrative that she's been talking about in her interviews where she refers to herself as an underdog. Yes. I don't know if you saw that. She did an interview with Jack Antonoff where she said something like, you know, I'm going to die an underdog and I'm happy. And that's fine with me. And it just makes you think like, well, if she's an underdog, like what are like 99.9% of other musicians in the world because again, she is this incredibly well-acclaimed, very successful singer-songwriter, and she still sees herself as an underdog.

And I was thinking about this. I have a review of this album that is also running on Friday on Up Rocks, if you want to check that out. And I feel like for her, even after all this time, even after all the praise that Norman fucking Rockwell got, which we talked about this in a previous episode, it felt like the reviews for that record in a way were trying to make up for some of the bad reviews she got for Born to Die and that record she put out early in her career. Because that album really feels like a culmination of like that decade. Oh, absolutely.

And but I think from her perspective, she feels misunderstood because I think people still contextualize what she does as being ironic or as being, you know, sort of the, of her like hiding behind like a persona. or an avatar. And I think that in her mind, there's no irony in what she does. That the things that she talks about are things that she actually cares about or thinks are awesome. So, like, she probably does think it's awesome

to, like, be in suburbia and take your kids to soccer practice. You know, this isn't like an ironic move. It reminds me of, like, how critics talk about Father John Misty. Yeah. Because I think there's a similar thing there where he's always contextualized as an ironist.

But it's like, he's making records about how much he loves his wife and how upset he is by the Trump era. I think those are incredibly earnest records in a lot of ways. There's some playfulness in how he presents himself in interviews, but I think it's wrong

to frame what he does as irony or just purely persona. I think Lana Dore has a similar thing. And it seems like that's what really bugs her maybe in terms of how people talk about her work. It seemed like that's what bugged her, for instance, about the Ann Powers review, which I thought was really well written.

I thought she made a lot of good points. Overall positive and maybe like the single like not rave review that that entire album got. It was almost like a chance, that chance the rapper's story where like some guy wrote a mildly critical live review on like MTV News and the manager had it taken down.

Yeah, it's just like it wasn't that. It was like a critique but not really critical. It was more, I felt like it was. less about saying this is good or this is bad than saying, what does this mean? Or, you know, why does this work? Which is always, I think, the most interesting form of music writing. And you can get beyond the sort of hot or not aspect. And but, but that, you know, that idea, because that was the thing that Powers wrote about this, this persona of Lana Del Rey and how that changes music because she's juxtaposing all these things that don't seem to go

together and she's collapsing, you know, the boundaries that exist between things that you would think don't, shouldn't coexist and she kind of makes them coexist, which I think is true. But like, again, like I think from Del Rey's perspective, she doesn't like being contextualized as this person who isn't being real. I mean, that's the irony of this is that there was a huge critical argument about authenticity with Lana Del Rey, where critics were sort of saying, authenticity doesn't matter. so you shouldn't criticize Lana Del Rey for changing her name or for writing a song called video games or any of the things that people are talking about with Born to Die. But I think Lana Del Rey looks at herself as being authentic.

I think she believes in authenticity, which is an interesting. It's like an interesting conundrum with her because I think the way she's talked about often doesn't line up with how she sees herself or even how her fans see her. I think that's a very interesting aspect of, the whole Lana Del Rey phenomenon for me. Yeah. And I think that, I mean, like, when I hear about, like, someone who, like, continues to think they're an underdog, even after years and years and years, I mean, like, I'm a huge

smashing pumpkins fan. So, you know, I can understand how, like, some people can just, like, can, come on to just some criticism they receive about, like, whether or not they're real. Because, you know, that was Billy Corgan's whole thing throughout the 90s. It's like, he wasn't seen as, like, you know, serious compared to. Kirk Cobain or Thurston Moore. And that's about where the comparisons stop here. But like I think it's it's, you know, mentioning Father John Misty.

This album to me really seems like her version of God's favorite customer, which is the intentional. Look, I've made my huge 70 minute statement about like where I see this country and now I'm dialing things back. And what I appreciate about this record, you know, compared to the previous one, like Norman fucking rock. was like undeniably an impressive piece of work. It was also really fucking long.

