Indiecast - A Meg White Controversy, The Sufjan Stevens Musical, Best '90s Rap Skits, Plus: New Albums by M83 and 100 Gecs

Episode Date: March 17, 2023

In this week's episode, Ian and Steve review new albums by M83 (which they like) and 100 Gecs (which they are mixed on but are intrigued about) (12:01). But before that, they delve into the week's biggest controversy (:27): That tweet from a political writer about how The White Stripes would have been better with a more technically proficient drummer.They also take a deep dive into the Indiecast mailbag to address questions about other important issues (29:46), including: Will Sufjan Stevens' Illinois will work as a musical? What are the best '90s rap skits? And why is it so hard to make a good music biopic?New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 130 here or below and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [e-mail], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.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 Uprocks's Indy Mix tape. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Indycast. On this show, we talked about the biggest indie news of the week. We review albums, and we hash out trends. In this episode, we review new albums by M83 and 100 Gecks and respond to letters from you, the Indycast listener. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. All of his tweets about Meg White are very respectful.

Ian Cohen. Ian, how are you? Yeah, I just want to say, you know, for the first. past 20 years and the rare times I do listen to elephant all the way through, I do not skip in the cold, cold night. See, exactly. You are here for Meg White. You would never cast aspersions on her drumming ability or her vocal ability or her taxidermy ability. I think that's what she's doing. Yeah, she's like kind of often rid in Detroit now, I hear. Yeah, somewhere in Michigan. She's like stuff in animals and live in her best life. Um,

I bring on Meg White because there was a controversy this week in the social media world where some random guy, a political writer. Not just any political writer. He's a guy who writes for the National Review. Now, I imagine most... Well, see, I'm not sure if he writes for the National Review or if he was responding. Because, yeah, I originally thought he was a National Review writer, but he was responding to... there was a piece in the National Review where for whatever reason

they decided to write about the White Stripes. I didn't know National Review did music stories. No. But they did some guy there wrote a piece about how Seven Nation Army is the greatest song of the 21st century. Greatest song, not greatest rock,

like greatest song, like, of all, right? Yeah, I think, yeah, I don't think he qualified rock song. I think if you made, if you made the case for being the best rock song, I think that's a fairly strong case, certainly the most famous rock song of the 21st century, just because of the jock jams aspect of it. It is like the we will rock you of the 21st century, even though they still play, we will rock you. So, We Will Rock You is the We Will Rock you of the 21st century.

The Seven Nation Army is very big. But anyway, there was a guy who was responding to that, and he said something about how the white stripes would have been better with a better drummer, a more technically proficient drummer. And people went berserk over this, defending the honor of Meg White, which, by the way, I love Meg White. She's great. I always thought that the consensus on the white stripes

is that Meg White's drumming is the point of the white stripes. Like, they're not the white stripes if you have a good drummer, or I should say a traditionally good drummer, because then they just become like another blue rock band. You know, Jack White's songs obviously are great, but you know, they, they don't have that unique thing that the White Stripes had. Did you follow this at all? I mean, because I felt

like people were going berserk. And it's like this weird thing on social media where when someone you've never heard of has a bad opinion, that that's really upsetting. Yes. This guy that, yeah, that you wouldn't, you know, no one heard of this guy. Although I guess he has like a lot of followers on Twitter, I guess, but I feel like every political writer has like 70,000 followers and you've never heard of any of them. But anyway, did you like witness this like Megwhite meltdown that was going on this week?

I was vaguely aware of it because I think in the span that it happened, this was either on a day where I was like flying back from Vancouver or like struggling with the stomach bug. So I was aware of it because I wasn't really in a position to do much besides like, you know, look at Twitter. but I did see it happening. And like, I just want to, we just have to, like, be perfectly clear that, like, the National Review was running this story alongside our articles, like, it isn't racist to prosecute criminals.

And the Silicon Valley Bank bail out doesn't justify mass student debt relief. Like, I was just happy to get, like, a Twitter controversy that didn't involve Silicon Valley Bank because, like, I just cannot fucking understand macroeconomics for the life of me. But, yeah, I mean, look, I'm just like wondering like what this guy thinks about muse because, you know, like the idea, like, for first off, like, is Meg White a quote bad drummer? Like, most of the job of a drummer is to look fucking cool. And like Meg White is off the charts with that, especially within the context of, you know, what this band was about. But I mean, also like Jack White's right stripes riffs, aren't that? complicated. Like, it is not hard to play Seven Nation Army. It is not hard to play

Hotel Yorba. It is not hard to play Deadleys and the Dirty Ground. And, like, I don't know who hears that and thinks. You know what? Like, I would really love to hear what Neil Park could have done with this, man. Like, I don't hear enough roto-toms. I don't hear enough mixed meter drumming.

I mean, it just doesn't make... It just shows, like, a real misunderstanding of, like, what makes music actually fucking cool. So, I mean, I I also wonder if, like, this guy has the opposite opinion. Like, you think about, like, Travis Barker and Blinkwood-A-2 playing all this insane shit where, like, Tom and, you know, Tom and Mark haven't learned a fourth chord yet in the past 20 years.

Does he think, like, Blinkwyn-A-2 needs to get, like, Vernon Reed and, like, Joe Satriani up in there? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I actually felt bad for this guy after a while because I feel like we all have terrible opinions on music. You know, you and I, we have our share of terrible opinions. We've also been that, we've been that guy on Twitter when it, like, yeah, we've been in the barrel before. And it's so disproportionate to what, because look, I think he's wrong, but I also don't, who cares? I don't know this guy. Like, who, he's fine. He doesn't like Meg White's strumming. That has no impact on my life. And I don't think his opinion says anything greater about

the culture, you know, like, where we have to put this guy in his, because there's this epidemic of Meg White hatred in the world. I just don't think that that's, it's like the online brain poisoning that happens with this sort of thing. And I've been susceptible to it too. Like you see a bad opinion and there's something in your brain that just gets triggered. It's like, I've got to respond to this. I've got to put this in place.

