Indiecast - Indiecast Hands Out The Mid-Year Indiecasties For 2024

Episode Date: June 21, 2024

Today's episode begins with Steven confronting Ian over a difficult subject: The big plate of donuts that Ian stole from Steven at his book event in Los Angeles last week (0:25). Will the guys be able to get past this? Yes, they will. But not before some serious donut shaming! After resolving the donut issue, they briefly discuss Steven's plans to see the Pixies, Modest Mouse, and Cat Power on the same bill, and the Pixies' weird status post-reunion in the 21st century (8:59).After that, they finally get down to the task of handing out their mid-year Indiecasties (16:41). Categories include: Most Valuable Album Cycle (18:13), Most Memory-Holed Album (25:19), Most Annoying Music Writer Story (32:53), Most Fun Music Writer Story (39:58), and Most Overrated Album (47:02). Remember: Everybody is a winner at the Indiecasties. It's an honor just to be nominated!In Recommendation Corner, Ian talks up the new album from Annabel while Steven raves about the latest from This Is Lorelei (53:29).New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 194 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 Uprox's Indy Mix tape. Hello everyone and welcome to Indycast. On this show, we talk about the biggest indie news of the week, review albums, and we hash out trends. In this episode, we hand out our mid-year Indycastes. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. He took all the Indycast-themed donuts in L.A. before I could get one. Ian Cohen, Ian, how are you?

And seeing as how our listeners need no context whatsoever to establish what Steve's talking about. Let's just go ahead and move. Let's just move on. No, no, no, I'll give him context. So, okay, so we banked our episode last week because I was in L.A. doing a book event with Ian. We were at Book Soup in West Hollywood on the 11th, which is already 10 days ago. That's crazy. It doesn't seem that long ago. But anyway, we had a great event. A lot of people came out. A lot of indie cast listeners were there. And there were two people in particular, who brought like a huge box of donuts. And I don't, how many donuts were in there?

Like 12? Okay, so there was Steve. 14 maybe? Well, let's see. If it spelled out our names and letters, there's at least eight, but there are also quite a few, like, mini donuts, munchkins in Dunkin' Donuts, parlance. So, yeah, quite a few. And these were, like, fancy donuts.

These are not just, you know, your simple, run-of-the-mill glazed, you know, circle gas station donuts these were like obviously made with love and care and uh they brought it up to the little lectern or wherever i was at signing books and they they gave them to us it was amazing such a nice gesture and then before i know it Ian and his lovely wife are high tailing it out of the bookstore because they have to get back to san diego with donuts and tow i didn't get a single Donut. You guys took all the donuts. You took all the donuts.

This is the first time I've been able to confront you about this. I wanted to do it publicly, so there would be a record of this trial. But I think I saw the smoke actually underneath your feet as you were leaving the bookstore with donuts in tow. And I'm just saying, it was my event. I think it was for both of us, but like, I don't know. I think I would have liked one donut, Ian. is all I'm saying. One donut.

Because, look, I don't need any donuts, really. It's probably for the best. I didn't even have one donut. But I'm just saying, you guys, it was like you were robbing a bank, except it was a bookstore and you took some donuts. Yeah, this is, you know, I actually think about, like, the,

uh, the symbolism, but the parallel where my wife and I had a donut tower at our wedding and, like, she, we didn't get one because we were just, like, so busy with everything that by the time we got back to it. So I don't think it was like some sort of carmic makeup call, but I did realize like as soon, like five minutes after I'm like, shit,

we took all the donuts. Because like, yeah, the first thing on mine is like, shit, it's like 8.30. We got to get back to San Diego at a decent hour. And, you know, what's Steve? I don't know, maybe Steve wants to bring them on the plane or whatever else he did. But yeah, that was just faux paw on my part.

Yeah, I'll, I'll comment. You were always going to get most of the donuts because there's no way I was going to carry this huge box of donuts back to my hotel room and then get on a plane the next morning. I would have had to literally check this box of donuts. I wouldn't have been very Bruce Springsteen like for you to go back to your hotel and eat a bunch of donuts. Yeah, probably not. But it's okay. I like this idea of a reverse pay it forward where you aren't like doing someone a. favor by paying it forward, you're actually taking their donuts.

So, like, someone took your donuts and then you took these donuts. So at some point, I'm going to do a reverse pay it forward with somebody where I'm going to take their big box of donuts and have them all for myself. No, it's, look, it's for the best. I do not need donuts. I was eating very poorly on that trip anyway. I went to L.A. landmark Bob's Big Boy for lunch. The OG.

With some friends. The OG one apparently. In Burbank, right? In Burbank, yeah. I was in Burbank. Sunny Burbank, California. Went to the Bob's Big Boy, got the Big Boy special, which is like the double burger with like the bun in the middle.

It's like their Big Mac essentially. And it killed my stomach. Like in a good way. Like I was done for the rest of the day. Because I went out to dinner with you and I didn't eat. because I was still full from Bob's big boy. So, anyway. We should mention that these are like emo-themed donuts.

They got it from a donut friend, which is a place in L.A. that was started by Mark Trombino, the guy from Drive Lake Jayhu produced Jimmy Eat World Clarity and some other albums from Southern California punk-pop institutions. I don't know, Blink 1-82, probably. But no, good donut place.

They did their homework. It was awesome. It was a great jazz. and I brought the leftovers into work the next day, but I, like, scrambled up the letters just like, just so I, like, hey, where'd you get these donuts, Ian? I mean, it was cool to say, like, hey, we had a fan of ours who made a donut arrangement that spelled out our name.

