Indiecast - Let's Pick Six More Albums For The Indiecast Hall Of Fame

Episode Date: November 24, 2023

Fair warning: Steven and Ian assumed they would be in a turkey coma this week, so they banked an episode ahead of time in order to fully enjoy their Thanksgiving celebrations. Hopefully, they did not miss any world-changing music news. If they did, just assume that the guys were killed in some music-industry related mishap. Keep their memory in your hearts!The upside of this is that Steven and Ian are finally inducting some new albums into the Indiecast Hall Of Fame after an endless eight-month hiatus (23:20). Steven decided to pick three albums from one year: 1988. His choices include deathless classics from The Go-Betweens, The Waterboys, and The Smithereens. Ian meanwhile cast a wider net, picking albums from a range of eras including the 1990s (Grant Lee Buffalo), the 2000s (Elbow), and the 2010s (Restorations). It was an incredibly serious and honorable ceremony enjoyed by all!New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 165 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 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 Indie Mix tape. Hello everyone and welcome to Indycast on the show we talk about the biggest indie news of the week. We review albums and we hash out trends. In this episode, we induct six new albums into the Indicast Hall of Fame. My name is Stephen Hayden and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. He's shopping on Black Friday for emo themed holiday sweaters. Ian Cohen. Ian, how are you?

I know that you mean that as a joke. And yet two days ago, my wife did show me that Pedro the Lion. does have a Christmas sweater. Because, you know, at work, God, I'm just reminded that in December, on every Friday, we're expected to wear, you know, holiday sweaters. So, yeah, I might just get. Like an ugly sweater? Is that the thing?

Like, are we still doing the ugly Christmas sweater thing? See, you got to get in touch with office culture. This is where I come into play. But, yeah, we do that. I have a Charlie Brown one. I think I have a Simpsons one. And so, you know, most years I buy something on Amazon and just return it and take advantage of Mr. Bezos's very generous return policy. But might get this one.

I love it. I love picturing you in the office, wearing your ugly sweater, people just getting the kick out of how wacky the sweater is. You know, that just being a big laugh. We've got like a lot of mileage out of that as a culture, the ugly sweater thing. feel like that started in the 90s. I remember doing that in college. We'd have Christmas parties and you'd wear an ugly sweater to the party. And it was very 90s, very quote marks around everything. You know, we were being very ironic. And you think it would have ended after the 90s because that was a very ironic era. And then things weren't as, you know, things were more earnest

after that. But, you know, the ugly sweater thing, it spans time. It spans decades. And moreover, I'm just thinking about the same thing with listening to like Journey at a party like that. Apparently, like people ended up taking that seriously. So, yeah, a lot of things that I thought we were the only ones to do in the late 90s or early 2000s in college. It turns out we were not that original. So, yeah, I listened to Journey non-ironically. That's how lame I am.

I just enjoy the greatest hits record. It's so good. It is Black Friday. And in the interest of that, I'm going to do a plug here quick because I have a new book coming out in 2024. It comes out in May of 2024. It is now available for pre-order. So I've been hyping this. So I have to do it now on the show.

I'll probably be doing this more in the new year. But my book is called There Was Nothing You Could Do. It's about Bruce Springsteen and Born in the USA. and if you are familiar with my book, this isn't happening, which was about Kid A. This book is in the style of that book. It's taking that approach,

but applying it to a much different artist. But, you know, looking at the artist, but putting him in a bigger context, writing about how America has changed since born the USA came out 40 years ago, how rock music changed. Anyway, if you like my books, please consider pre-ordering this one.

And yes, you can give a pre-order to someone as a Christmas gift or a or a Hanukkah gift or whatever it is that you celebrate this time of year. I'm saying right now a pre-order is a great gift to give them a little piece of paper saying, hey,

I can't give you anything right now, but you will get this in like six months. I think people love that kind of gift. They like not getting something in the moment. They like waiting a half year for their gift. So again, my book, again, pre-order right now. Okay, that's the end of that plug.

Yeah, out in six, announcing it now, out in six months, this is like a 1975 level length rollout. This is what you do. You got to, you know, when you're hawking books, you talk about the pre-sale early on, because if you get good pre-orders, that dictates how much muscle the publisher puts behind the book. If there's, like, a lot of pre-orders, they're more likely to give it more attention. booksellers care more about books that have good pre-orders. It's a, you know, it's a weird thing. It's like, oh, yeah, we're going to support the thing that doesn't need as much help, you know, but they like to know that people want to buy the books.

