Indiecast - Burning Questions: Is The New Kendrick Lamar Album Is Great? Is Coachella Cooked?

Episode Date: November 29, 2024

Steven and Ian open this week's episode with a quick (actually kind of long!) "yay or nay" segment on Thanksgiving food. Does anyone actually like turkey? Let's find out (3:30)! After a quick Plug-cast on the yacht rock doc that Steven worked on (14:32), the guys confirm that Steven finally won an Fantasy Albums Draft thanks to the latest Father John Misty record (16:30).From there, they talk about the "surprise" Kendrick Lamar album that dropped last week, GNX, and what it means for the man's overall legacy (20:50). They also discuss the latest Coachella lineup and whether the festival is finally cooked (35:53). In the mailbag, they do an update on the "Dudes Rock!" QB conversation (48:51).In Recommendation Corner, Ian talks about the new Tegan And Sara documentary and Steven recommends the latest record from Office Culture (53:57).New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 217 here 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 X (formerly 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 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 talk about the surprise album from Kendrick Lamar and the kind of shitty Coachella lineup. My name is Stephen Hayden and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. He's currently gouging on leftover stuffing. Ian Cohen.

Ian, how are you? Yeah, it's actually just like leftover from the other day, not even from Thanksgiving. I eat that shit like oatmeal in the morning. You know, I kind of, I kind of fancy myself a Thanksgiving pop-timist, if you will. Just straight stovetop, none of that fancy stuff. That's how I'm getting down these days. You know, because what, what, it's not that similar from oatmeal.

Live a little, y'all. Yeah. And look, we are, we're not recording this after Thanksgiving. It's the day before Thanksgiving. So I'm projecting that Ian will be eating leftover stuffing on Friday morning. Um, my wife and I actually were just having a conversation before recording about whether we want to get one pie or two pies. And we decided to get two pies because we wanted the pumpkin and the apple. Oh, yeah.

Because if it's just like a random week, it's hard to justify buying a pie. You're like, oh, went to the store I bought a pie. You just feel like you're a very unhealthy person. So you kind of have to load up on Thanksgiving. You got to fill your quota of pie. And got to have the pumpkin pie. That's just required. I haven't had an apple pie slice.

Like, I'm not eating the whole pie. I'm just going to have a slice or two. I haven't had apple pie in a long time, so I'm excited. I would, I mean, if I was a true degenerate, I would also push for a cherry pie. On top, because I'm a pie guy. I don't know. Are you pie or cake? Oh, I'm absolutely pie.

I think there's just like something funny. about the fact that, you know, we live near this city called Julian, which is, like, really well known for its apple pie. So, like, as a Southern California, and I'm more likely to eat apple pie than you, the Midwestern. Yeah. That just seems, like, very much the opposite of what it should be. But, yeah, I love pie. And also, there's a really cool place near us called Pop Pie.

You know, Pot Pie Company, if you're in San Diego, go there. That sells pie by the slice. So, yeah. that's quatch. I love it. Yeah, I don't know. I saw some photos of myself recently when I was at a press event or it was a screening for the Yacht Rock documentary I worked on and the photos of me from the side were a little traumatic. I was not feeling good about it. The dad bod has really taken over. It just looks like I'm pregnant all the time now with just a belly of food and I'm sure a fair amount of alcohol in there too.

I don't know, man. We express body positivity here on Indycast. Exactly. I just was not feeling very good about myself. And then I signed off on getting two pies. So, I mean, that's the contradiction here that's going on. I wanted to run some food by you here. We're going to do a quick yay or nay on Thanksgiving fix-ins here.

Hell, yeah. Let's talk about turkey here for a second, because obviously a Thanksgiving staple, part of the tradition. We bought a turkey. We're going to be having turkey on Thanksgiving. We will probably be eating leftover turkey when this podcast drops. Yay or nay on turkey. How do you feel about it? Aneur on turkey, I feel like turkey is just not something that's enjoyed that much.

Like, look, I'll use it as like a vessel for gravy or like cranberry sauce or like other things. But as like an actual protein, it's like, it's sort of like chicken breast, but except even more dry. And, you know, I'm going to quote Robert Pollard here. I'm a thigh man. I always cook with chicken thighs. And so, yeah, turkey. I mean, I'll fuck up a ham. Like that's the truth.

So do you feel that way about? It's there, but like I'm not looking for. to it. So, because you're talking about, like, the cooked turkey on Thanksgiving, do you feel that way about, like, turkey cold cuts? Oh, no, that's fine. You'll eat at, like, a turkey sub. Yeah. If, you know, you're at the airport or something.

I'm going to say yay on turkey overall. I love the tradition of the turkey on Thanksgiving. I like preparing the turkey. You know, you put the garlic butter on the, under the skin. You're rubbing the turkey. It's a little dirty feeling. You know, you're doing it. And then the smell of the turkey, as it's cooking throughout the day, you're watching football,

it fills with that turkey smell in the house. That's very cozy to me. You know, here in the Midwest, it's cold, so it's cold outside. It's warm inside. You have that, again, the aroma filling the house. And the first, I like slicing the turkey. Very yay on that. That's great.

Love the first piece of turkey that you have. Because I feel like you got about a 15-minute window before all the moisture just starts evaporating out of the turkey. You know, by the time you get maybe to that third or fourth piece, it's starting to get a little dry already. So then maybe after that, I'm not as as yay on it. Although, have you ever done like the turkey salad sandwich the day after Thanksgiving? Oh, the gobbler? Hell yeah. Yeah, yeah.

That's a good way to sort of reinvest the turkey. So you can keep it going a little bit. Stuffing we've already touched on. I think we're both a strong yay on stuffing. But it's got to be stove top. Like I hate when people get too fancy with it. Like I mean, say with like we're going to discuss some other toppings as well. But like look, I'm making like I'm going to spend an hour making like a fancy ass like Bon

Appetit recipe mac and cheese where I have to actually shred slices of American cheese. but by and large, the more kind of trashy processed you get with it on Thanksgiving, the more I'm into it. See, the fancy macaroni and cheese, I can't get behind it all. That's got to be the craft. I mean, in velvita shells and cheese, like I'll... Well, that too. Yeah.