And if you just step back and you look at it objectively, it's like, why do I care about this? This has no impact on my life at all. I do have an idea, though, because I know like a lot of publicist. listen to the show, or at least that's what they tell me, and they email me. They may be lying to me, but I think there are a lot of publicists who listen to the show,

and I have a great PR idea that you can all steal, okay? This is what it is. So this is what you reach out to a political writer who's got like 70,000 followers, and you say, I want you to tweet something mean about my client. Like, let's say, for instance, you represent Britney Spears. You say to the political writer, I want you to tweet that Britney Spears can't sing. Right.

Now that's an opinion that, like Meg White, can't drum, I feel like that's probably a more common opinion than we realize. To me, it seems like kind of like a dumb guy opinion, but I'd imagine there's probably a considerable number of people who think that. So you tell the political writer, tweet Britney Spears can't sing, because I know that's an opinion that would dominate Twitter for at least 24 hours, if not 36 hours. And what happens when you tweet that is that there'll be this groundswell of support.

People will be like, Britney Spears is a vocal stylist. She is perfect for this kind of songs that she sings. Blackout is 10 out of 10, which is actually like an opinion I see way more often than like Britney Spears can't sing. Yeah, maybe you could be that specific and say blackout is a mid-Britney Spears record. And what you've done by, you know, having this tweet from a random political writer, you've created this groundswell of support for your client. Your client is now trending. You know, I was thinking with the White Stripes, you know, they're up for the rock and roll Hall of Fame.

And the ballots are out right now. People are voting. I bet they're going to get some votes because of this. I bet people are going to be like, I like Meg White. Apparently she's not being respected enough. I have to vote for her to get in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. so that she can get the respect she deserves. I think that this is

multi-dimensional chess. I don't know how many dimensions of chess this is. Somewhere between like three and four. It's like, it's not like 40. It's like a slightly more complicated sci-op right here. But I mean, why go for a seven, well, yeah, I'd say like you're right and you got to go with a 70,000 follower. You might not be able to get like, I don't know,

Jordan Peterson or like Barry Weiss to say, like, you know, you'd be like, hey, I heard that Mews is super into trans rights and then like, you know, Jordan Peterson all of a sudden has to turn tack on that band. But yeah, I mean, you just got to get, you got to think realistic. Yeah, I mean, I don't, like, I don't think you need,

like, Ben Shapiro to tweet like, oh, the Red Hat Chili Peppers, Californication isn't a good album. You know, like, I don't think you need someone of that caliber. You just need, like, again, like a writer, you look at them and you're like, wow, you have a lot of followers. You have a pretty big platform, even though I've never heard of you. But you have all these followers, so you must be significant, so I'm going to get mad at you.

Music writers are small potatoes, man. You've got to think bigger than that. I mean, political writers, I feel like this happens every couple, like, every couple months, maybe even like every couple weeks. Some political writer will have like a terrible take on music. Yeah. And people get upset about it. And again, I think a publicist could leverage this to their advantage to help their clients, like in a very sort of covert way.

Even though generally I don't support political writers sharing musical opinions, you got to leave it to the professionals. You know, leave it to us. Stay in your lane or else things like this happen. Yeah. I mean, it makes me think of Obama's playlist a lot better because when you see, like, even the, like, even the good political writers, when you see their musical opinions, like, they're usually into, like, the Mekons or the fall or something like that. You see Obama, and it's like, damn, dude,

this guy's actually, this guy actually has some pretty decent taste. So, uh, yeah. Yeah, the Mekons guy, you know, I won't tell that story. I had to run in with a guy who was a very big Mekon's guy. I don't even, look, I don't know any of their music. I just know they're like, kind of that, like, Billy Bragg extended universe, right? Yeah, I mean, I think they started as more of a punk band and then they moved in an Americana direction.

They have some good songs, but... Okay. There's definitely... Like the Pogues type shit. Wow. Not like the Pogs. How the fuck did we end up here? There's like, I mean, look,

like, Mekon's guy is definitely a character. If you run into a Mekon's guy, it may not be a good experience. I'm just going to say that. This might be a topic we need to revisit somewhere down the road. Let's talk about these albums that came out this week. As I said at the top, we're going to be talking about two albums here. We're not going to go super in-depth with these records.

Because we have a huge mailbag backlog. Tons of emails from our listeners, which is great. I love seeing that. So we're going to answer a bunch of emails today because I feel like we're behind on that. But before that, let's talk about this M-A-D-Barrants. record that's out today. It's called fantasy. You wrote about this for The Ringer. Will that story have been up by the time this episode posts?

Yes, I believe it'll be up either Wednesday or Thursday, and we're recording on Wednesday, so it'll definitely be out by the release date. Because I wanted to ask you this, because I know you've interviewed Anthony Gonzalez, it's the man behind M83. He's like the only guy in the band, right? Other than a constant member or there are other ones? Yeah. He's like the brosolice. brain trust, but there's like guys who were

fairly permanent pictures in the band, like Justin Melville Johnson, who's the co-producer. He's now like St. Vincent's music director, whatever, and he did that for like 20 years or something like that. Produced Last Death Heaven album, last couple of Jimmy World albums. Love that guy's

work. So the Daddy's Home Era? Musical director? No, I think he just did starting in 2021. Is that what Daddy's Home came? It probably. Probably. Daddy's home was, yeah, that was 2021, wasn't it? It was a COVID era.

That's like all one big blob of time. Yes. That's like one long year, 2020 to like 2022. I wanted to ask you this because, you know, I was listening to this record. I like this record quite a bit. I think you like it too. Yeah. But it made me realize, you know, because I like several M83 albums.