They're like, oh, a lot of pre-orders. Okay, we're more willing to put the book on our shelves. So this is how the game is played, Ian, as you are entering the book publishing industry, you've got to start dancing early on in the process. We're putting y'all onto some game here. like they're free of charge. Yeah, you know, it's like how, you know, they're putting out movie trailers now for movies

that are going to be out in the summertime. This is the same kind of thing. Did you see that trailer for Madam Webb, I think it's called? Like that Marvel movie with Dakota Johnson? I know it exists. I haven't seen it yet. And I don't even know who Madam Webb is. It's like... So remember some guys of the Marvel of the...

MCU. Yeah, they're going really deep with the MCU. From what I could ascertain from the trailer, it's a woman whose dad was killed by another guy who was studying radioactive spiders in the Amazon, and now Dakota Johnson is going to sort of shepherd this generation of female spider women. I think that's the concept. I know Sidney's in it. Like she's one of the spider women. I don't know. It looks awful.

That's all I know. The trailer was awful. By the way, this is a banked episode. Ian and I are recording this a week ahead of time. Hopefully there's no big music news. Hopefully, Madam Webb hasn't been canceled from the summer slate, rendering that little digression irrelevant. So yeah, that's why we're doing an Indycast Hall of Fame episode.

We haven't done an Indycast Hall of Fame episode, and I don't know how long. I think March of this, it was, I looked through our past episodes to just get a collection of things that we already inducted so we have no repeats. And I don't think we've done like only one other one this year, which is really impressive. Because I feel in the past years, you know, we kind of lean on those pretty heavy. And despite the fact there aren't as many big albums to discuss in 2020. as there was in years past. I feel like that's just the, that's just a show of our show's strength.

Well, you know, it's because we're bringing in sports cast. Yeah. We're bringing in MCU talk right now. You know, we're really broadening our horizons, but this is a good episode to do on a holiday week.

You know, Ian and I are going to be busy eating turkey and shopping for emo-themed sweaters. Yeah, so we don't have time to record the episode during the actual holiday week. We're doing it a little bit early. And it's just a good excuse to talk about Indycast Hall of Fame. I'm actually excited to talk about the albums that I'm inducting. I'm sure you're excited about the albums you're inducting.

This is also kind of like the calm before the storm right now because next week we're going to be diving headlong into year-end album list time. And we're going to be doing that on our show. We're going to have the Indycastees, of course. Everyone's looking forward to that. what you're feeling right now about these lists. There's been a few lists that have come out already, but the lion's share are going to be dropping next week and after that.

Who are the contenders right now? Who do you think is going to dominate in the weeks ahead? So I think this year, you know, on the 10th anniversary of Beyonce's like self-titled, which dropped like really late in the year, I think we're going to see a real test of like whether people consider 20, 23. like the release people are more you know taking note of the years of release or the year of impact because I think SZA's SOS, you know, another major Grammy nominee, uh, is going to perform quite well for ones that didn't put it on 2020. I think boy genius is really going to.

Wait, wait. So it's because Siza dropped what? That was like mid-December. Yeah. Yeah. It did not make pitchforks. It did not drop in time to make pitchforks best of list that. I know. that. So you think that they're going to do the thing where they're like, well, we're going to count late December just because we published our list too early? Like, we're going to pretend that SOS is a 2023 album just because we ran our list early. Do you think they're going to do that kind of thing? Well, I mean, I know with decade lists, for example, like Sigler-Ross is I'm not even going to rather pronounce it. It was like released technically in 99, but year of impact was 2000. So I think that you're going to see that on a few lists.

Caroline Polichick is going to do well. I think Boy Genius, Olivia Rodriguez, those are like, I feel more confident than ever that those are going to be interchangeable at one and two. I do like how the ones that have been released so far, and you hear grumblings already, it's like I can't. People are releasing year-end list before Thanksgiving, but it's like print-only magazines, like Uncut Mojo. And I love how on-brand they are.