But, you know, I had to practice a little bit of modesty there. So I showed him the OG picture, but, uh, yeah, I think by that time it was like sleeve and Anne or like sieve and Anne. Yeah. Well, next time I'm in L.A., if there's any listeners that want to get me some donuts, I would love that. Maybe not so many donuts, so it's a little more portable. And also, so my gut does not grow even larger than it already is. Let's try a fruit bag.

Let's do fruit basket. How about that? Like some nice local farmer's market produce. But seriously, such a nice show. Yeah, it was, we were very touched by that and all the other, everyone else that came out. It was very cool. Quick housekeeping thing. I'm actually doing another book event.

Next month, I'm going to be in Chicago at a great music venue, The Hideout. I'll be there July 9th. I'm going to be there with my... One of my other podcasting husbands, Rob Mitchum, we will be in conversation.

Probably talking about Bruce Springsteen, but maybe we'll talk about the Grateful Dead. Maybe we'll talk about the Packers versus the Chicago Bears, do a little sports cast inside the book event. Who knows. Got a lot of friends in Chicago. I'd love to see you out there.

Billy Corrigan, if you're listening, I'm putting you on the guest list. Don't have to pay to get in, buddy. You get in for free, absolutely. Also, the fridge, William, refrigerator Perry. If you still live in Chicago, you're on the guest list too. So, yeah, come up for that. These book events have been really fun.

Oh, the fridge is still alive. I thought he had passed away. No, he's still alive. He's still alive. Yeah, good for him. Yeah, because he's alive and Walter Pitton died. Yes. You never would have predicted that.

As Steve McMichael, if he's not, he's struggling too. It's, yeah, 85 Bears. It's sort of like the 93 Phillies, man. Just a real kind of messed up post-mortem for like a really lovable dirtbag team. Well, and like, I'm a Packer fan. I hate the Bears, but I kind of have some affection for the 85. bears, I have to admit. A lot of characters on that team. The Super Bowl shuffle, the greatest musician, rock song of all time. Do I see musician? The greatest athlete rock song of all time.

Or that's not really a rock song. It's like a, it's like a rap. It's like a rap. Yeah. The rapping. Yeah, it's like sort of like an old school rap, like freestyle sort of thing. There's definitely a genre in which it was made. But yeah, I like that Super Bowl shuffle. I mean, you know, we, Maybe we can do like an indie cast about like our favorite athlete You know music I mean Shaq Fu Not no Shaq Diesel has to be there

Shack Fu was a video game Yeah they don't make they don't make a musician They don't make athlete video games That are kung fu the way they used to So We are the Bears Shuffling Proof Shuffle on down

Doing it for you We're so bad We know we're good Going on down to your neighborhood I wanted to throw this out there quick. I am going to an oldies indie rock show tonight. I'm going to see the Pixies, Modest Mouse, and Cat Power. They're playing here in Minneapolis.

I've never seen the Pixies or Modis Mouse before. I've seen Cat Power. I saw her recently, actually, when she did her great Dylan show. I don't know if she's doing that tonight. I seriously doubt it. That might be kind of weird. Yeah. I would think she's doing cat power songs, but you never know.

Excited to see Modest Mouse, big fan of that band. I'm curious what they're going to be like now. Pixies, they're a weird band. Have you seen the Pixies live ever? I'm not surprised that you said like you've never seen Pixies or Modest Mouse because my experience is that the Pixies were like a band that would always be playing at a festival I'm at. but I would never see them.

I did, like the one time where I was, like, seated and watching the Pixies, it was when they did, I don't want to call it a co-headlining tour, but they were opening for Weezer. This was like 2017 or 18 or something like that. And I've just never seen a more phoned in ban than the Pixie. Like, they were just so miserable looking. And, like, that's it. The thing is with them, like, these are the only kind of tours they do nowadays where they link up with some 90s or later alt rock type band that's way more popular than them but like their

influence allows them to be on there and you know it's they just look so gassed so cash in a paycheck and you know they don't even have i don't think the deal sisters are involved anymore so like whatever vener haven't been for a long time yeah whatever veneer of coolness that and because like i think it's like fair to say that like the breeders are far more uh cool now than the pixies like it's just not even close it's a weird trajectory for them because they have this run in the 80s early 90s and they're really at that time considered like one of the coolest bands around and definitely one of the more influential rock bands of their era i mean looking ahead to alternative rock in the 90s I mean the pixies are obviously a fun

foundational band at that point. And then they, you know, they break up. Frank Black has a solo career. And then they get back together in 2004. So 20 years ago. Actually, I think their first show was in the Twin Cities. If I recall, I think it was at the 400 bar here in, which is no longer open. But I'm sure Frank Black will say something about that from the stage.

How many of you were here at our show 20 years ago? Yeah. It's like, no, you weren't. But anyway, I'm sure they've made a ton more money in the last 20 years than they did in the 80s and 90s when they were putting out these classic records. So good for them, cashing in, but I don't know. I just feel like that's totally changed how they're looked at. Yeah. This weird kind of reunion period where I think they put out an EP 10 years ago.

They put out a couple albums, I think. That no one remembers. Yeah, they were like, you know, I think that like the sort of people who were like invest in, like, I'll just admit right now, we talked about this on a previous episode of like artists who, uh, we like the bands they've influenced like the ripoffs more than the original article. And I think that's kind of how I feel about the pixies. I never had much of a pixies, uh, sort of phase. So from 2014 on, 2014, by the way, I've not seen yet a 10 year anniversary. piece on Indy Cindy. That came out in April 2014, so you completely miss that music writers.