But like I've never thought for a second about Anthony Gonzalez when I listen to these albums. We talk about the cult of personality that exists in pop and indie rock lately where it's as much about the person as it is about the records. It's like, I like Japanese breakfast, but I really like Michelle Zoner. Like, I think she's a cool person, and I'm a fan of, like, her is just like a personality. Like, that seems like a very common thing now. And M83 seems totally outside of that to me. Like, it's beautiful music, but it's almost. almost like it's its own thing separate from, like, I get no sense of who he is listening to these

records. Like, am I wrong on that? Like, do you, do you feel like his personality is integral to, like, what this band is? Well, not in the way that, you know, like, it would be for a Japanese breakfast or Phoebe Bridgers. Now, this will be the fifth time I've interviewed Anthony Gonzalez between, like, right before the release of Hurry Up We're Dreaming and now. And each time, like, Midnight City just had metastasized and this bigger, scarier thing for him. And each time he was basically like, I kind of want to disappear. Like, his personality comes through in the music in the sense that like he loves old movies. He loves like old books.

And he's kind of like a movie director in that sense where like he's got a house style. But like you don't learn a lot about his actual life. And he kind of wants it to be that way. It was really funny. We talked about what new stuff he's into, and he said the Fablemans was his favorite movie of the past year, which is like, and then he laughed because it was the most fucking on-brand thing he could say. It's like a Steven Spielberg movie that's like entirely about nostalgia. But, you know, I think that like he really shies away from making himself a component of the music, which I find to be, you know, quite refreshing. because it's, you don't have to think about the people making it.

And you're like, M83, like especially the Red Seas to Hurry Upward Dreaming phase, like some of my favorite music ever made. Like this is like a band that was like custom design for my sensibilities. And I just love the fact that he pivoted back to like making M83 music. Like junk was kind of a noble failure, even in his mind. and this proves in a way I didn't expect that he could kind of do M83 things and still

you know sound good, sound relevant, sound like exciting. You know, it's not like a, it's not going to like totally fuck up my world in the same way that like any of it like Saturday's equal youth did. But,

you know, it's an album I could throw on wherever. You know, it integrates itself into daily life in a way that like his other albums sort of couldn't because they were like movies and that you have to pay attention to them and nothing else. I think that, like, one question that I thought of, and I wanted to run this by you because it doesn't necessarily pit my taste against yours, per se, because we both like these bands.

But when I look at like the long-tail influence of hurry-up we're dreaming, it seems to me either to be the most or the second most influential indie rock record of the 2010s next to Lost in the Dream. Like, is that a fair assessment? Yeah, you know, because you had this in the outline, like what album is more influential. And it's, in a way, I feel like because hurry up we're dreaming precedes Lost in the Dream, that Lost in the Dream could almost be put in the lane of music that is kind of building on what that record did, you know, where it's this sort of like a dreamscape 80s synth rock type thing. Although, you know, I think Adam was already doing that sort of thing parallel to the M83 records.

Like, I don't know if he's influenced by them. I've never heard that'd be an interesting question, actually. I wonder if he's like a fan of those M83 records. Because I don't think I've ever put them in the same context until you brought up this question. But they totally do belong together because they're definitely, you know, Anthony Gonzalez and Adam, Granduccio, I think they're both probably inspired by the same things from the past.

But, yeah, I mean, it's interesting with this record because it's a record I really enjoy, and I think it's a more consistent record in a lot of ways than hurry up we're dreaming. But I feel, I get the sense with Amy3 that Hurry Up We're Dreaming is like such a

perfect, realization of his aesthetic that like anything afterward is going to sound a little bit like diminishing returns and he literally and he literally said that to me it's like you know like like what can I do to top this you know like I can't possibly top this and you know with junkie just kind of did a little bit of a freak out the squares kind of record that um you know like was a little it was still very much within the 80s, but it was more like punky Brewster. It was more like, you know, who's the boss? I think the funny thing about like this is that M83's, like, junk precedes the entirety of

the Stranger Things franchise and like, which to me is another form of like M83's influence, even if it isn't like a direct influence, it's sort of kind of like prime the pump for that sort of 80s revivalism. Same with like Wednesday, that show, which I think is hilarious because like every time you see a Jenna Ortega interview, she talks about how much she hates being in that show. It's sort of a parallel to what, it's sort of like graveyard girl writ large, but like it's sort of like how Anthony Gonzalez, every time he's interviewed, he talks about like how Midnight City, he kind of wishes it would go away.

Yeah, I mean, you know, it's his curse that he made probably the best like indie pop song of the decade. I mean, that song, I'm hard pressed to name another song that even approaches that. I mean, and it's such a perfect single that, yeah, he has, in a weird way, like, hurt himself because it's just hard to do something that is as perfect as that. Having said that, I do think that this record fantasy is loaded with, like, just beautiful songs. I was just thinking about the tune in the middle of the record. record, Laura.

Oh, yeah, great song. Just a beautiful song. And I think if you just listen to this album on its own terms, I think it totally delivers. It's like a very kind of pleasurable record to listen to. So, I mean, he's got it. It's just like, yeah, how do you navigate that part of your career when you've, like, achieved perfection and you still want to make more records?

I mean, you just have to muddle through, I guess, with like this beautiful album. album, you know? I don't know. It sounds very philosophical in French. I think he would appreciate that. Well, let's talk about the other record this week that's interesting to us, and that's 10,000 gecks from the hyperpop duo 100 gecks. And we talked about this record a little bit a few weeks ago when we were doing our spring preview, this being an album that was intriguing to both of us, just because 100 gex was. a band that was very buzzy in critical circles and also had a fair amount of

commercial success as well. But people really looking at this as being like the sound of like the new decade. You know, and if you're not familiar with 100 Gecks, basically, they do something similar to M83 in the sense that they're drawing on the music from the past,

but whereas Gonzalez is taking those reference points and blowing them up and making them sound beautiful and lush and sort of like a hyper homage to that era. 100 gecks take, I would say maybe less reputable sounds

of popular music in the past, and they take it apart and they put it back together in these off-kilter shapes. So it might evoke like an R&B radio hit from the 90s, but like it's a little weird. It's kind of coming at it from like a Dutch angle type thing.

this new album I have to say intellectually is interesting to me it's interesting for me to think about because the reference points on this record are basically like what was played on K rock

in 2005 you know like this very sort of like shiny almost plasticy rock music you know we talked about the single what was that Hollywood Baby was the single

sounding a lot like Beverly Hills, like the Weezer song. And listen to this record, I feel like they're even emulating, like, how hyper-compressed a lot of those records are. Loudness War, five-star general, you know? Yeah, like, when you listen to the CD of Californication, it just sounds horrible. Because, like, if you play it loud, it's, like, super, like, distorted and clips all the time. And that's what they're doing on this record on purpose.