Like they have uncut has Lankham. I believe that was one of your recommendation corner joints at number one. Mojo has it at number three. Also, Paul Simon, Wilco, PJ Harvey. I imagine PJ Harvey will do quite well for herself. I also appreciate how Decibel, which is a metal magazine, their number one is a band called horrendous and the album is called ontological Mysterium, which I saw them like that's a great number one pick. Number two was too mold, which might have been number. I bet they put that at number two because no, that's an album that Pitchfork liked.

We can't have that at number one. Oh, man. I mean, is there any sense of like, okay, horrendous, you're trying too hard. You're trying too hard. Like, wouldn't it be funny if there was like a metal band called The Cupcakes or something? Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. Something that was so not badass, but their music was badass.

I feel like that needs to be the direction that some band goes in. Well, apparently, deaf heaven. did that by having just like a pink album cover. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. We were talking before we started recording about the Andre 3000 flute album, whose album title I always forget, because I just want to call it the flute album. Do you remember the album?

New Blue Sun. The song titles are like just like completely off the chain. But like the album, New Blue Sun, it's like, yes, if I didn't know anything about the person who made it and I just saw the cover and the album title, I'm thinking, yeah, new age spiritual jazz album so as we're talking about it the album came out today so I've dabbled in it so far and I think you've dabbled in it a bit and by the time this post we may have been fully immersed in this record you and I were talking about the possibility of this record almost going in the opposite direction of like how people

initially responded to it like when this album was first announced there was a lot of grumbling about, oh, like, I wish Andre 3,000 was making a rap record and not this spiritual jazz record. And now it feels like we're going in the opposite direction where there seems to be an inclination to, like, really praise this album. Like, people really want to show how open and supportive they are of Andre 3,000 moving in this direction. And I just wonder if, because of the timing of this record, do you think, you?

think this is going to sneak in at the top of list because people are just going to be like, I listen to this once and I actually like it more than I expected, I'm going to put it at number eight on my list and then they never listen to it again. But they just need that one listen to get it to like number eight. Like the number eight slot is always the album where maybe you're reaching a little bit. You're like, you know, I don't know if I love this album, but I think I might love it in the future. So I'm going to put it on my list. I'm gambling with this spot. Like the number eight spot, I feel like it's always the album for that. And I feel like Andre 3000 could be positioning himself for like the number eight slot on a lot of lists that we're going to be seeing

in the upcoming weeks. Well, I'm going to gently push back and say that it's, for me, it's always the number nine slot. Okay, okay, eight or nine. You know what I mean? One of those slots is like kind of like the reach. Like you're reaching a little bit. You're like, or maybe it's the album that you have listened to a lot, but you feel like maybe isn't reputable enough to go up higher. Yeah, you're right. That's actually the number nine.

That's for me the number nine. The one where it's like, I listen to this more than others, even though it might not actually be good. But number eight is the kind of wild card. So you're absolutely correct on that. So like number nine is actually like number three. It shouldn't be like number three. at number nine. And number eight should maybe be number 27. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's where

Andre 3000 is going to be sort of talking himself into that spot here or fluting his way into that spot, I should say, in the weeks ahead. Yeah. I think that like, I mean, I would say that there is more generosity towards, you know, spiritual jazz, ambient flute, things like that. And, you know, it's like, oh, this is good. But like, oh, this is actually great. I do see that. I do see that. tide turning a bit and you know this does happen in most years we'll see we'll see how like I can't wait to see the reviews just to see like how people expand beyond oh wow this is really bold of him to put out a 80 minute flute jazz album and you know you don't even hear a lot of recognizable flute in the first 30 minutes it's like that's the thing about it I was like wait

a second where's the flute I think it's electric flute right it's very low key. I mean, because when you think flute, you're thinking of these like sort of swirling like soup. Yeah. Like suviance. Yeah. Or, you know, like what the, what the jazz flute records are from the 70s. Yeah. When you listen to that kind of stuff, it's more sort of swirling in there. But, yeah, I don't know. It's, I mean, I was listening to it this morning and I had the reaction I was just talking about before that I think a lot of people are going to have. I was like, I'm actually enjoying this more than maybe I would have expected. It feels like a, uh, You mentioned spiritual jazz.