Then they did Head Carrier, Beneath the Irie, and Doggerald. They put out four albums since 2015. I can think of like a few band. That's like more than like the war on drugs, right? Yeah. And like, look, it's hard for an older band because you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. You get criticized if you're just doing the nostalgia. show, you're just playing your greatest hits, but then you put out new music and people

don't respect it or they don't get into it. Like, I understand that. That's not a fair, you know, situation to be in. But at the same time, I don't know. I'm kind of with you on the influence thing. Like, I, I appreciate, like, doolittle and Surfer Rosa. Again, they're classic records. But if I'm being honest, I am like you, I probably care more about the bands that rip them off. Like, Toadie's rubber necker. I definitely listen to Toadie's rubbernecker, just the fact that, like, how much I listened to it in like 93 or 94, probably listen to that more than like, you know, Surfer Rosa or Doolittle or Tromp Lamon, you know. Or a little band that I like to call Nirvana. Yes.

I'm talking about the real pixies rip-offs. Like, yeah, like, like, like, Todies were like the candlebox of pixies or whatever, more so than like the candlebox of Nirvana. I only know their big hit. Possum Kingdom. I know that song, and I love that song. I don't know any other TOTI songs. Is it worth investigating further?

I come from the waters and cut like Tyler, the big power ballad that somehow got a lot of radio airplay on WDRE in Philadelphia. Backslider, that's a good song. I mean, it's got, I mean, it's just like,

it's sort of like Razor Blade suitcase kind of if I can yeah just in the in the sense that it's like complete pastiche but just kind of

trashy pop I don't know if it's held up I remember buying the follow-up it's like hell below stars above they like released this second album in like 2001 when I was in the middle of college

I bought it for I don't know why the fuck I bought it it was not good that was I spent 15 on it in the time where I did not have $15. But I also remember the bassist wore like Dallas Stars hockey jersey in the video, and that was pretty sick.

Yeah, I like that. I like the whole musicians wearing jerseys. You know, Stephen Stills, I think, innovated that. He was, and then Christopher Cross was doing that a lot too in the 70s. It's a pretty good look. I like that. Got to bring that back. Robert Smith, there's a great picture of him.

and like probably the worst era for like new cure music. I think this is like wild mood swings era. He's wearing the, he's wearing a New York Islanders hockey jersey, but like the Gorton Fisherman one where they changed the logo for like a year or two and it's just the swagiest picture ever taken by anyone. Look it up y'all.

He's a big sports fan apparently. Dude's rock. I know like when he played the Twin Cities, they gave him, a hockey jersey. Yeah. There's a, there's,

because there's a subreddit, where it's just, in the, our backslash, the cure, Robert Smith and hockey jerseys. This is, and it's not as big

of a subreddit as I was hoping for, but it's, it's a subreddit. Yeah, love it. Let's get to our indie casties here. If you are familiar with our show, you know what the indie castes are.

It's the most prestigious award in music. It's an award that, and I give out in various categories. We do it at the end of the year, but we also do it in the middle of the year. And for those who are wondering, I've seen some people ask about this on social media. We are doing a mid-year albums list episode. It's going to be next week, which, by the way, is the middle of the year. Like, end of June, that is the middle of the year.

We are respecting the calendar this year. And by the way, we're respecting the calendar because my editor wanted my column on my favorite album. of the year so far at the end of June. If you had asked for it at the end of May, I would have done it at the end of May. So I'm not holding myself above other critics who already did their mid-year list. I'm doing it because like anyone, I have to listen to my editor. However, we are respecting the calendar, so we are better than every other music critic on the planet right now. I think it's fair to say that.

Plus, I mean, there's a new guided by voices album coming out on the 28th. We got to give that time, you know, to sink in. Hey, Dave had some good records last. Several years. There's been a little bit of a comeback in the GBV world. We've been very excited about recent GB records. So you say that sarcastically, but who knows? Or they might release an album on the 30th. I mean, we also got to imagine dragons next week. We'll Yadi and James Blake, which I know you'll be stoked about. Oh yeah, James Blake. Oh man, just the coolest guy in the world. Let's get to our first category. Most valuable album cycle. And I just have to say, like before we get

to our nominees, not a great half year for album cycles. We haven't really had some of the really kind of fun semi-trained rec-y album cycles that we've had in recent years that just gave us a lot of content and were really fun to talk about. It hasn't really happened as much this year, at least from my point of view, I wonder what you think about that. But one thing I blame is that artists, especially like superstar artists, they don't do interviews anymore. What was the last time Taylor Swift didn't interview with anyone?

What was the last time like any big time star like that didn't interview? It doesn't happen really anymore. Did she go? I don't think, and I'm pretty sure the answer is no, but when she was a time person of the year last year, I don't think, did Taylor Swift do an interview there? She did. Okay, I got it. She did, but it was the most stage managed interview ever.

And the right, I mean, we talked about that. The writer was so in the tank. Yeah. You remember, like, how AP they hired a Taylor Swift reporter? I thought that was USA Today. Oh, okay, whatever. USA Today. Yeah, most memory hold music journalism jobs.

That's a new category. I guess so. There was like a whole kerfuffle about, oh, my God, USA Today's hiring a Taylor Swift reporter. And then the dude falls off the face of the planet. Like, I have not heard from this person. He's been disappeared. Where are the breaking scandals? Where is the water gate?

of Taylor Swift, this person ought to be breaking news left and right. We won't get ahead of ourselves because maybe there is something that he stumbled upon that comes up in our most annoying music writer's story. We'll see. I don't know. I'm just saying I'm a little disappointed by USA Today's Taylor Swift coverage. I thought we would be getting some revelations here, but it's been crickets here ever since that was announced.

Anyway, most valuable album cycle, the nominees are Taylor Swift. By default, I guess. You gotta complain about her or you love her or whatever. Kings of Leon, kind of an ironic nomination. One of the more memory hold albums of the year, which we'll get to you here in a minute, memory hold albums. St. Vincent, kind of a sentimental nomination. I put that one in there.