So that's interesting to me to kind of comment on that era. I also have to say, though, that there are genuinely irritating moments on this record that drove me up the wall. Like the song, I Got My Tooth Removed. Right. Super annoying. There's another song called One Million Dollars. And, you know, we've talked about the discourse about this band.

And, you know, I was listening to this record, and I'm like, this record at times so annoying to me that I wonder if it's genius. Like, am I just behind the times on this record? Am I going to catch up to it in five years? I wonder if, like, that is how a lot of people feel about this band. Like, it annoys me so much that it might actually be great. You know, do you think there's something to that? Or, I mean, because I think there's also moments on this record that I enjoyed that

that were fun. Yeah. But I wonder if they leveraged their irritation factor. you know, as a way of, you know, creating a sense of, like, forward-thinking genius. Well, you know, first off, I know that, like, there are, like, people who are really out there in the hyper-pop trenches who will tell you that, like, 100 Gex isn't hyper-pop, which is sort of, like, I guess, the variant of, like, my chemical romance isn't really emo. Right. Green Day isn't punk. Yeah. So, I mean, with this, like, this, um, especially when I heard the, uh, I think it was the third single, me, me, me, me.

I think that's four me's. I think I got them all. It reminds me just like how in the past, I don't know, 10 to 15 years as I've like, you know, started a real life job and, you know, not as social as I used to be. Like I've forgotten what it's like to just play music for the purpose of like other people's enjoyment. Like I, that song reminded me of like what it was like in high school, like during the five minute drive to high school when I'd like play, you know, the second NWA album where Corn's Life is peachy just to say like you gotta fucking hear this man

and it's like you play twist and it's like the most crazy shit your 16 year old mind is ever trying to wrap itself around. It's kind of similar to like Andrew W.K. When I first got like an advanced copy of I Get Wet just like coming back home to like my college

apartment's like guys guys like you gotta fucking hear this and just seeing their reaction to it and I think that is kind of what a hundred gecks does. I can imagine if I were like, you know, of a much, much, much, much younger age, how I'd like throw this on at like a party just like, because it's like loud and like upbeat, but it's also kind of annoying. So it's my way of like putting my stamp on the proceedings. But like now it's like, how am I supposed to derive any sort of enjoyment beyond like

the theoretical, you know, like what might happen if I were 25 and still had like a group of, you know, 10 friends that I saw like every other day. I think with that, like, I'm glad for them that this album is out because I feel like their, their Ford Path is not like release an album every couple years in tour. I see them as not like Deont Vord or like something like that, but more like a girl talk sort of thing where they're just kind of around and they're on every EDM adjacent festival known to man and maybe they're in TV. I don't know. I think that, like, I don't mind them being around. I do wonder how this will be received because I don't sense that there's like a backlash.

I think that everything that was said about them early on about like in 2019 about how they pretended a new decade was, I don't know, not more or less true, but like not totally off. And I don't think anyone like begrudges their success. It's just that like I do wonder how people are going to try to wrap their mind around it as like, oh, is this like dumb genius. genius, is this genius genius? There will be a lot of like critical exercise to it. And, you know, I think that this is just a situation where we probably need to have like a 16 year old on like TikTok doing reaction videos because that's like the most, you know, accurate and resonant way to talk about like how 100 gex works. Yeah, I like your Andrew WK comparison. I think that that that seems apt to me, which would make this album The Wolf. An album, which I couldn't, I've never heard that album because it was for some reason so hard to like illegally download off whatever 2003 downloading service I was using.

So I just never got it. I'm like, I'm not fucking paying for this. I have the CD of The Wolf and on the cover, Andrew WK looks like very serious. And he's kind of like looking over your shoulder at the camera. And there's this idea being conveyed that this is the mature. Andrew W.K. record, which just as Meg White's drumming is the

point of the White Stripes, Andrew W.K.'s immaturity is the point of Andrew W.K. So, like, grown up Andrew W.K. It just seemed dead on arrival. Yeah, I mean, I'm with you. Again, I think this band to me, they're more interesting to think about than to listen to. Even though there's songs on this album that I like,

but because they are, in a sense, critics. Like they're using music to comment on music. Instead of using a keyboard, you know, their computer laptop to comment on music or even though they probably make this record on laptops. You know what I mean? Like writing about music, the way we do, we're talking about it. That's how we do criticism. They do criticism by making records. So I'm interested in that intellectually, but then the actual results that end up on the record I tend not to be totally into. Yeah. I, I, I, I, I, I,

just hope that 100 gecks is like as kind of not dumb but like kind of simple as I want them to be. Like I really hope they don't come out with some like egghead type shit. I just hope they like like smashing things. Well, let's get to our mailbag segment here. And this is the meat of the episode, by the way. And I think we're, I think we made our meat guarantee this week. So I'm glad to report that.

If you want to hit us up, it's always great to hear from our listeners with Indycast Mailbag at gmail.com. We've got several letters here to get to. Do you want to read the first one, Ian? I do. So this comes from Neil and Richmond, Virginia. Shout to Richmond. Love that area.

Had quite a few, I'm going to like totally panter to Steve, massive nights in RBA. Ah. Yes. This week, my two worlds collided with the announcement of Sufian Stevens' album, Illinois, being turned into a musical theater production. I'm a high school theater teacher by day and an avid indie rock fan by night. Although the concept. of an indie rock album being transformed into musical theater production is not new, think

Anais Mitchell's Hades Town. I'm curious to see if there's an indie album that two of you could think would work well on stage. Thank you for explaining my indie rock palette. Love the Pod. Neil, RVA. Before I answer that question or you answer that question, I wanted to ask you something quick because I don't know, we've talked a little bit about Sufi and Stevens, but I don't

remember what we said, so I'll just bring it up again. are you a fan of Illinois? Oh, yeah. Okay, because I've never really connected with that record. And I have to say that, like, I respect Sufian Stevens, and there's a few of his records that I like, although I'm not really a super fan by any measure. I feel like the theatrical era of Indy Rock that existed in the aughts

and went a little bit into the 2010s is generally, like, not look back on fondly. You know, certainly like, nothing. by like younger generations. I feel like a lot of that stuff has not really been embraced. And maybe it will down the road. But Sufian Stevens seems like the exception. Oh, yeah.