It felt more like sort of like an ambient type record to me. Like you put it on and it creates a mood. And if you just let it envelop you, you know, the sort of collective impact of it is maybe worth in the sum of its parts. Yeah, I'm definitely going to listen to this more than Idlewild or like the last big boy solo album, which is to say like twice or three times tops. A lot of Idaweil talk on this show really.

It's been good. Let's do a quick mailbag before we get into the Indycast Hall of Fame. Thank you again for writing us. It's always great to hear from our listeners. You can hit us up at Indycastmailbag at gmail.com. Ian, you want to read this one? Sure. All right.

Hey, Stephen and Ian. Just wanted to share up front that I'm 24 and listen to the show Smile Imogi. So this is in reference to the fact that we all... Zoomers. Well, if you're a Zoomer and you listen and you write in and you say you're a zoomer, And you could actually be like a 47-year-old person. But if you just say you're a zoomer, we're going to probably read your letter. But anyway.

All right. In the best of 1998 episode, okay, so this person, we're talking about music older than them. Steve mentioned David Berman, possibly attaining a towns van Zant's type of status. In my mind, I associate a few other artists with that kind of persona. Excellent songwriters who wrote Bleak Country Americana, Blues-inspired music, were embraced by the indie community and often died tragic. deaths. In my list of this type of artist, I would of course have towns and Berman, but I would also add Mark Linkus slash Sparkle Horse and Jason Molina. Are there any other artists you guys would

add to that list? Are there other artists you see being added to it in the future? Not necessarily in a macabre who's going to die first way. Thanks, Josie from West Des Moines, Iowa. It's a great mountain goat's title. West Des Moines. I didn't know that like there was a West Des Moines. Like that's set apart as a separate town. That's interesting to me. Well, okay, it is awkward to talk about living singer-songwriters in this way, because if you're going to be comparing them to like a Towns-Vansant or David Berman, you're inevitably going to be having that macabre who's going to die first type situation.

I mean, in terms of like artists who are sadly no longer with us, I mean, Elliot Smith is another obvious example, I think, that you would put in to this category. You know, he comes immediately to mind. You know, and there's others. But, you know, I was thinking about this in a broader way, not necessarily like an artist who dies young and that's why they're mythic. But like these artists who are enigmatic, you know, like they pop up and they drop like

a masterful album and then they disappear, you know, and that was someone, that's like who David Berman was before he passed. I mean, he was not a guy who. was online. He was, you know, a very sort of mysterious guy. Like, before that Purple Mountains record, there was, I believe, a 10-year gap where he didn't put out any music and really no one knew anything about, like, what he was up to. Um, so in that sense, I think about someone like Fiona Apple, you know, who I, she's not in the Americana space, but she is someone who, you know, you could see her putting out an album next week, or you could see her putting out

album in five years. You know, we really have no read on who Fiona Apple is, but she's a person that when she arises suddenly and puts out a record, it tends to really blow people's minds and get them excited. I also thought of someone like Adrienne Linker, I think being in that space as well, she is much more prolific than Fiona Apple is, but she's another one who I think understands the meaning of mystique and how even though she's putting all these records, you don't really know much about her. You know, because there's a lot of singer-songwriters now who are so visible. You know, you don't really have a chance to like wonder about them because they're like so in your face. And there's like some obvious examples I won't even mention because I think

they're so obvious. But she seems like she cuts against the grain of that in an interesting way that I think is sort of like mythos burnishing potentially over the long haul. Mitzki, I think is another one. Like she, I think she had to back away just because her fans were so crazy. But, you know, she's really become a more mysterious figure in the last, you know, several years. And I feel like that's also fed into how people listen to her music and where she's at. So again, they're not strictly Towns Van Zant type singer-songwriters, but they feel to me like they could potentially have.

have that kind of mythos about them in 20 years. Yeah, I like how you answered the question in a less literal way than I did. Because, you know, when I think about these artists, you know, you're trying to say like not in a macabre who's going to die first sort of way. But I think a lot of the magic of, not the magic, but the meaning and the profundity of a lot of Sparkle Horse and Jason Molina stuff is that like death seemed to stalk them, you know, especially with Mark Linkus, who, you know, Good Morning Spider is about. out like a near-death experience.