Cindy Lee, a good, like a feel-good, I guess, nominee there. And then you put Dive. I did. They had the Fred Durst video where they, fake S&L, good interviews. I think they really hit the, I think they really hit it hard with the press junket. They did. I interviewed them. I thought, I thought they were good. Yeah, they definitely are the opposite of the superstar musicians. They definitely went under the, you know, went into the focus of journalists here with interviews for sure. So anyway, those are the nominees.

What do you think, Ian? What is the most valuable album cycle? of the first half of 2024. Yeah, I think you're right in saying that, like, last year might have been a Wenbenyama draft, whereas we got, like, Zachary Risha Shea and, like, Alex Saar and Reed Shepherds here. You know, it's not a good, not a good year to have the number one draft pick. But, um, I don't know. Like, I feel as if, like, our own indie cat, like, our own indie cast fantasy draft should be there. Just, uh, because, like, I think more people were, like, entertained by the run up to those albums.

but I mean there's a part of me I want to say that like there was a valiant attempt to be a most valuable album cycle by Billy Elish now that I think about it but I think it just seemed like a little too a little too like kind of

forced provocative and also like Phineas afterwards that if we want to count that of him saying that like basically seeing pitch for it's like 2004 but well we should say like Billy Ilish did the Rolling Stone interview where she said among other things that she likes to masturbate in front of a mirror. I think that was the poke quote from that interview,

which speaks to your point about maybe trying a little too hard. Because that album is pretty boring, I think. I don't know, that album. That album's not memory hold, but it's been memory muted, I think, a little bit. Yeah, so I would say that, like, the most valuable album cycle, I put dive in there just, you know, I'm going to put them in there and although it's not the most

I guess memorable album cycle what I will say is that dive I mean they've been around since 2011 you know ocean came out in 2012 and this is a band right here that understands how music journalism should work which is that you're going to do 10 interviews

with like the same publications they are job creators dive are you know St Vincent I would I think this is sort of like in the NFL how if offensive lineman makes the pro bowl and like their third year they're going to continue to make it every year until like they retire she's just kind of grandfathered in as far as I'm concerned because there was that photo of her and Johnny Depp.

Oh yeah. That came out. So because her actual album cycle, you know, whatever was fine. She couldn't help but like have an entertaining album cycle because when the when the album cover drop. This was when someone had self-immolated. I believe in front of the White House. So, like, St. Vincent, like, the old

instinct is there. Like, I just wish you would lean into it. Yeah. So I'm going to go with that. Daddy's home. Yeah, Daddy's Home is such a masterpiece. It's hard to follow that up. I'm going to say Kings of Leon just because I love I want to remind people that this album

exists. Can we please have fun? Apparently, they worked with Harry Stiles's producer on this record, you would think that that would have gotten a little bit of mileage with the music press. Not at all. The episode where we talked about that record, that was our lost episode. So, like, even people who are trying to talk about this record are being prevented from doing it.

I'm sure that by me just bringing it up again, there's going to be some weird glitch in the episode where this whole thing that I'm talking about is muted. It's only going to be my, it's only going to be like your side of the conversation. No one's going to be able to hear what I'm saying. There's like some weird kind of like haunted quality to this record that's preventing people talking about it. So it's sort of like an anti-valuble album cycle for me, I guess.

But I have to give it the award. I think it's fair. Anything that like we're going to like talk ourselves into loving this album. I just love how this is like Kings of Leon have given us so much more than we could have hoped for. This is definitely playing. It's like a what's that like VORP Value Over Replacement album. You know, if we want to get like super deep into like analytics with Indycast. Yeah, it's so outperforming.

All right, let's go to our next category. Memory Hold album. And I should say that I wrote a column for Uprocks about memory hold albums. I think 2024 has been a really strong year for albums that people can't remember coming out this year. So this was actually something we had to narrow down a little bit, but I think we've got a good body of nominees this year. Justin Timberlake, who I guess got a publicity bump this week after getting pulled over for DUI. I don't know if that's going to go back on the album. I feel like people don't remember the album. No. Even with this DUI. Like the New York

Times story? Not even the cop remembered it. Right. Well, the New York Times story too. I don't know if you saw this, but they like bent over backward to call Timberlika has been. They kept calling him like, you know, once was one of the most prominent pop stars ever. I did see that part.

They said that a few times. I was like, God damn, that's brutal. I mean, this album is forgotten. And by the way, do we know the title of the record? It's not Man of the Woods, so I'm fucked, man. It's a longer title than that. Man of the Woods was a

catchy album title. Everything I thought it was is the name of the record. Cool. Okay. So that's a strong nominee. Ariana Grande another nominee. She's had some songs that have done pretty well in the charts, but I feel like that record really got swallowed up

in the Taylor Swift tied. Taylor Swift, Cowboy Carter Tide. Green Day. They're like the St. Vincent of this category. They're just like there every year regardless of whether or not they put out an album. Yeah, they've had a Sout 20 years of memory hold albums.

A hell of a run by Green Day. Casey Musgraves. She put out a record Deeper Well earlier this year. If you really don't remember, she won Album of the Year Grammy several years ago for her album Golden Hour. I feel like ever since then, I don't know.

It's like the John Madden curse for music. Because I don't know. I feel like she's been totally memory hold ever since Golden Hour. That's usually like best new artist that kind of gets memory hold like that. But yeah, Golden Hour, I thought you were about to say the one that came after that that she won album in the year for, like, kind of like her and Billy Eilish being just like perma

Grammy nominees for the rest of their lives. Well, the one after that, I think was memory hold too. Yeah. I don't think, I can't, and I can't remember the name of that album. And then Oliver Anthony, and you put this in there. And I actually went into my column to add Oliver Anthony. Because I had forgotten that this album came out. It's called hymnal of a troubled man's mind, I believe, is the album title.