But, like, when they try to make the fancy macaroni and cheese, I'm not with it. I like the fancier stuffings. I mean, like, when they pull the stuffing out of the turkey, like, when they make it that way. Very good. You know, like if your grandma is making the stuffing, very good. I do like the stovetop. I guess, like you said, you said you're a stuffing pop-tomist. Because you're not, you're not one of these raucous people.

No. With the stuffing where it's got to be authentic and, you know, from the heart. And, you know, you will support the more synthetic stuffing. I'm like that with cranberry sauce. Same. Out of the can with the ridges. Yeah. They also have the can one where it's like not with the ridges.

It's more of the hole and you get, I don't know. It's like, that's okay. But I feel like there's like stems in there or something. I don't know. It's like a weird feel in the mouth. Yeah, it's got like pulpy orange juice. I mean, I'll eat that cranberry sauce. Like either way out of a can with a spoon.

Oh, yeah. Like I'm a hobo, you know? Oh, yeah. That's how I get down. Yeah. You know, sometimes like if you go to like a friend of a friend's house for Thanksgiving, I don't know if you've ever done that. I mean, you probably do.

Yeah, that's all I've done for like the past, I don't know, 15 years of my life. Because sometimes, like, you end up in those situations where the person wants to make the fancy cranberry sauce and, like, your stomach just sinks. Because you're like, not only am I not going to enjoy the cranberry sauce, but I have to put some of this on my plate. Or I'm going to look like a jerk. Yeah. So you have to. Yeah. Yeah.

Or you, what I do is I just. spread it around the plate. So it looks like you just dug in and demolished it, but you haven't really eaten anything. You've just kind of spread it around. That's a trick I learned as a kid, and it's done me well into adulthood. So we're both yay on cranberry sauce. Yes. I want to ask you about this.

I didn't put this in the outline, because it just occurred to me. We're going to be having it for Thanksgiving. I feel like it's a staple of the Midwest. I don't know if it translate elsewhere, but do you do you do the, the green bean casserole. Okay, so this is a subject near and dear to my heart because in the past, like, I don't know, 20 years ago, this memory is stuck with me where I, this is like where I'm like most fully on board with the Thanksgiving pop-thamism.

It's got to be canned green beans. It's got to be canned cream of mushroom soup. I mean, I think, I think honestly the French's fried onions, like that's, I've seen that in like food magazine. So that's like sort of, I don't know. Carly Ray Jepson type optimism and that it's not pop optimism at all anymore. But yeah, the more, like, you got to get, like, you got to get white trash with it. And I say that because I brought it one time.

And no, this is actually not that long ago. It was like, six, seven years ago where I, it was like, yeah, that's like kind of white trash. And it's like, if that's the case, then I'm going to throw three doors down away from the sun and just rock with it because, yeah, you can't do, you can't do for a. She is someone I was dating before my wife. Oh, my God. I hope you broke up with her. I hope you broke up with her that instant when she said that.

I hate this thing of like, oh, this is too trashy for me on Thanksgiving. Like, who are you? You're wearing like the white gloves and the top hat and the monocle, the Thanksgiving? Come on, man. This is comfort food. Yeah. It's comforting food. Oh, man.

I know, right. I already like your wife a lot. but I love her even more because this was the girlfriend before that. And then pumpkin pie, obviously, yay, right? Are you a yay? Yeah, and the thing about pumpkin pies, and I have so much pumpkin-flavored stuff throughout the fall that, you know, the pie itself, like I could take it or leave it.

I like more fruit-based pies. Apple, if you're ever in Southern California, go to Julian, you got to get the apple pie with the melted cheddar cheese on top. That, you know, cherry, boisenberry. crumbles, whatever it is. Like, pumpkin pie, like, of course I'll have some, but that's, like, just kind of the opening act for me. See, it's hard for me to think about eating pumpkin pie in the sunshine of Southern California. It just seems like such a pie that you eat when it's cold in, like, mid to late November. Because I'm not, I'm not busting out a pumpkin pie in July.

You know, I'm eating that. I might eat it during the... Christmas season, but then in January, I'm not eating it anymore. It's like a six-week. This is like the six-week span of pumpkin pie. But yeah, just like eating it when it's hot or sunny, that seems a little weird to me. So I can see why you're not as up on the pumpkin pie just geographically where you live. But if you were in Minnesota and it was like 20 degrees outside, I just feel like it tastes better in that environment.

Fucking up a pie completely in the dark, staring up. wall, you know, thinking about the Vikings or whatever. Right, right. That's kind of the mood, you know. That's, yeah, exactly, exactly. Do you like the cool whip or the ice cream? Fucking both, man. I think ice cream with the apple pie and cool whip for pumpkin.

Right. I'm with you. I'm with you on that. It's funny because we had a pumpkin pie at a family gathering last week, and I was the only one who didn't take the ice cream. I was like, because I love cool whip with the pumpkin pie, the ice cream with it. I just, I'm not as into it. I just feel like, I kind of feel like with the ice cream, it's got to be like, you've got to be warming up the pie.

Yes. Then you get the hot, and I think with it, like a warm apple pie and, you know, vanilla ice cream, that sounds delicious. But I don't know. I feel like you get the room temperature cool whip and the room temperature pumpkin pie. You're golden. Yeah, because I can have ice cream any time of the year. But like, you know, as good as it is to eat the cool whip out of like the, you know, the plastic bin with a spoon. It's more situational.

So I'm leaning towards the more situational foods here in Thanksgiving. But yeah, either way, I don't mind eating stuffing in May. Like, why should I restrict that? You know, it's there. It's in the store, right? It's not like, you know, it's not like Passover. food where if you don't get like your macaroons and your matzah in March or April whenever Passover happens, that just shows how, you know, recently I've celebrated it. Yeah, if it's there

in the store, it's fair game. See, I like you being a stuffing poptimist. Yes. And you saying like, hey, it doesn't just have to be Thanksgiving. All food's fun, man. Yeah, you could drop a stuffing as a side in May or June. Certainly in the fall. It would be fine. I like this. I think this is a good cause for you to take up. By the way, we just spent 15 minutes talking about... I'm glad Kendrick dropped an album. Otherwise, this would be like a 60-minute food cast.