And it's interesting to think about the artists who are operating in that same sort of genre of Americana country, blues-inspired music. I think Mitzke's new album kind of gets in there. Maybe Angel Olson you could throw in there as well. But I think the difference, you know, with the artist Steve mentioned and the ones who are playing it nowadays is that they don't seem as visibly troubled, you know? You could say like someone like MJ Lenderman makes music. in that realm, but their persona is far more different.

An obvious descendant is Joe Dagestino of Empty Country. He had a very public mentor, mentee relationship with David Berman. And I think empty country, I don't know if it has the same sort of critical credibility or mass critical credibility that Sparkle Horse and, you know, Magnolia Electric Company, songs Ohio did in real time. And I also think one of the more illustrative, answers to this question, just to see the difference between the 90s and now, is Tim Showalter of Strand of Oaks.

He had a song called J.M. on his breakthrough album, Heel. And I think him and Joe and maybe M.J. Lenderman to a degree kind of saw their, you know, heroes as not models, but like cautionary tales. Like, I think they've tailored their public persona in a way to cut against the grimness of their music. Same with like I guess like someone like Jason Isbell. Yeah, I mean we're just way more sensitive about mental health issues now than people were in the 90s. I think in the 90s there was this tendency to look at people who are troubled and either glamorize it or make fun of it. You know, like, oh, get over yourself. You know, why are you complaining? You're so rich and famous. You don't

have reason to be upset. Or wow, it's so awesome. that you are, you know, into drugs and alcohol and, you know, keep pushing it, you know, because this is something we're enjoying. That I think was a more common attitude, and I think now, thankfully, people are more sensitive about looking at these behaviors as manifestations of mental illness and how it doesn't have to be this way. You can treat these things. You can get help and you can move into a safer space and still make great music.

So it's bad for mythology, perhaps, but it's good for people. And I think that's a good balance to achieve there. All right, let's get into our Indycast Hall of Fame. And like we were saying earlier, we haven't, we've been neglecting the Hall of Fame. We have not been inducting new albums. We haven't done it, I guess, now for about eight months, which is incredibly long gap. So that's why we're doing a few more albums than usual. I think we usually do four.

two apiece, but we're doing six in this episode. And again, the idea here is that we're talking about albums that we love and also albums that we feel like are maybe a little unsung. They're not talked about as much as we feel like they should be. I think that the baseline that we use is has pitchforked on a Sunday review on any of these albums. You know, like that's like one rule of thumb here that we use to talk. But yeah, just albums we love that we want to kind of put.

back out into the world and encourage people to check out. So why don't you go first? What is your first Indycasts Indicast Hall of Fame inductee? So we're going to go 90s, 2000s, 2010s on this episode, at least with my choices. And I scoured our past episodes just to make sure we didn't do this one because I'm like, it's only a matter of time. And I'm like a little worried that when I bring this up, like you're going to have it too. But this is a very 90s piece of proto-indicast core, which is Grant Lee Buffalo's Mighty Joe Moon.

Ooh. Yeah, see? Yeah, good call. You won't repeat any of my albums, by the way, because all my albums are from the same year. I'll just say that right now. We'll get into it when we talk about my inductees here. But, yeah, there won't be any repeats. This is an album, though, that I would have considered putting in for sure.

Yeah, when you say you're not going to have any overlap, that means you're just picking stuff from a year before 1994. Exactly, exactly. I am. Oh, shit. Okay, so, yeah, this album, like, I don't want to say, like, had a moment this year, but it did kind of, it had a little bit of a moment when the biggest song that they did, Mockingbirds, had a appearance on the show Beef, one of the many great needle drops on that show. and this is a fascinating record because it's extremely 90s but like not in the way where you would have if you were to have like a 90s themed party you would think oh that's grant Lee Buffalo. There are other time but not tied to it and it's so why is it proto indie cast core well for one thing even though they're from LA they also it's on cyroup prize which is you know extremely 90s. label.

It's, you know, they're from L.A., but they're very much a heartland rock band in the sense that they're really interested in mythology of Old America, obviously by the name like Grant Lee Buffalo. And, you know, there's the first song in this album, Lone Star song, is about the Waco, is about the Branch of Iidian Church. They are alt rock, for sure. I mean, when you listen to Lone Star song and sing along, those are kind of like, Not grunge, but grungy. I actually saw them open for R.E.M. on the monster tour.