Yeah. Oliver Anthony, of course, if you remember, he was a lightning rod in 2023. His song where he's talking about fudge rounds and all that stuff. Big hit, big viral hit in 2023. But he put out an album this year. Himnal of a troubled man's mind, which I love that title. I think he actually put it out. I think it was just like a lot of covers.

It was intentionally kind of subdued. I don't think he, I don't think it was meant as the, you know, the big capitalization on Richmond, north of Richmond. I believe that's what the song's called. But of course, we're just going to call it fudge rounds now.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. Are you caping for Oliver Anthony here? I am not. I'm explaining because. Okay. Yeah, because I do wonder like what a real. like a real album with like some promotion behind it. Like this was seen to be like kind of one of those

I'm trying to think like this happened a lot in like rap back in the 90s where you get like a big hit single and maybe you'd like rush out in EP or like Cole a bunch of like like you know what I think like what happened with like ludicrous like once your fantasy came out. Like he had this kind of old independent album that was like kind of just booted out like really quick before he made back for the first time,

which is a great album. all right well there you have it Ian justifying the forgotten hymnal of a troubled man's mind so I'm gonna guess that you're not gonna give him the memory hold album Indy

where are you going with this then yeah I think there has to be like a big distinction between like what it was expected and what actually happened so I mean Justin Timberlake I think like we talked about it in a previous episode this album's like memorable for being memory hold.

So it's like you know that he put out an album this year, but you can't remember its name. You can't remember, you know, like any of the singles. And I think flops are one thing, but it's like the kind of, this album was supposed to do it be a bigger deal, and then nothing really happened. So I'm thinking like Ariana Grande,

even though there are hits, this is an album that got so immediately consumed by Taylor Swift, and also, I think, the Kendrick and Drake beef, that just, like, created this title wave that wipe things out. And so I'm going to go with that, although I'm not a real believer in it, it just seems like the best, the, I guess the most illustrated of what this year was like where there's been just like two or three massive, all-consuming stories that wipe out even, you know, people at her level or even like Duolipa, for that matter.

So, well, I was going to say Duolipa was not nominated. and I think she would have actually been a strong candidate for this. Her album actually, I think like the Ariana Grande record. Actually, Ariana Grande, I think debuted at number one. Doa Lipa debuted at number two, as did the Casey Musgraves record. And then I feel like they both just fell off the face of the earth after that. I am going to go with Timberlake for most memory hold album because this was a record that didn't even get a backlash really.

Like there was like a little bit of negative press Like when he released his first single But Timberlake The narrative has turned around on him so much Where people just want to hate him I think But they even forgot to hate him When that record came out

Like that's how quickly that went So I really think that deserves The memory hold Indycasti Even though we now have You know this week again He got pulled over for DUI And there was like a lot of Schadenfreude

online about that. To a degree that I find like a little gross, I think, you know, let's settle down here. Okay, it's never good when someone gets pulled over for drunk driving. You know, I do feel like that might be a sign that there's some darker

things going on maybe in his life. So I don't know. I don't know if we have to spike the football over that exactly. But anyway, I do think he deserves the memory hold Indycasti. So truly fell from top 10 to not mention it at all. It's like, man, like it's sort of like Green Day. Like, you can't even, like, it's not even worth hating them anymore. But yeah, I do feel like there's kind of a piling on with Justin Timberlake.

And, you know, I get it, but I also don't really. Yeah, he's still, he's still a human being. You know, I hope he gets some help or just reinvents himself as like this kind of bad boy of like Memphis rap. All right, let's get to our next category. This is another big one. Most annoying music writer's story. These are stories that really caught on among music writers online. And of course, because it's music writers talking about it, it got to be very annoying very quickly.

So the nominees are Charlie XX versus Taylor Swift. This is a new, or I guess kind of like a latecomer entry. I guess the idea here being like who's more culturally relevant. Is that the question? Yeah, it's like who's more culturally relevant like sales versus influence and also this And I don't know if this is untrue, but I think Taylor Swift released like a A deluxe or some other type of version of the tortured poets department That knocked Charlie XX out of the number one spot in the UK

By the way, like I'm going to put out something here that's like I don't know where I'm going with this This could be a very dangerous thing to say but like relative to like what we expected versus how much people are talking about it is tortured poets department kind of memory hold i don't think so that's still like the number one album in the country uh i feel like it's still rolling along pretty well it'd be hard for me to justify that um i will say maybe cowboy carter a little bit but i don't know we may be going in a different direction there let's get let's focused back here on the category here. Charlie XX versus Taylor Swift as a nominee

is Chapel Rhone and Industry Plant. That came up. I think that was like one person though tweeting that and a bunch of people reacting to it. Okay. But yeah, people talking about Chapel Rhone, one of the big breakout stars of 2024,

slow build success. Someone calling her a industry plant. I don't know. That's a very dubious thing. I think that and also it's like, you know, straight men. don't come to the Chapel Rhone concert or something like that as well. So we can make like a catch-all the way what we talk about when we talk about Chapel Rhone.