Which would be fine with me, actually. I feel like I want to yay or nay all the way down the line, you know, like sweet potato pie and all sorts of things. But we won't do that. We have other things to get to. Before we get to the bulk of our show, I want to do a quick... plug cast, we'll call it, where I want to plug the Yacht Rock documentary that is premiering on HBO today, today as of the day that we're posting this episode, November 29th. It's called Yacht Rock, a documentary, D-O-C-K-U-Mentery.

And it's a movie about Southern California in the late 70s, early 80s, the generation of musicians who played on their own records, played on other people's records from the pop rock worlds, embracing soul and jazz music influences. Michael McDonald, Christopher Cross, Kenny Loggins, the guys from Toto. You have Steely Dan sort of set in the table for these guys. I'm the story producer of this movie, which is sort of like saying I'm the writer of the movie, and I'm in the movie a little bit. So I think it's a really good movie.

There's some indie rockers in there. You got Mac DeMarcos in there. You have Bethany Costantino's in there. Thundercat is in there. I was blanking on Thundercat. He's in the movie a lot, actually. So, yeah, I don't know. See the movie.

I think it turned out really well. Yeah, I'm excited to see it. I like how you said, like, story editor. I mean, that sounds like way fancier than writer. Story producer. Story producer, sorry. Yeah. But, yeah, it's like, writer, like story producer is not something.

perhaps people outside the industry can understand, but that's what makes it sound super cool. Yeah, you get the word producer in there. Yeah. It's cool. And I've had people say, oh, you're the executive producer. I'm not the executive producer. That's like the higher up.

I'm the story, but I was in the trenches. I was like one of the creatives on this project. I worked on it for like about two and a half years. So it's cool for it to finally get out in the world. So that's the end of Plugcast. Thank you for allowing me to do that, Ian. Let's do a quick fantasy draft update. We just want to confirm that I finally won a fantasy draft.

We have the final total. I guess it could change a little bit. But Father John Misty, I think last week he was like at 77. And right now he's at 85. Michael Kiwanaka is a little down. I can't remember if he was like at 95 last week. No, he was at like 95. and Kim Deal was at like 93.

So, okay, so he's at 89 now and Kim deal's at 90. So they slipped a bit, but then I think Father John Misty made up those losses and then some. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm at about 440, I think. Yeah, I think this is like an all-time high. Wow. You didn't just win. You, you, like, ran away with it.

Love it. Yeah, so, yeah, it's, it's, to use the fantasy kind of, uh, you know, know, metaphor. Kim D.L. and Michael Kiwanuka, they were like, you know, when your defense, like, it's just kicking ass, but, like, all of a sudden, they lose points at the end because the other team scoring garbage time points. But, yeah, Father John Misty, coming through in the clutch, a Billy Volack All-Star,

getting all those garbage time points to just put the thing out of reach. And, yeah, you know, I got to hand it to you. You played this one masterfully. It was about time. Yeah, I no longer assume. that I'm going to win every time. So I got to step my game. I'm already scouting the FKA Twigs album,

because that I think is like the first big one in 2025. I think that's going to be a real canary in the coal mine in terms of determining where music criticism is in New Year. See, I'm looking at Ethel Cain. Yes, that's it. Her record comes out, I think, on the 8th of January. And we'll see when we do our draft. I guess we're going to have to do it before the break.

Yes. Because there's heaters coming out immediately at the beginning of the year. Ethel Cain to me, I'll just say it right now. I think she's the Shador Sanders of this upcoming draft. To me, I'll just say it right now. If I get the number one pick, I'm taking Ethel Cain. I don't know if that would be the same for you. I mean, maybe.

But Shadour Sanders, people have doubts about his ability to hold firm in the pocket. You know, he tends to do I take a lot of sacks. So I don't know if Ethel Cain has a similar sort of thing. Also, I love the fact this Ethel Cain album is apparently like 80 minutes long, but she's calling it an EP. By the way, her version of For Sure on the American Football covers album, fucking fantastic. If the album sounds like that, then I'm all in.

Well, I just feel like with her, you know, her first record flew under the radar a little bit, like when it first came out, a preacher's daughter that came out. And was that 2022, I think? 20, yeah, 22 or 23. I mean, I think that was a record that, like, a certain type of, like, generation fucking loved and maybe a certain generation didn't get. So, yeah, there's a lot of, there's a lot of upside on this one for sure. I mean, I think that record is also about 80 minutes. Yes.

That's a pretty, pretty epic record. But it just feels like the table is set for people that were maybe late on Preacher's daughter. and I'll put myself in that camp, and I'm sure there's a lot of other critics who are there as well, where this is going to be their chance to write about her. Yes.

And so if the record's pretty good, it's going to be very well reviewed. It's going to be regarded as great. So, I don't know. I just, do you want to call her the Caleb Williams of this draft? I'm just saying... Yeah, it's Caleb Williams,

because it feels a little more secure than that because that's the deal with, like, this year's NFL draft and quarterback. People are like, yeah, I don't know if any of these guys are good, but, you know, the Giants got to draft somebody. Yeah, I just mean it in the sense that I think she's the obvious number one pick to me. And in the same way maybe Shador Sanders is. Or I guess Travis Hunter, though, maybe FKA Twigs is the Travis Hunter of the draft.