You know, like I just, especially because she works in very, very slow tempos and very, like, rich instrumentation. It was a lot to get through. And with this one, it's, you know, 40 minutes or so, 10 or 11 songs. And I can, you know, listen to it on my way to work and back. And, you know, I think that this in a way, like, makes a smart move. by not trying to top Norman fucking Rockwell.

Also, I think she made a very smart maneuver by like not going by its original title, which was White Hot Forever. I know that a lot of the, a lot of the conference, I mean, that was, I think, you know, come up with like, you know, in 2019. Like, it's similar to the 1975

where they just come up with the album title like two years before the album actually drops. But, you know, that motif does get repeated a lot, like White Hot for. forever and I'm sure because I have brainworms as a music writer people are going to like glom on to that as like a talking point especially since the one thing we've seen criticized about this album was the album cover uh you know which makes it seem like an actual meeting at a country club um it's it's almost like a wandavision type picture you know of uh right yeah but um yeah i mean

i think with this album i do see it being i think it's like i think it's good i think there are some songs that are a little clunky, some songs that are perhaps a little to Lana Del Rey for their own good. But she totally owns this lane. And I think that this album will, like, whether or not you think she's one of the best songwriters, I think she's one of our definitive artists. And I just love the idea of this one being maybe not like a minor album, like the one that gets like three and a half or four stars on all music guide that, you know, people kind of forget about. compared to the big, big, big ones, but it's still like satisfying in its own way.

Like whatever the version of, you know, someone going to the UCD store and finding like tunnel of love or like the Prince album like around the world in a day like that, the 40-minute, like minor album from an artist imperial phase. I think that this is what,

I think that this is what, you know, chem trails over the country club represents for her. You know, and that's interesting to me too, you know. Yeah, I like the God's favorite customer comparison. I mean, the difference is that he, that Father John Misty was following up an album that was very polarizing. I mean, a lot of people hated pure comedy. So it almost seemed like he had to remedy that with God's favorite customer. But I think that comparison makes sense to me because Kempchozo of the Country Club is also a more personal record.

Again, it's turning away from the outside world and turning back to, I think, her own world. the world that she's created on her previous records and her own, I think, life and in obsessions. Can I just say, I mean, I think I've said this on other episodes, but I do like playing a game called What Would Happen if Father John Misty did this? With some artists? Like, what if in an alternate universe, Father John Misty had put out an album called Norman Fucking Rockwell? Like, how would have critics reacted to that? Or, like, what if Father John Misty, his new record was called Daddy's,

home. And it was about his dad being in prison for white collar crimes, which I don't think his dad was a white collar criminal at all. I'm just saying, like, if he was in that St. Vincent narrative, you know, pre-release album, like, how would people have reacted if that was like a Father John Nisty album narrative? Yeah, I feel like the reaction would have been much more negative. But I don't know.

Maybe I'm wrong. But to me, that's always an interesting, like, thought experiment to play sometimes. with the album titles. All right, we've now reached the part of our episode called Recommendation Corner where we talk about albums that we're into this week. Ian, why don't you go first? All right, so this one is an album I'm like really excited about, but it's a little difficult to talk about because it's kind of hard to find on band camp.

It's a band called Paranul, like P-A-R-A-N-N-O-U-L. And I have to spell that out because this artist is, it's like a bet. It says on the, band camp page just a student writing music in my bedroom in Seoul Korea and all the song titles and lyrics are in Korean on band camp they translate them but this record um it i think it's number one on rate your music right now as far as like albums reviewed in 2021 and it has a it has a story about just kind of feeling like a you know just feeling like a loser and making a bedroom album about

it. The thing about this, even though it's like a solo record, it brings together like a lot of really huge sounds. There's a lot of Smashing Pumpkin Circus, Siamese Dream in here. A lot of Shugay's music. There's some Twinkly indie stuff as well. Early M83. It's in a way like the, I don't know, the ideal for what a band camp album could be, which is it's home recorded, but it's also those 62 minutes long. So it's just someone who can throw every idea at the wall to see what sticks and put together with this point of view of nostalgia for like the glory days that never happened. Some of the song titles are analog sentimentalism to see the next part of the dream.

I can feel my heart touching you. This is the sort of album that if this were like 2003, like this is an album I could see like getting like a 9.2 in 2003 on pitchfork. like just this random out plucked out of obscurity and thrust into, I don't know, greater notoriety because it just sounds like a lot of music that I like. And obviously the ceiling is much lower for a band like this in 2021. But what you can do is just like Google P-A-R-A-N-O-U-L band camp and you'll find it. So now I'm with a blue sky smokestack to see the next part of the dream.