Maybe that's the more appropriate nominee. Chapel Rone. Moralizing Pitchfork Autopsies. Yes, there were a lot of stories pronouncing Pitchfork dead earlier in the year. And here we are. Pitchfork is still going. They've reduced the number of reviews that they put out every day. But they're still rolling along, still affecting the.

conversation. But yeah, there were a lot of sort of weighing pitchfords legacy type articles that came out earlier this year. Eight albums to get to know me. The Twitter prompt. You dominated this. This is very dangerous because

the Twitter prompt community got angry at us earlier this year for talking about this Twitter prompt. So I don't know if we want to wade into that again. If we want to like kick the Hornets Nest, that is Twitter prompt. Twitter.

out there. Moralizing about Kendrick versus Drake. Yes. That was a great battle, but there was some crazy conversation going around it. And then the perennial nominee, the Brian Cranston of the category.

Song of the Summer. All of that discourse and talking about Sabrina, Carpenter's espresso, all of that junk. Those are the nominees. What is your most annoying music writer,

of the first half of the year. Yeah, you know, we've had this outline for, you know, like a day or two, but it's only now, like, starting to hit me in this massive wave of just how annoying it was to, you know, deal with all this stuff. And I think there's also some Patreon-only indie cast, annoying music writer stories that we're just not going to touch. Yeah, yeah, it's just not worth it. It's not fucking worth it.

But, I mean, just kind of personally, I think the moralizing, you know, pitchfork, autopsies. And I know that's like, that's just like another catch-all for it. The way, maybe it's just because like I've been there for 17 years and change and seeing the way people like talk about it. In a lot of ways, it's just like factually incorrect or just written in bad faith or, you know, and this I would also include, you know, some of the, some indie artists from, let's say, 2010 to 2014, who were celebrating. it. It was just really hard for, and again, like, it was a, just a massive sign of the times in terms of where music journalism is in 2024. But, and I guess it's hard for people to be

normal about it, but still the way, there was like something extremely smug and bad faith about the way it was discussed so often that I found like very, very repulsive. There weren't, There's just like no fun remembrances of it. Like, hey, remember, like, just thinking about, like, you know, some of the more fun things they did. It was just all scenes, like, very grim. And of course, people did lose their jobs, but it was just hard for people to be normal about it.

And that just annoys me on a personal status. So, yeah, I'm going to go with that one, too. And maybe this is just us as two music critics overreacting to something that hits close to home. But I found a lot of the conversations. around the pitchfork layoffs to be pretty bad as well. And also, this is an, you know, sort of adjacent to that conversation, the never-ending state of music criticism conversation that is happening where you get a think piece like every three or four months from somebody

who frankly doesn't know what they're talking about and isn't paying attention, who wants to bring up the same old argument about how like all music critics just care about pop stars now. They're not writing about indie artists anymore. And that's why music criticism is dying. And it's like, no. The fact is that you are not clicking on the 98% of reviews written about non-famous people. And you convince yourself that those articles aren't being written because you aren't reading them. You're only reacting to like the small number of music writing things that go viral,

which are inevitably about Taylor Swift and Beyonce and Billy Elish and whoever. But you are presuming that your ignorance is a full body view of the landscape, and it's not. And I wish these people would, like, do a little bit more research when they write these stupid things that we have to read all the time. So anyway, that's my rant about that. Yeah, promote the substack. You wrote a really good piece on that. Yeah, substack. I have a substack.

Just Google me, my substack. I wrote a thing on this a few weeks ago. the state of state of music criticism, think pieces. They're very bad. All right, well, let's get a little positive here in our next category. We've been pretty negative so far. Let's talk about most fun music writer's story. These are the stories that people were talking about online

that were actually pretty enjoyable. And you have to focus on the joy sometimes because there's not a whole lot of it, especially if you're talking about online discourse, but these things were pretty fun to talk about. The nominees, Black Puma's headlining Pitchfork Festival. Very fun to talk about. And it hasn't even happened yet.

I'm very excited for Black Pumas to be playing Pitchfork. I want to see if Black Puma show up because this is a band I'm not convinced actually exists. You know, like we talk about industry plants. Like this could be an industry plant, this band. And they may not actually be a band. They may just be a construct that you can put Grammys, and festival lineup, you know, slots. I'm looking at their pictures,

and they do have cool hats and leather jackets, so they definitely dress the part. Okay, well, you know, I'm sure they're going to be great at pitchfork. Cindy Lee, and you said Cindy Lee brings back peak pitchfork. I think just the idea of Cindy Lee being an underground phenomenon, gets a rave review on pitchfork, the best score that they've given in four years,

and it becomes a record that a lot of people are excited about. that was a fun story. We don't know exactly how things are inside the Cindy Lee camp. There was a tour that they were on that got canceled. I don't know if it was a weird experience this year getting all this hype. But for those of us on the outside, it was a pretty fun story, I think, for the most part. I think people felt pretty good about this record and the attention that it got. I put REM Love in here, and this is more of a recent nominee.

there's been like a lot of REM discourse lately. People loving REM, they were recently inducted into the songwriters' Hall of Fame. REM being a band that I feel like recently there's been this conversation like, oh, people don't appreciate REM as much as they once did. I think people looked at them as being maybe like a little underrated, a little unsung in a weird way. Well, that's over now. I mean, there's so much positivity about REM now, right? Am I, is it fair to say that?

Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. And, you know, like, yeah, of course they're not seen as, you know, important as they used to be because, like, they were seen as, like, maybe the most important band of its era. So, but I do like the fact that, you know, they're playing, they're doing things that are just, like, fun. I think people are happy about the fact they don't have to get pixies with it and, like, you know, tour with, I don't know who would be, like, the Weezer or the Modest Mouse equivalent for REM. But, yeah, they're just, they're conducting themselves as they always have in such a. really cool and earnest and honest way that you have to appreciate it. And then we have the Apple 100 albums list, which was so bonkers and people got upset about it. But I don't know. When you have a list like that, you want people to be upset. You want there to be

arguments about it. You want people to, you know, try to figure out, oh, is, you know, the first Billy Irish record better than the Velvet Underground and Nico. Let's try to figure this out. Or is Travis Scott's Asterold better than Dark Side of the Moon? All right, great. Let's do it. Let's parse it out. That was a pretty fun conversation.