We'll find out. We will. We're the only two people drafting, so there's really not a lot of things to go around here. All right, let's get to the new Kendrick album. You know, we recorded a day earlier. earlier last week. So I've tried to, did Kendrick drop on Friday? It dropped on Friday. It dropped like while I was in a meeting at work and then, you know, like I get out, like I go to the bathroom. It's like, oh, wow, there's like an actual Kendrick album, not like a Kendrick is planning to

drop an album. Um, not that like, it got like release at like 930 or something like that on the way. So it wasn't even like midnight on, uh, you know, Thursday going into Friday. It was like 930 in the morning or like noon on the East Coast. And it's called, is it just pronounced a GNX? Yes. And is it supposed to kind of sound like genius? Or Gen X? No, I don't think so. I think it's just like a, it's a short hand for a grand national car.

Oh, there you go. Yeah, that's right. You named it after his car. So, I mean, there's a lot of places that we can go with this conversation, obviously. I mean, you know, Kendrick Lamar, for a long time has been the most critically acclaimed artist. in the pop rap, popular music world. He had a little bit of a lapse in the early 2020s, and then this year he's just been back with a vengeance.

You could say that he's bigger than ever right now. This record has been a phenomenon. He's going to be at the Super Bowl in two months. I'll start with this, I guess. This is probably, I think, the rap event album of the year. And it feels like maybe the only rap event album of the year in terms of just Living up to I mean there was no build-up hype because it was a surprise record, but We've talked about this in the past like the the the rap event album

Or the event rap album I guess I should say it that way It's not a rap event it's an event rap album That used to be such a fixture of not only like the of the charts but of critical conversation Like we would have these albums that often drop late in the year whether it was you know Kanye West. I mean, Kanye West did that multiple times. Yeah. Or Drake during his critically acclaimed era, which feels like a million years ago.

But there was a time like where people really liked him, like Take Care era. You know, Jay-Z, obviously. And it's been a while since we've had a record like this. And I have to say that the response to the album, because it's been very well reviewed generally so far, It has an 86 on Metacritic. And that would probably be much higher, if not for the pitchfork review. The pitchfork review was pretty middling. It was like a 6.6.

Yeah, balancing composure type status. But, like, otherwise, I mean, people have been really loving it. I've even seen people call it the best album of the year, and they were doing that immediately, like, after the record came out. How much of that do you think is reflective of the music on this album? and how much of it is people wanting this to be great because it feels like we don't get like capital G great albums like this lately. Like how much of this is sort of wishful thinking with this album?

Well, I mean, I'll preview like what I think about the album and saying that I, you know, I kind of agree with the pitchfork review. Very well written, by the way. Was that Alphonse Pierre wrote that? Yeah, yeah, Alphonse Pierre. Great review. Great review. Whether you agree with it or not, it's very well written and argued, I think. Yeah, that took some guts. I hope he's like in Sarajevo or a place that has no extradition.

But yeah, I think that, you know, I was going to like ask you, like try to put you on the spot, like saying that before GNX, like, what was your favorite rap album of 2024? And then I thought to myself, like, well, what's mine? And, you know, I'm pretty checked out right now, I have to say, on the genre. I mean, I can't even pretend. Yeah. Like, I listened to, like, schoolboy Q or rock Marciano, but that's, like, the sort of thing a 44-year-old would say, you know what I mean? Right.

Right. But, like, it just had the feel of an event. And, right, like, we love that shit. We love to celebrate it. You know, I think of Take Care as a Thanksgiving album. I think of my dark, beautiful, twisted fantasy of the Thanksgiving album. Both those dropped, I believe, in late November. And, yeah, it's just great to, I mean, look, I grew up with the event rap album.

of like, you know, Jay-Z, I remember dropping, like, right before New Year, right before, like, 2000 and, like, I went to, like, see a movie and, like, guys were already quoting it. I love that shit. Same with, yeah, but, um. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and I think there's a lot of nostalgia for that. Yeah, and that's kind of the interesting angle on Kendrick because he is, like, as much as he's, like, more popular than ever, like, not like us is, you know, it's a huge shit.

I mean, that's, like, the thing that people would say. say like, you know, if they wanted to like kind of needle Kendrick Lamar, it's like, yeah, you can't put that shit on in the club, you know what I mean? But now you can. But still, it's very much old head shit, right? The album, it's old head shit. And, you know, his position in the Drake beef, I mean, look, I know how this is going to sound, but I'm like fully committing to it. I don't say like I, you know, backed Drake. I wasn't rooting for Drake, but I found his position a little more compelling because with Kendrick is always, yo, you're disrespecting hip hop, you know, you're a colonizer.

It's like all this stuff that reminds me of just stuff I would discuss on like a 2003 rap message board, whereas Drake's position was more like, hey, man, to like even care about this stuff in 2024 makes you kind of a hypocrite. And, you know, that to me was a more compelling position because like rooting for Drake felt like rooting for, you know, like the chiefs or the, uh, Lakers or just, there, there wasn't a lot of, like, friction, you know, with Kendrick, he's like, he made an album that, like, wasn't really that well received because it was very raw and challenging, but, um, yeah, but, uh, I mean, it's clear that he would say, I was just going to say, I would say Drake is more like the

Cowboys in 2024, where he's a very successful brand at a very down point in his history. Yes. And the thing with this record. is that, you know, because he's picking up again on sort of being the crusader of like real hip hop and kind of taking shots. Well, not kind of taking shots. Definitely taking shots at Drake. And I'm going to take a page from your book here. With Drake, I feel like it's a little like the Simpsons mean, you know, stop.

He's already dead at this point. Like we're still going after Drake. And he's such an easy target. you know, who's going to cheer for Drake at the outset of a feud over Kendrick Kumar? Kendrick Kumar just has such a sort of, like, the righteous angels appear to be on his side. But there's an element to this album that reminds me of what we've seen on a lot of sort of big-ticket pop records, particularly from Taylor Swift, where you have Taylor Swift, who is obviously the biggest star in the world. and yet she will still position herself as an underdog in her songs

or as someone who's being aggrieved on some level, she finds imaginary enemies when they're not really there. And I think there's an element of that at this point with Kendrick Lamar where when you're so successful and you're so acclaimed, and again, like he has the biggest song of the year, he's probably going to have, if not the most acclaimed album of the year, one of the most acclaimed. and I'm sure it's going to be a huge commercial hit.