I guarantee if you're into any of the kinds of music that I've mentioned, this one will be for you. So it's pastiche, but like all the pastichees I love. Well, I want to talk about a record that actually Ian brought up last week, but because we didn't really do a recommendation corner segment, I thought was worth bringing up again because it's a record I really like. It's a band called Really From. Yes. And they're from Boston. And they just put out their third record. It's a self-titled record.

Again, this band's called Really From, which it seems like a hard band name to Google, but if you just put Really From Band, it'll come up. I think Live is still like the hardest band of all time to Google. Not that anyone's going to Google Live, really. The The, I think might be the hardest. Oh, The The The Yeah, they're up there too. So I feel like this band was worth bringing up again because I think they're great. And also I feel like this is like a total indie cast band.

I mean, they feel like a true melding of our mutual influences and interests. They're a band on top shelf records, which is known as an emo label. But I could also imagine them being on three lowbed records, which is more of like a psychedelic improvisational and primitive label. I described them on Twitter as being like, if Slint was really into Steely Dan, which is kind of like too reductive, maybe a little too cute, but hopefully that gets people in the door.

Basically, this is a band that they combine, like jazz improvisational influences with like basically like math rock. So you'll be in the middle of a song and there'll be this like really kind of beautiful jazzy section. And then all of a sudden like these heavy guitars and like a crazy time signature will like barge in and take it in a different direction. Or you'll be hearing this more like a rock song and then all of a sudden this like really awesome almost like ambient synthy section will come into the song. It's one of those records that, you know, we talked on this show about how we're always hoping. that indie music can be like a little more unpredictable, a little noisier, a little more experimental. And this record, I think, is totally in line with people who are looking for that

kind of record. It's one of the more, I think, genuinely unpredictable albums that I've heard this year. But it has its own sense of logic. So even as it moves into different genres, it makes sense in the context of the band. It's not just eclectic for the sake of being eclectic. It actually pays off, I think, in a really big way. This is actually their third record. I think they had a record come out in 2014 and another one in 2017. So they're putting out records every three or four years or so. This is a band that I would really love to see live. Yeah. And hopefully when we can go see shows again, they'll be coming to my area. I just feel like as good as this record is, I suspect that their live shows take what's on the record into different directions, especially.

because of the improvisational aspect of what they do. So, yes, for those of you who are maybe sick of singer-songwriters or, you know, run-of-the-mill punk bands or whatever it is that seems to be popping up in indie music these days, I would really recommend this record that, again, it's called Really From. And whatever else I could say about it, it doesn't sound like any other record that you're going to hear in this moment. Yeah, I want to just also give a moment to say, like, I interviewed them for Stereogum.

You could find it there. They used to be known as people like you. They had to change their name. But yeah, they, like Steve was saying, like, they're on a label primarily in the past known for emo. They evolved out of a band called I Kill Giants, which was a very aggressive and, you know, thought-provoking emo band. But, like, yeah, they are all, like, highly trained jazz musicians. playing their music is informed

by jazz and improvisational but it's still like very much in the realm of like indie rock like it does

there's an edginess to the vocals and also to the lyrics as well it's a lot of it's about like identity particularly between people

who are from like mixed heritage like I know there's one of the lead singers Chris he's Chinese and Puerto Rican descent Michi Tassi

the other vocalist is also, I believe, Japanese and white, and there's just like a lot of things melding together. And like Steve said, there's really nothing that sounds like this right now in 2020 or even

other years. So I was hoping that this would be the kind of record that would get a lot more attention, given that there aren't these big tent pole type album. So hopefully this one will be a grower that people continue to discover as

2021 goes on. Yes, we're whipping it up. We're giving them the Indycast bump. We've mentioned them two episodes in a row now. So if you haven't checked them out yet, you have to do it now. Ian and I have both recommended them. They both have a foot in each of the kind of music that we like, I think.

So check them out if you haven't already. This concludes another episode of Indycast. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. We'll be back next week with more reviews and news and hashing out trends. Take care. And if you're looking for more music recommendations, sign up for the Indie Mix tape newsletter.

You can go to uprocks.com backslash indie, and I recommend five albums per week, and we'll send it directly to your email box.