And then finally we have Blur and Grimes bombing at Coachella. Kind of a Schadenfreude situation, but, you know, as we discussed at the time, bombing at Coachella is the new doing great at Coachella. Yeah. It's really the only way to be remembered. remembered really at Coachella's by bombing spectacularly. So out of those nominees, what is your winner for Most Fun Music Writer Story? Well, I would say, I mean, there's a pretty obvious top two.

And although, like, Cindy Lee bringing back, like, peak blog era, like, that was fun. I'm so happy that happened. It did kind of spawn a couple of sort of kind of annoying music writer stories. But the Black Pumas thing, that's just fun. I mean, look, I, you know, I'm still writing for pitchfork, so I choose my words semi sort of carefully, but just I just can't describe like how this was just the perfect, the perfect threading the needle of a band that's just like so popular, like popular enough to headline, but not popular enough to maybe counterbalance the fact that like, hey, this is completely outside the scope of like what they would cover. it's just so bizarre that and I think like there was just no way to make it an annoying story and look maybe they go and they fucking kill it

and like we all look a little silly but I just think that this one brought it was just so funny it's just so funny and also you combine it with like the news of combining with GQ in a way that hasn't really manifested itself you couldn't have picked a better band to just like stoke all the resentments from it turned like one of the most annoying music

writers stories into a fun one so i gotta give it that this is like an all-timer pick yeah i think like uh from a metaphor perspective looking at it uh you know the gq era pitchfork putting black pumas at the top of the bill yeah you can't beat that um i'm gonna say uh the cindy lee story because again I think from the outside being a music fan, that was the most fun album to see get big. I feel like there's so many albums that get hyped now where it's tiresome. Even if you like the record,

you read enough writing about it and it will talk you out of being happy that you like this record. And Cindy Lee was a rare example where you just felt good about the whole enterprise that this was someone didn't have a publicist, didn't have a record label, they were recently on a record on a GeoCity's site,

and the record is actually really good as well. It's a veteran act. You couldn't feel bad about it. The only weird thing is the tour being canceled and you're not sure exactly how, you know, it was perceived on the inside of that whole phenomenon. Hope there was some positivity going on there. So that's the only thing that dampens that a little bit.

But overall still, I like that story a lot, so that would be my most fun. Yeah. Go ahead and read my, Stereo gum piece on seeing Cindy Lee before it got canceled. The one thing I remember them saying is like I feel like a cage fucking animal. And I thought that was part of the persona, but it might be like what they were actually thinking at the time.

Right. Yeah, exactly. Not a great quote. If you want to feel good about it. But other than that, it's a happy story. Let's get to our last category here. And again, we've got to go negative. I'm sorry. Next week is all going to be positive.

Because we're only talking about albums that we love. But in this category, we've got to talk about most overrated album. And this is going to be maybe the most contentious. Because you nominated some things that I do not agree as being overrated. But I concede your point in wanting to nominate it. The nominees are Still House Plants, which is a record I think most people probably haven't even heard of. But this is a very hyped post-punk record from England. You put this on the list.

I feel like they're filling the slot for the praised post-punk record of the year. You've got to have one. That's the big one. You put the smile on here, and I definitely begged a different on that. I love that record. I know you think it's maybe more mid than I do. Anyway, it's nominated. The last dinner party, which I actually wrote about in my memory hold article,

because I feel like that record, I feel like, that record, I feel like, I heard about it every day for two weeks and not a peep sense. It's like someone kicked the cord out of the wall and the TV shut off or something. And I'm putting a couple

controversial ones here too. I'm going to say Charlie XX, Brat. That's the highest rated album on Metacritic right now of 2024. It has a 95. Yeah, this is like to pimp a butterfly like bolt cutter. numbers. So I think it has to be on here

by default. And then I'm putting Cowboy Cutter on here, too. I think that album, that's the second highest rated album of the year so far. It has a 91. It's a 28 song album, 79 minutes. It has a terrible Polly Parton cover on there.

There's a lot of other songs on there that don't feel like they need to be on the record. I love double albums, but it's a bit overstuffed. I think it doesn't deserve quite the praise that it's gotten so far. So that's it for our nominees.

Who are you giving it to, Ian? And don't say the smile, please. Yeah, that's kind of in this like, it's kind of in this like gray area being somewhat overrated and somewhat like memory hold. I don't hear people talking about it

a lot for something that is essentially a radio head album. Still house plants. I mean, like, it's definitely overrated, but it's sort of like a flip side of the Cindy Lee record where it kind of shows that a record this like abrasive and potentially aliening can get that highly praised. I think it's unlistenable. But, you know, I got to say that Charlie XZX, I mean, it is, I think time will tell like how this age is.

Like, because as you mentioned, it's got a 95 on Metacritic. Seems like it's going to put up like Fiona Apple numbers on the year end list. and people seem to like legitimately love it. So I think Cowboy Carter kind of is, I would say that because I feel like a lot of the praise around it is like muscle memory. You know, like I think people like just kind of like, oh, it's a fun album to talk about because like, look, it's Beyonce putting out like a double album. Like it's 28 songs.

It's like kind of country. It's sort of like I guess her version of Wien's 12. of Golden Country Greats, which in some ways is interesting. But I also feel like there's this internal argument going on with the praise of like how appropriate is it to praise. Like how much praise this album? Like how much praise do we get Beyonce as opposed to like the actual product? So I feel like that one is going to underperform its relative praise.