I mean, you've already seen the streaming numbers for this record have been really strong. And he's going to be at the Super Bowl. And he's probably, in my mind, the most relevant in the moment Super Bowl performer ever. I can't think of someone else that was at the top of their game and also doing the Super Bowl. In a weird way, like U2 comes to mind in 2002 because they had the comeback with all that you can't leave behind. But even they, you know, that was like 20 years into their career. Right. Kendrick has won in every imaginable fashion.

And yet, like, there's this sort of like, I'm being this like avenging angel quality to this record. It doesn't really fit to me. Like, at what point does that become sort of overbearing with him? Like, are people going to lose patience with that? I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I think people are down for him kind of taking a victory lap with. this one like because you know it's this isn't like a you know mr morale and the big stepers it's not like to pimp a butterfly where it's this huge conceptual uh gambit about like

the state of america it's very much an la album and like a lot of people i know who are like super plugged into la rap or like kind of not offended by this album but like they feel like in a weird way that he's doing the exact thing he cues drake of doing which is kind of glombing on to younger sounds or whatever. Like that stuff, like I don't listen to a lot of Drake or the ruler, so don't listen to me on that one. But, you know, the, the,

if we're going to go with the Super Bowl as like kind of the framing event of this, I think what, what, what, where it didn't land for me is, look, I love petty rap albums. Like, I love beef. The petty or the better. The, like, I mean, it's funny because, like, the one Drake album I've actually enjoyed over the past,

I don't know, since views. I guess more life. I liked a couple songs off that. But it was the one her loss that he did with 21 Savage, only because he leaned into being petty so much, like that I just couldn't help but weirdly admire it. And so the fact that this isn't like a Pulitzer type affair from Kendrick doesn't bother me that much.

What does bother me is that it's like on the first song, he's talking about how Nas is the only one who congratulated him for like, being in the Super Bowl, which I could understand why Nas would do that because, like, Kendrick, God bless him, but, like, he just cannot stop making I gave you power type concept tracks. Reincarnated, Gloria, that is real, like, lyrical, miracle, great grubbing, like, basically Jay Cole type shit. But, like, there's no friction to this album.

And I think that's kind of the problem. It's like, what immediately struck me. is this is like Pat Mahomes at the end of last year's Super Bowl saying no one believed in us. And like, that's the sort of thing you got to say, but like no, everyone believed in you. Or like when Tom Brady or the Patriots would say it, it's like cool to see, like on an objective level, watching Pat Mahomes play is unbelievable. Like he just does shit that like you haven't seen before. And Kendrick's sort of the same way.

But like right now it just feels like kind of corny. It's not like Jay-Z on the blueprint. where people really did doubt him and he had to come back and like you know go against peep like it wasn't like a punching down this feels like a very kind of punching down album which again I'm not against

but it just sounds a little too clean it sounds a little too competent it just doesn't have that friction that real shittiness I guess is the word it always comes back to the shittiness I mean I was thinking about this like is rap music the last

Bastion of rockism that we have left. In some ways, yeah, because I mean, you look at the biggest guys and they're all like syllable counting, like Eminem. Right, exactly. I feel like there's an element of how people talk about Kendrick where it reminds me of how they would talk about Bruce Springsteen in the 80s, you know, where it's not only this person is making great music, but they're making important music. You know, and the fact that they would give him a Pulitzer.

Not saying he doesn't deserve it, but that. just signifies a level of seriousness with which they take him that I don't think is necessarily a great thing for musicians, at least not popular music musicians. I mean, the thing with Drake is that he's obviously a cheeseball. He's obviously done a lot of mercenary things in his career. He probably has a lot of skeezy things in his past. I don't want to make any accusations, but I feel like, you know, those things have been floating around and it feels probably pretty credible.

Because he's lowering up right now, and I don't know if IndyCast can withstand Drake's team. Well, someone made this point the other day on one of the social media platforms that, you know, because he's suing, what is it, like UMG? Yeah. For, I. Slander or something like that? Slander or something like that. And someone was like, you know, like when you file a lawsuit like this, there's discovery. So they can go into your own, you know, text and emails and all that shit.

and like Drake might not want that to happen. But, you know, the thing with Drake, the reason why he's so popular is that he makes music that's very easy to enjoy. You know, it's simple. It's not reinventing the wheel, but, you know, at his best, it's like, oh, this sounds good, and I don't have to think about it all that much. And that's his strength, and it's his Achilles heel, you know. But I feel like in other areas of music, he wouldn't be punished for that.

You know, because we've sort of accepted. for better or worse, that that is an okay way to be if you're making popular music. But in this corner of the musical world, it's like we're going to valorize Kendrick Lamar as being like a guardian of, you know, hip hop ideals and standards and ethics. And I don't know. It takes some of the fun out of listening to him, I have to say, because, you know, at the Super Bowl, he's going to, I'm sure, be amazing. He is a great live performer and he's one of the great live performers on television that we've had

in the modern era. Like, anytime he's on an award show in the past, he is almost always the best person of the night or like one of the best people of the night. So like this Super Bowl halftime show, I have no doubt will be one of the best, probably ever. But it's like, there's just an element of the discourse around him

that just feels a little joyless to me in a way that, like would usually get mocked if we were talking about a rock band. Yeah. I'll quote one of my favorite Tom Bryan reviews. I had to pull this up. He reviewed a Jurassic 5 album. That was like, you know, the most like real hip-hop group ever.

He said, uh, the stray cats never wrote songs about how deaf leopard weren't true to their art form. All right. Well, let's move on here. And man, I feel a little like we're behind the curve on this story because it, it dropped, I feel like right after we recorded last week. Yeah. The news.

So we were late. Yeah, because I think we recorded on Wednesday. I think this poster for Coachella dropped Wednesday afternoon. So, yeah, we're about a week and a half late on this, but we have to talk about it. Because this lineup, I'm going to pull up the poster here. I mean, there's always this thing with Coachella where when they post the lineup and people are like, oh, this looks terrible. Or I don't recognize any of the artists on here. people instinctively jump in and they're like, well, that's because it's not for you or you're too old and that's why you don't recognize this.