He made very serious albums after that, you know? Like I think Carrie, yeah, he's like there's the Illinois era, but there's also, you know, like Carrie and Lowell. But, I mean... Illinois, though, I think is like still like love, though. I feel like that's a record. Oh, Chicago. Yeah. I mean, that's like the song.

Yeah. Why do you think that is? Like, why do you think Sufian Stevens... gets that benefit it out, but then, like, the Decembris or tune yards, like, stuff like that, I feel like gets clowned on. But Sufion is, like, an exception. I think Sufion has, like, proved his genius over, like, many, many forms of music. You know, he had seven swans, which is, like, a very spare folk album of, like, you know,

like, basically about the Bible and, you know, Carrie and Lowell. Like, he's just proven himself in so many forms that, you know, Illinois is part of what. he does, but it's not like the thing. He's still pretty precious, though. Oh, absolutely. Like, the preciousness, I think, is what makes people cringe now. Yeah. And he's, he's as precious as anybody.

Right. But it just seems like there's, there's like the Sufion exception there. Because, like, that for me is, like, why I've always resisted him a little bit. Is the going on stage with, like, angel wings and playing a guitar. I just, like, oh, Jesus Christ. Like, I can't get beyond that. Even though I respect his talent. what he does, but I don't know.

It's interesting to me that he doesn't catch the strays that those other artists do. I also think he kind of goes away for a very long time. And, you know, like, he comes back every now and again with something that, like, you know, reestablishes his space in the world. Like, you know, like the Call Me By My Name soundtrack. But, you know, as far as, like, the theatrical Illinois-era type thing, I know I say this about, like, so much of the.

music that like I love when I was like completely pitchfork pilled in like the mid-aughts. But in the theatrical stuff like that has kind of filtered down to emo for the most part. Like I'm thinking specifically about, you know, like the first glass beach album that has very Sufyan style stuff going on or like Jeff Rosenstock's worry. Um, and actually it's funny because like I think about like the, the musical theater stuff aside from, say, American idiot. I think of, like, you know, curses the ugly organ.

Like, that album's, like, lyric sheet was actually a libretto with stage directions. I think, say anything's as a real boy was intended as a theatrical performance. Pedro the Lions control, I guess, in a way as well. So, I mean, the story's there,

but as far as, like, what I think actually works as theater, I think I'm going to see something like, you know, Alice in Chains' Dirt. just something like completely fucking grim of like just one guy's like devolution into like heroin addiction make it like requiem for a dream like i want to i just like kind of want to veer away from like the music that has already all the you know horns and flutes and shit like let's just like let's just take something really out of character yeah i mean i like theatrical rock music you know going back to like rock operas of the 60s and 70s like i get into that stuff but like translating that into like a Broadway context, I tend not to be a fan of that. There's just something where it becomes too theatrical

and it loses the rockiness. And I don't know, that seems pretty embarrassing to me. However, I do have an idea for a stage play. It's not based on an album, but it's like album adjacent. And it would be a theatrical adaptation of I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, where it's focusing on the relationship between Jeff Tweedy and Jay Bennett. I think that could be a great

like Sam Shepard True West type play that could be fantastic. I honestly really think that could be a cool story. I don't know if you have to like get Jeff Tweety's permission to do that or if you could just maybe make a play about like a fictional rock band in Chicago

trying to make a masterpiece and like the core friendship in the band is like disintegrating as the, they're making the record. I think that would be, it wouldn't be a musical. This would be like a play. Right.

I think that could be good. I'm pitching things today. I had my PR idea. Now I've got my play. I like your play idea too. I like the Allison Chains thing. I want to hear someone do the scream at the top of them bones.

I can be a musical theater voice. Like how do you translate that? Like, ah! Like, can you do that in a musical theater type timber? I don't know. Yeah. the hands down the greatest opening lyric of any rock album ever made it's just like right off the bat like a guy's screaming in absolute agony and it just gets more depressing from there yeah yeah it's uh it definitely is a mission statement for that record just lane staley screaming in pain um let's get to our next letter this comes from charlie in yakima washington thanks charlie for writing in uh stephen ian de la soul

is finally on streaming platforms and the albums are even better than I remember but I'm reminded that three feet high and rising was patient zero for rap skits, a scourge on 90s rap albums. What albums do you think is most responsible for indie rock artists putting unlistable tracks

on their albums? Shambolic double records like the white album or Exxon Main Street, concept albums like Dark Side of the Moon or Arcade Computer? I feel like I'm seeing more spoken word interludes on new albums than I've lost patience for them. They mostly feel like like the prestige TV thing

Steve complains about. Yes, that's true. Have either of you listened to an album lately where an interlude was essential? So Charlie's got a few things going on here. Yeah. He's taken, we got the shot at rap skits. He's,

and he's complaining about spoken word interludes here. So, what do we want to address first here? Do you agree with him that skits are a scourge on 90s rap albums? Yeah, I have to. like strongly disagree on that because I mean what like what would ready to die or the chronic be without you know their skits like how many how many times have like I had such a great time doing like

the $20 sack pyramid with my friends or even like the outcast album skits or you know purple haze or like college dropout like I yes skits are like you know kind of hard to pull off but they're just one of the things that makes like 90s rap albums a very distinct thing in my mind. See, and you haven't mentioned what I think is the greatest skit about the time is W. Balls. Oh, of course, right. From Doggy Style. Like a few summers ago, I ran out of cabin with some friends, and I feel like we listened to

W Balls 10 times in a row. W. Balls, W. Balls, W. The only rap skits I don't like, and I feel like this. is like on a lot of the gangster rap albums. Right. It's like where they're doing like the simulated sex skit. Yeah. You know,

like there's one on Ready to Die. That one's really funny. But it just goes on forever. And like, do you actually listen to that when you put on Ready to Die? I'm like, I don't want to sit through this. Like,

where they're doing the sex sounds. Like, uh, like I feel like a W.A. would always have that. Like, I think there's one on the chronic. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, the doctor's office. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the panting and stuff. Well, not if you're around other people. But I mean, I'm thinking back to like again with a hundred. It's worse if you're by yourself, I think. Like listening to a simulated sex kit by yourself is like just feels so creepy.