So that's why I'm going to go with that. I'm going to go with Charlie XX.X. I like the music on this record. It's well put together. It's a fun pop record. I think lyrically, it's pretty self-absorbed and borderline insipid. I mean, there's a song on this record about one of the hosts of Red Scare. Like, why aren't people making fun of this more?

That is a stupid topic for a song. I'm sorry, I just don't think it should be 95 on Metacritic. If it was like an 81 or 82, I'd be like, okay, I get it. I think that's fair. But the amount of praise that it's gotten, I just think it's over the top. And I think it does feel a little reactive to the Taylor Swift thing. I think people look at Charlie XX as the upstart option to Taylor Swift. And the problem is that she's been that for like 10 years.

I feel like we've read the same things about Charlie XXX since the early 2010s. There is this tremendous goodwill that she's built up in the press, where she is constantly looked at as like the future of pop music, the sort of like good example of a pop star, the upstart pop star. And she has quite a few songs that I like, but I don't think that she is as different from every other pop star as she gets presented as.

I just don't hear it. And especially lyrically, I don't know. There's some really stupid lyrics on this album, and I can't get past it, really. So again, it's kind of like a 1975 album in that regard. And she writes about her boyfriend in the 1975 and yaddi yadda, yeah, how interesting

is it to speculate on who she's talking about? It's not interesting at all. Okay, it's boring, I don't care about that. She's got nothing to say that's compelling to me. I don't know. Again, it's a good pop record. Give it an 81, 82. I get it.

95? I don't know. I'm sorry. that to me is overrated. You are overrating it by a lot, in my opinion. So I'm going to say that for me, and I'm sorry, all the Charlie XX fans out there, it's got to be said. Yeah, the angels are going to come for your ass.

You've now reached a part of our episode that we call Recommendation Corner, where Ian and I talked about something that we're into this week. Ian, wants you go first. A stunning turn of events, I'm going to bring up an indie-ish emo band on Tiny Engines. Yeah, last week was a really good week for recommendation corner type acts. And so we just want to make sure we, you know, earmarks in time to do it. But the album I want to talk about today is from a band called Annabelle. The album is called World Views.

It is their first album since 2015, having it all, classic of its era. And this one I would call Heartland Emo, not in the sense that it sounds like war on drugs or, you know, like what people expect out of Heartland Nemo, which is say a science like Pine Grove. But it's about living in the Midwest. You know, they're from, I believe, Columbus, definitely Ohio. And a lot of their songs are just feeling beset by a lack of opportunities in a sense that something else is better. I'll always, you know, something else better is always happening somewhere else.

And, you know, it's, I would say that it skirts the line between like Power Pop and indie, like kind of blog rock 2005 anthemic. and also just, you know, kind of mid-2010's emo. So it's a very lovable record, but also it's like a very hard album to write about and a hard album to pitch. So the sort of people who, you know, will listen to an album because it's released on tiny engines will love this. I love their last album. I love this album. I think it's great.

And it's also like the sort of album for which Recommendation Corner was made for. So Annabelle is the band. World Vues is the record. Give it a shot. That sounds like it's up my alley I'm gonna have to give that a shot I want to talk about an album called Box for Buddy Box for Star

It's the latest from a project named This is Lorelei It's a side project for a singer starting writer named Nate Amos Who you may know from a band called Water from Your Eyes And it's a little strange calling this a side project Because Amos has written a ton of songs

Under this name There's something like 20 releases that are credited to this is Lorelei over the years. And in the past three years alone, he's put out like a hundred songs under this name. But typically, it's a pretty loose project. He's written about how, or he's talked about how, he comes up with a lot of these songs sort of extemporaneously

and just sort of puts them out in the world. And for this latest album, he calls it his first attempt at what he calls a traditional intentionally written full-length album. So a proper album, I guess you could call it in that way. And it's interesting because water from your eyes, you know, they're a band, they've got a lot of hype. And they are always described as like this weird band,

this weird band making weird music. But this record, this is Lorelei record, it's pretty much like a straight-down-the-line indie folk record. I was thinking about how Alex G recently signed to RCA and imagining what kind of music he's going to put on a major label. And it's kind of like this record. I mean, it's like a little off-center, but it's basically just strummy, really melodic folk rock songs

with like an electronic beat under it. And it's just really well done. Again, like Nate Amos, he's worked in a lot of different styles and he's had a lot of different sort of trappings to his music. But this is just him presenting his songs in a very straightforward fashion. And I have to say, like, he's a good enough songwriter where he can do that without a whole lot of bells and whistles, and the songs are going to hold up on their own. I think this album is incredibly appealing.

I like it a lot. I've been listening to it a bunch the past week or so. I think it's definitely going to be one of my favorites of 2024 so far. I'm guessing you're into this record, too? I like this record a lot. There's, to me, it sounds a little more like blog rocky than folk rock. There's like a couple of xylophone pieces in there that sound like the first clap your hand say, yeah album. I heard someone comparing it to Eels, like, you know, the first couple albums.

And that makes sense. It sounds like a sort of album that would be on DreamWorks in 1999 or something like that, which is complimentary, of course. I like this album a lot. Yeah, like when I say folk rock, I'm thinking of like badly drum boy. Oh yeah, hell yeah. You know, like that kind of indie-leaning folk rock, again, with a little bit of electronic influence. But it's basically someone with a guitar playing these really kind of beautiful songs that would work if it was just him playing by himself. So yeah, very good record.

This is Lorelei. Box for Buddy, Box for Star. Definitely check that out. We've now reached the end 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 tape newsletter. You can go to uprocks.com backslash indie, and I recommend five albums per week,

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