And, you know, there is, I'm sure, some truth to that. Why can I not find the real poster? I just found a mock poster with talking heads. Yeah, I was like, what? Did I miss that? And look, there is some truth to that. I mean, you know, Coachella, they've been around for 25 years. I mean, they've been able to stick a.

around because they've reinvented themselves. They're pursuing younger generations. Like at some point, someone realized, oh, we can't just have indie rock bands headlining. We have to have electronic artists headlining. And that's just a reflection of where the kids are at. I'm just trying to vamp here until I can get this poster up. It should not be this hard to Google the poster here, people. But this lineup, I don't know.

because when you look at the headliners, it's not like they're going total Gen Z here. Like I've never heard of these people. You have Lady Gaga on the first night with Missy Elliott, the next biggest person. Green Day on the next day with Charlie XEX below Green Day, which I think people were surprised by. But I would just mention that Charlie XEX had the lowest rated SNL episode

of this season so far. So, you know, maybe not as famous. in the general populace as she seems online. But anyway, like Green Day headlining seems kind of weird. And then you have Post Malone the last night with Megan DeStalian, the next performer. And then he had like Travis Scott. Like what's his thing? Like he's like the curator of the desert.

He's designing the desert. He's the story producer of Coachella. Right. So, and then you get further down the poster. And that's where it just starts feeling like, are these real artists or are you just clowning my 47-year-old ass. Like, are you trying to trick me into thinking that, I don't know, like DJ Gigola? Like, is that a real person or, you know, I dress?

Is that a real person? That person I've heard of. Disco lines. No idea. Someone just called Julie. Well, they're kind of a newish. They sound like Sonic Youth. They dropped an album this year.

It was like on Atlantic. It's like the kind of. kind of big band from the Shugay slash Slowcore thing that people, I wasn't a fan of that record. And I know our friends that N. Let's scroll aren't either. Yeah, like Shugay's band signed to Atlantic doesn't sound very promising unless you're going to tell me it's like Silberson pickups or something like that. But yeah, I don't know, man. Here's the thing I want to say about this.

It's not even a statement. It's more of a question. Coachella has been around for 25 years. They started in 1999. So this will be the 26th installment in 2025. And for as long as we've been in music criticism, music journalism, it's been taken as a given that Coachella is significant, not only as a festival, but as a bellwether for where music is at.

And for years, publications, websites would send critics and journalists to Coachella, and they would look at crowd sizes and they'd say, well, there weren't that many people at this show. that indicates that this kind of music isn't popular anymore, whereas this artist had a huge crowd, and that is, again, a signifier of something larger happening in music. At what point does Coachella no longer get that benefit of the doubt? Are we going to assume that Coachella is going to be relevant forever? Or is there some line where Coachella becomes what Woodstock was to younger generations?

Like, if you're a Zoomer, how relevant is Coachella? Is this something that you feel like belongs to you? Or is this something that millennials cared about? And now millennials are in their late 30s and early 40s. And maybe I don't want to be associated with that. Now, I don't know the answer to that. I'm asking a legitimate question there because maybe they do care about it. But I just feel like the assumption that we have with Coachella,

that we put so much attention every year when this poster comes out. There's so much conversation about it. At what point does Coachella enter its MTV era where it just shows ridiculousness all the time? You know, like, we understand at this point that MTV doesn't really matter. It's more of a nostalgic thing, like when the VMA's air, some people decide to care about it,

and a few pop stars show up and you can prop up the corpse of MTV for another year. I'm not saying Coachella is anywhere near that at this point, But I do feel like it's inevitable that that will happen. And I wonder, to what degree does this lineup indicate that that is maybe accelerating at this point? Yeah, I mean, the interesting thing about the immediate discussion about Coachella being washed and like this lineup shows their wash is that. And I've seen pretty convincing arguments that this, at least the headliners are a response to last year or last year, this year, this most recent. recent year being washed because, yeah, like Lana Del Rey, Tyler the Creator, and Doja Cat, that, you know, that was like a very millennial, you know, if you came up listening to music in

2011 type batch of headliners. And like it just didn't seem to have the juice. And so now they're just going straight stadium status with like Lady Gaga, post Malone, Green Day, like all acts that you wouldn't call like cool or cutting edge, but feel like a pretty good sale. Like I feel like there's the middle is disappearing in that they're going straight like stadium status or a lot of like electronic artists who have been around forever because like I mean this festival's roots are as electronic for the moment like I think orbital or whatever had or the chemical brothers had lined it in 99. But yeah, there's just this weird sort of stratification of like the misfits right next to Charlie XX or Missy Elliott and the prodigy. next to Benson Boone and, you know, Zed and Beba Doobie

next to Kraftwerk. It's also, it's like, is Biba Doobie and Claro's second line headliners? That I don't know. But I do wonder, I'm not inclined to count Coachella out. Like, I remember going in 2009 and thinking, oh, this is

like kind of, this might be the tipping point. This was the year that Paul McCartney, the Killers, and the Cure headline in 2000. I mean, you also look at the 2009 list and they have like silver first day silver sun pickups airborne toxic event caged the elephant deer in the headlights who who could think that this festival was washed up also tv on the radio band of horses fleet foxes uh and mastercraft you you can't count it out because you always assume like regardless of the music like college kids

and la influencer types are a constant and if they don't go away then coach Chola will never go away. But is it going to be Coachella always? And that's the thing. Because at what point do the younger generation say, this is something that, like, my parents did or my older brother and sister did. And I don't really want to be associated with that. In the same way, that happened with Woodstock.

I feel like people just felt like enough with the Woodstock. Right. You know, that's a hippie shit. At what point does Coachella become like millennial shit? And it's like, I don't want to, and cringe. and like they just have some other festival. Maybe it's at the same grounds, but they call it something else. And that becomes the thing.