I think if you're in a group of people, you can at least like laugh at it. But if you're just by yourself, it's almost like, oh, it's like, oh, I'm listening to people pretending to have sex by myself. It's like, I don't want to do that. Fun fact, when I was in Vancouver and over the past weekend, for some reason when I was walking downtown, a lot of people were playing like 90s rap stuff on like portable speakers. And a bunch of people were sitting around like actually listening to Doggy style and like I heard the chronic relief skit. It's like the one before Doggy Dog World where it's like my like, like Hal Mel without the blue note. Shit, never go platinum. And it's like yeah, man.

Also like kind of tying into the daylock conversation like doggy style to my knowledge. is not on streaming with like, De La, like that is now, because I think The Chronic is on streaming. Is Doggy Style like the most wanted non-streaming? I think that's off again. I don't know what's going on there. That's got to be.

It might be on Apple Music. Yeah. Yeah, I was trying to find Doggy Style recently. The Chronic is on there. 2001 is on Spotify, but Doggy Style, I don't believe it is. I have the CD of Doggy Style from back in the day, but it's like that is a oh no nope nope i see it it's on here now i thought it was this one like

kind of goes on and off for a while but yeah that that's a cd you have to have the fucking yeah just a classic i want to circle back to de la soul for a second because i've also been listening to de la soul uh lately and it's it's funny with this with them because i feel like they there was this period and maybe it's over now where they were kind of dismissed as like stuffy old head rap music. I feel like that was something I was seeing a lot. I remember MTV News back in the mid-2010s assigned a takedown piece of three feet high and rising

to like some young, like you know, like when that was a trend, like you'd find some young writer to like piss all over a classic record. Like Chance the Rapper. That was MTV News too, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Chance the Rapper story. I remember like someone at NPR wrote about Public Enemy like takes a nation of millions

and the angle was always like oh there's not enough bops on these records like they're you know and like three feet high and rising like the writer was making fun of all the skits on the record I mean the thing with the skits on three feet high and rising is that they're musical

it's not usually just someone talking there's usually like some cool like music in the background and in the sampling and stuff I mean I've been really enjoying revisiting that album in particular just because that was a big record for me when it came out.

And it's just amazing to hear like a record with like so many samples. Like it really does show like what we've lost now that's like basically impossible to make a record that I don't know how many samples are on that album. It's got to be in the hundreds. Yeah.

I mean it's just there's so many layers to that record of like references. There's references in the lyrics and there's musical references. You know, it's in that like Paul's boutique. lane of just and it's so fun it's like god I wish people could still do this because it really was like a cool way to put records together yeah it's it's similar to like you know when mf doom died like if you follow any sort of like writer dudes who still actively care about rap and basketball and you know make rap metaphors about basketball or vice versa like they almost certainly love day law like it is a very formative um a part of a certain type of dude.

You know, we, we like to get into type of guy taxonomy here. But the funny thing is, like, that MTV news article, which I never saw, I would have, I would love to see that. Like, that was, like, oddly enough sort of kind of my view on De Laugh for a while. Like, them, like, along with the tribe called Quest, they sort of struck me as like, you know, they positioned themselves as like the good rap, you know, especially like around the time Stakes as high came out in 96. they were like kind of pushing back against gangster rap and like you know what was emerging in bad boy i'm like yeah

fuck that man i'm not here for a lecture that said man like three feet high and rising it's it's it's so funny how like you know that and paul's boutique and nation of millions they sound less dated to me than like an album a rap album that came out like five or so years ago um there's just something about them that's like so distinct and literally illegal to pull off that they they just sound so fresh when I play them right now. I know that's like a real old head opinion, but, you know, like I would love to say like, yeah, make all sampling legal,

but I also think that, you know, that aspect of hip hop allows it to evolve more quickly and often than like other forms of rock music. Like if sampling was still legal, I don't, maybe we still get Neptunes and Timbaland and all that stuff. But yeah, I listen to a record like that. And I'm like, man, it's kind of too good for this world.

There's just like such a joy and like a fun and like discovery on three feet high and rising that just seems completely divorced from everything else happening in this world. I listened to it while I was like driving through traffic in L.A. And it's like, yeah, that hour passed by like nothing. So it's good that like people are finally getting to hear the album in like slightly altered form. They couldn't clear all the samples. Yeah, I actually went out and I bought a CD on eBay. of like the original album just because they couldn't put all the samples from the original record because they couldn't clear all of them.

So I'm like, oh, fuck that. I want the actual record. So I've been listening to the CD a lot. How much did it cost to get the original? Well, my copy was $30. Oh, right. So, I mean, I saw copies going for like $50 or $60. I mean, they are re-releasing it on CD, but I assume that the new pressing of the CD is probably like the current version.

of the album, not the original album. So I wanted to get the, and I thought I had it, but I couldn't find it. So I was like, I'm going to buy this because this is such a great record. It's interesting your point about, if sampling were still illegal, would you have these innovative producers that came along in the late 90s, early 2000s? And, I mean, that really was a time, like, we're sampling, not only did it become harder to do, it just became less original to the end of the 90s, like, where you just have, oh, like, puppies just going to, like, just take every breath you take.

where on three feet high and rising there's like multiple samples being interwoven together and it's like might be an obscure song or if it is like a more well-known song they're using it in a really clever way I just love that it does seem like a lost art and I do agree that it sounds fresher now

maybe because you can't do it you know there's something about it where it's so in its own era there's no modern equivalent to it let's get to our last letter here Do you want to read this our last letter? Yeah, so I just love the headline for this. Why are biopics bad?