I mean, I don't think we should assume that they're always going to be around or that they're always going to be relevant. I mean, like, is there ever a point where Coachella becomes more of a nostalgia festival? And they're just trying to get like millennial people to come back and like, hey, remember when you went to this in 2012? and you know, you saw whoever, you know, you saw a grizzly bear and fleet foxes and it was so cool and you met your wife there and now you can go back and see him. I don't know.

I mean, there is something to be said too, because we are in a moment where live music is doing really well, you know, that's a part of the music business that's doing very well. And yet at the same time, you also have a lot of artists who can't afford to tour anymore because of, I mean, it's just expensive to tour, but, But also, you know, we've had this thing since the pandemic where it feels like there's so many people on the road and they're all, you know, relying on touring to sustain themselves. And it just gets hard if you are in that sort of lower economic strata as an artist to keep up. And I wonder if there's some sort of effect on festival lineups where we've got the huge stars that play arenas, you know, like Green Day did a stadium tour this year. you know, Charlie X-CX did an arena tour.

She's not even the headliner here. She's the second headliner, I guess, on both Saturdays. She's just doing an arena tour, and that's going to continue on into 25. But, like, as you get down these posters, like, who are the bands that are there to plug in? You know, like the middle class of artists is kind of disappearing. And maybe it is also a matter of supply. I mean, DJs do these festivals because that's what younger audiences want, but it's also like, they're more sort of in the infrastructure of festivals already in a way that like a lot of maybe indie rock bands are not. Right.

And I mean, you mentioned, I can't move on from this discussion before I actually bring up the 2012 Coachella poster, which I went to Friday night, Black Keys headline. And if you look at the bottom, the very smallest print on Friday night. you will see Kendrick Lamar next to Deer Hunter. He is under Band of Skulls and Atari Teenage Riot in 2012. That was also the year he played Pitchfork Festival at like 445 on the blue stage where like Japan droids played. Yeah, I think that like, yeah, with Coachella, there's just so many things that if Coachella feels washed, it's because a lot of things just kind of feel washed right now. I think we're in kind of like a hypomanic state in America where it's just like really hard to like look at the future and feel like a ton of hope.

And so I think Coachella is like kind of symptomatic of that as well. And you look at like, you know, with Pitchfork Festival calling it off. Yeah. I mean, well, on the one on the I can say that about Coachella like globally. But you know, Jimmy Eat World's on there. So there's probably a new Jimmy Eight World album on the way. So I got that to look forward to. But otherwise.

it's yeah i just i just don't know because i've read recaps of it and they'll talk about like all these bands that you and i aren't familiar with where it's like oh yeah this is like a band by the guy from stranger things and they have a huge song on ticot this is just another reflection of how i think we're really starting to see between this and the election and so many other things just how vast of a generation gap the pandemic produced because there are things whether it's like baseball or you know music or hip hop or like publications movies tv shows like tv stars where i'm like i don't know like i was alive and culturally aware during this time and i have no fucking idea what's going on like things just progressed in a way that i just cannot grasp um and i just have to

uh you know kind of just kind kind of kind of take a step back and be an observer rather than a participant You know, maybe that's the move. Well, on that note, let's go to our mailbag segment. Yeah, a place where we do feel relevant. And I think we have time for one letter here. And I'll read this one. This is a follow-up to our dudes rock QB question that we got in the mailbag last week. And I wanted to read this one because I feel like it's representative of a lot of the messages that we got.

This comes from Devin in Connecticut, or as he puts it, CT. Good to hear from you, Devin. Devin says, hey guys, I love what you do, but you really drop the ball by not selecting Gardner Minshu as the dude's rock and quarterback. He wears jorts. He has Mississippi mudflap for a nickname. He has totally irrational confidence to burn. And he often uses, he often lives in a very vexas. and seems just a little out there mentally.

To me, he absolutely has that out of his mind, drummer energy, great topic, go birds. Oh, Devin, why did you say go birds at the end? Well, because maybe Garden Munchu did have, he had a pretty decent run for the Eagles in 2021. And that's because of that, you know, not his shitty raiders career. That's what's on his Wikipedia page.

He definitely looks like a Stillwater extra and almost famous. He is actually from Mississippi because like, wait a minute, didn't he got out of Washington State, but that was like a Mike. Mike Leach's kind of, you know, RIP was kind of a dude's rock coach. So yeah. I got to say, I don't go deep on Gardner Minshue, so I wasn't aware that his nickname was Mississippi Mudfleck. I did not know that either. That's a total, uh, uh, that's news to me. And by the way, I don't want to, I'm sorry to take a shot at the birds there. I know there's a lot of birds fans out there, especially in the Philly indie rock scene. The birds are doing really well right now. Yes, they are back. Your buffoonish head coach probably saved his job. I don't know if that's

a good or bad thing, but he's doing really well. They're looking like, they're the only team that can challenge the Lions right now in the NFC. I mean, they're looking completely fucked up thing. Like, oh yeah, the Eagles, the Eagles and the Lions, they're looking like really built for the playoffs this year. Love it. Yeah. But, yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah. But, yeah, but, yeah. But, yeah, We had a lot of Minchu shooters in our mailbag. I actually saw one person, I think this was on social media said, How dare you not talk about Gardner Minchu? Like there was some righteous indignation in this person's,

it wasn't their voice because I was reading their words, but they were like, how dare you not talk about him? So Gardner Minchew, a lot of fans out there for him. I was not aware that he had this much of a following, but yeah, people really love him as. a dudes rock quarterback yeah and also he's on the raiders like a completely terrible raiders team so i think that gives you points as a dude's rock uh quarterback but where i fucked up and people pointed this out is just not looking at uGA uh you know the dogs because stets and bennett the fourth

i mean this guy embos it's not like dudes rock and that they look like they could be in molly hatchet or something like that but he's like a dudes rock dude and that he looks like he like kind of like elion like he could own a car dealership in, you know, another life. But here's a guy, like, no real physical talent. I mean, he's a talented guy, obviously. But he's like, he doesn't stand out. And he beat out Justin Field and Jake Fromm, a couple five-star recruits to keep winning the UGA starting job. And he won two championships.