Colin Llellan in Los Angeles, California, I seriously hope Colin doesn't work for like a talent agency or like something else where this like letter might get them in trouble. Why is it so hard to make movies about music? Are biopics just cursed because they always play like a checklist of moments that are never cool or organic, looking at you, Bohemian Rhapsody? are fictional band movies better, such as almost famous. Hell, I even like rock star more than most music biopics.

Wow. So what are your favorites and what dream movie do you have? Mine would be a 1990 Scorsese-style biopic about Warren Zevon. I realize that goes against what I said about biopics, but come on. That's like a very Steve choice. Oh, man, Colin, you're speaking my language with that one. It's interesting that this question comes up now, because, you know, we just had the Oscars last weekend and...

We did? Yeah. Remember the Oscars? I missed that. I was too caught up in a Meg White controversy. So, obviously, the musical biopic that was nominated was Elvis and I don't think it won a single award. I don't think so. Did you see Elvis?

You didn't see Elvis, right? I did not see it, but like I heard it talked about on a different podcast and it sounds like, it's not like, to call it a music biopoeuvre. pick seems like extremely limiting. It's like basically avant-garde in the way that it's like almost like it's sort of like

like a three feet high and rising type retelling of Elvis's story where it just like takes a bunch of samples and exaggerates them and it becomes this like fascinating patchwork. Right. Yeah, exactly. And that's why I liked it. I had very little expectations going into it.

but, you know, it's a film that I don't think it is really trying to be an accurate portrayal of his life, even though Austin Butler is very believable in the role and he was obviously very method in how he went about playing that part. And I think he was great in it, by the way. I think he should have won best actor. I think he was, I mean, because like Brendan Frazier, he also wears a fat suit in Elvis and he has more panache in the fat suit than Brendan Frazier does. but yeah it's really a film just about like Elvis as an idea you know and and mythology of Elvis mythology of rock stardom mythology of America and I think it works on that level like I saw people complaining about you know inaccuracies in Elvis

and I'm just like I feel like that misses the point yeah it's like it's like watching like the passion of the Christ and being like oh Jesus wasn't really like this it's like well no it's about Jesus as an idea you know it's like not a documentary about Jesus I feel like the problem with biopics is that they're either too broad which means like they're covering someone's entire life

and they're too literal and that speaks to the Elvis thing like you're just reenacting someone's life you're not really doing anything with it that's interesting and with music biopics in particular I think the other problem is that actors generally are not as cool as musicians You know?

Like Bohemian Rhapsody is like a great example of that. Like Rami Mollick is nowhere near as cool as Freddie Mercury. Like if you know what the real Freddie Mercury is like, it just seems lame to have Rami Mollick of all people playing him. I want to ask you about another movie that was nominated for Best Picture because I think this is actually a good example of a biopic, even though it's not really a biopic. And that's TAR.

Oh, yeah. Love this. Yeah, I really liked TAR too. And I think one of the things that's great, because it's a movie about a musician, not a real musician, although like a lot of people got tricked. Yeah.

Because it's actually, I mean, it's very detailed. I don't know much about classical music in that whole world, but I don't know. It seemed like a very accurate depiction. Although she's probably too famous to be a conductor. Yeah. That's maybe the one thing.

She's on the cover of Time magazine and stuff. It's like, there's no conductor now that's that famous. But I think what makes Tarr work in comparison to, like, actual biopics, is that it focuses on the most interesting part of her story. It's like not Lydia Tarr's whole life. It's basically about her downfall or, depending on how you look at it, like a nightmare of a downfall. And I think that's why it works.

Biopics, I think, are better if they just focus on something specific in someone's career and not the whole thing. Does that make sense? I mean, because you're a fan of tar too. Yeah, I love tar and I think you get to a point which makes this movie like way more interesting than a straightforward music biopic is that, you know, she's this classical conductor. I guess you would have to assume in the modern day because a lot of the, you know, the language and the technology is, you know, it seems like it's present day. And the, it begins with this like, excruciatingly long interview with Adam Gopnik from in New York. And it's like no conductors ever that fucking famous.

And you kind of get the sense maybe that this entire movie is this like delusion, especially as it starts the reality starts to break down towards the end. And I think that's what makes it such an interesting film to, you know, to think about as well as watch. Because so many people are like, well, this is about cancel culture or it's about like, like high art. No, it's like, this is just someone inventing their entire, like, weird, famous, uh, life, uh, because, you know, they, they're cast out of that world or whatever. And that just makes it so much more in it. It's like as much of a multiverse movie as like

everything everywhere all at once. Um, but I know, to get to, to get to like, is that a spoiler alert? Are we spoiling the movie by saying that, by the way? Maybe. I don't know. If you've listened this long to Indycast, like, you know, hopefully, I don't know. I think I might have enjoyed the movie more. It's not a spoiler so much as it is, like maybe a, like, putting on 3D glasses to watch the movie. Yeah, and I think it's possible to watch the movie in a more straightforward way.

I don't know if that's an interpretation I've heard of it. and it holds water, but also you don't have to watch the movie that way. It's a good movie. You should go see it's on Peacock. You should check it out. I got to ask because, like, the movie that, or not even the movie, but the show that, like, Collins seems to be talking about, like, this one's really stuck in my craw is the show Daisy Jones and the Six. Like, I've not, it was, like, an extremely popular book and now, like, a very popular miniseries with, like, original music with, like,

Blake Mills and Marcus Mumford and Phoebe Bridgers. I don't know if you've seen this. This show, just in concept, is, like, more ridiculous than Elvis. It's, I just interpret it as, like, Fleetwood. It's, like, loosely based on Fleetwood Mac, but, like, everything about it is just, like, the drive shaft scenes from Lost, where it's, like, I don't know if you've actually met a band or listened to music in your entire life. I think that's the problem with a lot of books that are loosely based on bands.

Okay. By the way, you're taking a shot at Drive Shaft here. No, I fucking love Drive Shaft. They're pretty crazy. I'm trying to remember their song. Like, what was their hit? Oh, my God. Like, it's got one fucking line.