And immediate, like, he completely tanked his draft status because he, like, he got caught on video being, like, drunk as fucking Dallas. And I'm pretty sure, you know, after he got drafted by the Rams, he was kind of putting quietly in rehab and on the physically unable to playlist. We don't condone, you know, alcohol use disorder here on Indycast, but like Stets and Bennett, it's like cash in a check and going to rehab and, you know, kind of Aerosmith type lifestyle. Like, you know, maybe he makes his comeback and, you know, takes the reins from Matt Stafford, who, despite having a cannon arm, extremely dudes rock guy. There's a great picture. You can look it up where he's at a UGA party. He's like 18. He's like doing like a deadlift with a keg in front of like a sorority girl.

So yeah, Matt Stafford's definitely good old boy, dude's rock. And he also looks like Jason Isbell. Yes, he does. So like if you look like an actual rocker, then you have to be a dudes rock quarterback. Yeah, especially if it, I mean, if you look like Jason Isbell, like that's dudes rock. If you look like Patterson Hood's slightly more dudes rock, but if you're a quarterback who looks like Mike coolly. And I think that's where Gardner Minchew might cut. They looks nothing like him, but he's the closest. Now, we're just the part of our episode that we call 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, you know, first and foremost, watch the Yacht Rock documentary. Watch it early, watch it often. But, you know, after your third or so watch, if you need to find a different sort of documentary to watch while you're decorating your Christmas tree or whatever, I stumbled the point. fanatical, the catfishing of Tegan and Sarah on Hulu last week. Kind of surprised there isn't more conversation around it because, you know, Tegan and Sarah is a band that wasn't super critically acclaimed their time. They've obviously proved to be very important.

And, you know, I was never a Tegan and Sarah guy, but they orbited music, you know, that I liked in the 2000. So this kind of looks at their rise as far as like what, you know, I dislike the part where they're seen as this like counter programming to you know the shallow music of the 2000s then they show smash mouth nickel back and fallout boy like three completely different band three different eras but nonetheless um so what happens in this movie is that they get popular you know largely through early social media my space message boards and then somebody steals tegan's identity like gets like passport photos and demos and intimate documents and they start reaching out to tegan and sarah fans kind of catfishing them

and it's a person or persons, and it just shows how it evolves over 10 years. And it's like one of the most terrifying movies I've ever seen, horror or not. It just makes you kind of want to delete every single piece of yourself from the internet. But nonetheless, it's a great insight, not just in how musicians have to navigate the internet in the modern day, but yeah, just how dark music fandom,

can be. And also like how Teagan and Sarah were going through all this as they got more popular than ever as they kind of did their synth pop-re-re brand. So it's on Hulu, fanatical, catfishing of Tegan and Sarah. Worth watching you if you don't really care about the band. Definitely watching if you, you know, live through that era. Yeah, I like Tegan and Sarah, like that album, The Khan, which would have been like, I guess, like 07 or so. Yeah, that was like their first breakthrough. Yeah. Produced by Chris Walla, I think. Yeah, good record. That movie. is directed by Aaron Lee Carr, who also made the Britney Spears documentary from a few years ago. That was good.

I just wish it wasn't on Hulu. I have so many streaming platform subscriptions that to add another one is just irritating to me. So hopefully there's another season of Justified. So I'll have an excuse to get Hulu. I can watch that and I can watch this Tegan and Sarah Doc because it does look good. But yeah, I just wish it wasn't on Hulu. So I'm doing a lot of year-end stuff right now, which means I'm listening to albums that I've liked throughout the year,

and I'm also trying to catch up on records that I maybe missed, you know, in recent months. So one record that I've been enjoying lately, I don't know if it's going to make my list, but I do think it's worth checking out if you haven't already. It's called Enough, and it's by a band called Office Culture. And with a band name like that, you might think, oh, this is another British post-punk band. You know, monotone vocals, jagged guitar riffs. But this is actually a band that is timely enough with the Yacht Rock documentary. Definitely drawing inspiration from the Yacht Rock world of the late 70s and early 80s,

which means, you know, there's a good amount of keyboards and fretless bass and things like that. I feel like the modern master of this kind of music where it's like an indie person doing sort of like a postmodern take on Yacht Rock is West. And he put, his album last year was on my year-end list. I think he's really great, really making sort of like an arty, deconstructed version of Yacht Rock where, you know, it, it doesn't sound exactly like that kind of music, but it has elements of it. And it's mixed with, you know, like the more sort of modern, arty R&B artists of like the last, you know, 10, 15 years, people like James Blake and how to dress well, which has never been a scene. I've been. terribly fond of. Like, whenever artists from the indie world do the yacht rock thing, I always

kind of wish it was more like yacht rock and not like this sort of like, again, deconstructed, not terribly funky, kind of like emotional. I'm putting emotional in air quotes. There's definitely elements of that, I think, on the record by office culture, and that's probably the parts I like the least. But like when they really lean into the soft rock of it all, I find the record really enjoyable. I mean, obviously, this is something that's in my wheelhouse. It's the kind of music I like. So things that draw on that and find new things to do with it is always going to be appealing to me.

And I think this album does that enough, pardon the pun, for me to recommend it. So it's called Enough. The band is called Office Culture. Yeah, mellow, soft rock with a yacht rock flavor and maybe a little bit of R&B in there as well. And you went this far without mentioning the fact that. like, you know, one of the guys in the band, Winston, Winston Cook Wilson is like a pitchfork guy, and there's like Sam Satomsky also a pitchfork guy is on this album.

So it's definitely of the music writer world. Yeah, you can feel the critic element of the album for sure, which is something that appeals to me as a music critic. I do find that interesting, the conceptual stuff. It's just a shame that like artists now who want to make this kind of music, They don't have the budget to really go all out where you can hire just kick-ass musicians and have incredible engineers and just have all of the sounds be immaculate. You can't really do that right now unless you are a Kendrick Lamar.

Kendrick Lamar, make a yacht rock record. That would be amazing. That about does it for this episode of Indycast. 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 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.