It's you all everybody. How can you not remember the one? They only sing one. I saw that show like 10 years ago, so it's been a while. I saw it like just literally in the past three months. Like, we went end to end. Lost. Like, I love Lost.

I, I, if there weren't like 150 episodes, I'd be tempted to rewatch that because that was good. Drive Shaft. Drive Shaft is A.

Okay in my book. I have to abstain on Daisy. What was it? Daisy Jones and the Six. Yeah. I have to abstain on it because I know someone who worked on it. So I can't,

I'm not going to take shots or or compliment it. I have to sit out of this one, even though it seems like a show that I would otherwise have a lot to say about. I just want to say quick, just to answer the question here, because he was asking if we had any dream biopics. I'm going to go back to my, I am trying to break your heart idea.

I think you could make a drama, like a fictionalized version of that movie. Although maybe you can't now. I always felt like Philip Seymour Hoffman would have been a great Jay Bennett. Oh, wow. Sadly, he's not with us anymore. Neither one of those guys are with us anymore, unfortunately. So maybe you can't make this movie anymore Because I think, because in my mind it was like

Philip Seymour Hoffman as Jay Bennett And Peter Sarsgaard as Jeff Tweedy Jeff Tweedy would like that, wouldn't he? Yeah, Sarsgarde leaning into his like shattered glass persona Where he's just like annoyed by his co-worker You know, like that Maybe that's why SARS guards in my head because I just imagine him having that look of disdain

that he has looking at Stephen Glass in that movie. Have you seen Shattered Glass? I'm not. It's a great movie. Hayden Christensen is Stephen Glass and he's like, so annoying. Like, you want to punch him in the face. And they really harness that aspect of Hayden Christensen that didn't really work in the Star Wars movies.

But, like, he's great in Shattered Glass because he's so punchable. And Sarsgaard is just, like, trying to, hold himself back from like ripping this guy's you know face off you know as he's just lying yeah yeah so anyway i'm gonna i'm gonna keep pitching my i am trying to break your hard idea as either a stage play or as a film i think it would be great either way yeah i think for me like the music biopic is like a rare situation where like the mock versions of them are way better than the real thing like pop star and this is spinal tap or in my opinion like two of the

best movies ever made and like walk hard is up there as well so oh yeah i do wonder though that like it and again like this can't happen right now we're too close to the source it you couldn't possibly pull it off where we get kind of like a mock biopic about like i don't know the kind of bands that are around today where like everything is just like so earnest and uh you know the the the the the the parissocial relationships with it like i think there's going to be a horror movie about like kind of a quasi-mitzky character and her like stalker fans but I think that like there can be in the future like I think that this era is ripe for parody it just will take a few years for us to really be able to wrap our heads around it yeah I'm I'm co-signing you talking about

spinal tap pop star and walk hard as being great non-biopic biopics uh because yeah they are better than really almost any biopic you could think of I also want to like sneak in, this isn't a pure biopic, but the Russell Brand scenes and forgetting Sarah Marshall. I thought you're about to say get him to the Greek. Well, get him to the Greek too. But yeah, I guess that's an entire just, I forget the name of his character in that movie. But like the Russell Brand character, who I think is a parody of Harry Styles before Harry Styles was actually a thing. He's so Harry Styles.

He's so Harry Styles. That's like easily the best part. All right, we've now reached the fire up our episode called Recommendation Corner, where Ian and I talk about something that we're into this week. Ian, why don't you go first? All right, so I'm just going to get a little out of character right now and talk about a band that is from the UK, but is also getting a little more emo on their new album.

Death Crash is the band that kind of emerged from that Black Country New Road, Black Midi, Caroline, seeing in South London, and they put out a record, I think I might have talked about in 2022, called Return. there was a little bit of Godspeed you Black Emperor in there there was a little bit of Maguire there was some Black Country New Road some like late period

mineral I say late period like their second record and they put out kind of surprisingly quickly another album called Less this week it's a shorter album it's more spare it does have echoes of like mineral circa and serenading

or like low or codeine and I see this a band that similar to the other ones I mentioned, like, they're going to be a band that, like, puts out a record probably every year that, um, you know, tries something different is constantly evolving. And I really love that about like what's happening with a lot of bands that are out there in the UK. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of like bullshit, like talky post-punk that's happening. But there's also like a lot of, you know, bands, like legit bands that are constantly evolving and like doing interesting shit. I think like even squid, I'd put them up there as a band doing that. So

death crash is in that ilk but they're i mean they've said like yeah we're an emo band so i got to respect that a lot of really compelling sad music here but um also just very enjoyable like it's kind of comfort food but um if you know the saddest parts of the last black country new road album were like your comfort food this will be as well so the record i want to talk about is courtesy of friend of the podcast riley walker oh yeah we are both fans of riley we are both fans of his tweets. And I have a big fan of his music, and I really like his most recent record. It's called Live in Malmo, as you would guess from the title. It is a live record. And it really spotlights, one, just the excellent band that he's playing with, at the time that you recorded this,

including the great drummer, Ryan Jewel, who you will know if you are into the indie jam scene. he seems to pop up in a lot of different places but they really are just like a mind-blowing unit on this record there's eight songs on the record and it's about 80 minutes long so that gives you a sense

of how deep we get into the jams here there are songs that are like 20 minutes long that are just incredible Riley he's so good live I enjoy his records a lot but I think the live records are where he really

gets to shine. Not only because of his guitar playing, but there's also great banter on this album. There's always, between every song, Riley is basically going into stand-up comedy mode. Really funny. So you get great laughs, you get great jams. That to me is a perfect record. So definitely check this record out. You want to go on the band camp page. Riley has a record label called Husky Pants. Great, great, great label name. Great label name, H-U-S-K-Y Pants. Go to the band camp, download the record, buy it, give them some shackles.

You won't be, you won't regret it. It's a really great record. That about does it for this episode of Indycast. Thank you all for listening. We'll be back with more news reviews and hashing out trends next week. And if you're looking for more music recommendations, sign up for the Indie Mix Tate 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.