So, you know, just to give you a sense of, like, where they were in the scope of alternative rock. But it also has, like, a very dreamy kind of Brit pop sort of mode to it as well. Like, their first album, Fuzzy, was the album covers of Blatten Smith's homage. There's a little bit of, like, glam rock going on, too. very theatrical vocals, almost like a Jeff Buckley style, like Grantley Phillips, one of my favorite vocalists of the 90s. And, you know, the songs have a mystique to them, but they are also grounded in specificities.

Honestly, the closest analog I can think of in the modern day would be something like Wild Pink, pulling from very similar ideas, very similar interests in terms of lyricism and influences. And yeah, it's just like a special album that sounds like literally nothing else I can think of. There's subsequent albums, Coppropolis. Things get a little more vaporous on that album.

It's a lot more dreamy. And then they make a complete sellout album in 1998 called Jubilee, which I like a few songs on it. But that's a very 1998 album. Just give another shout out to Riley Walker, friend of the pod. He's a massive Grantley Buffalo fan.

He's always guaranteed to chime in when I do some Mighty Joe Moon talk on the timeline. Yeah, this record I like a lot. And it's actually related to one of the albums I'm going to be inducting, too. I would say the same thing about that where you have fokey elements.

But unlike a lot of records now that are singer-songwriter oriented or have like a fokey-type vibe, I feel like a lot of records like that point inward. now and they sound small. And this is a record that is like really big sounding. And I love that combination of maybe a more traditional type milieu,

but you're also playing it like you are in an arena. And it sounds huge and the emotions are big and it's very uplifting. And yeah, this record is great. The Wild Pink comparison I think is totally spot on. Good choice. I like that one. For my first inductee, and I'll just say, I picked albums all from the same year.

And it wasn't something I did going into it thinking I was going to do that. But two of the albums that I picked were from 1988. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. Two albums from 1998. Is there another album from 1998 that I could induct? And then I found something else really quickly that I was like, oh, yeah, I would totally induct this one. So I'm going straight 1988 for my picks for this. for this class of the Indycast Hall of Fame.

And my first pick is a band. You know, we talk on this show sometimes, like when we get into year-end list time where we talk about bands or records that we love this year that we got into this year that didn't come out this year. And I think we all have that. We all, because, you know, no one just listens to music that's brand new.

You're always discovering stuff from the past. And that takes over your life. life. And for me, a band that would be at the top of that list for like an older band that was like a huge deal for me this year is the go-betweens. And this is a band from Australia. They were big in the 80s, broke up, got together again in the 2000s and then broke up again because one of the main songwriters in the band, Grant McClellan, passed away of a heart attack at the age of 48. But back in the 80s,

these records I was familiar with, but I didn't really dig in until this year. This was like my big go-between discovery period. And the album that I think stands out the most came out in 1998. It was their swan song of the original run for this band, and it's called 16 Lovers Lane. And this album, are you familiar with this record?

Yeah. Yeah, I'm familiar with this record. the go-betweens is a you know, your town streets of your town. That's a great fucking song. Yeah, that's like the big pop song on this record. It's funny because when I was thinking about this album

and this is also true of another album on my list, I thought, well, is this like too well known for the Indycast Hall of Fame? Is it too celebrated? But then I went back to the Paas and Jop list of 1988. This album isn't on that list. There's 40 albums on this list.

This album isn't on there. None of my albums from 88 are on that list, which is shocking to me, because I think there is a groundswell, I think, a bit for this record, although I feel like the go-between still are not a band that are discussed as much now as they could be. And this record in particular, I think, is a total masterpiece of pop songwriting. Again, you have two songwriters in this band. I mentioned Grant McClellan before. There's also Robert Forster, is the other songwriter.

and they have like this Lennon McCartney type dynamic where Grant is like the McCartney figure he's writing all these, you know, just great pop songs like Streets of Your Town. And then Robert Forster is the more arty guy. If you look at music videos from this time, he's like sometimes wearing like makeup in the band. So he kind of has like a Brian Ferry type vibe to him.

And he's writing like the moodyer songs. So you have Streets of Your Town and you have like Robert Forster songs like clouds that are just beautiful. But they really complimented other well on this record. And it's just two great songwriters going back and forth. Lots of acoustic guitars, very lush type vibe, very kind of like almost like a dream pop type vibe, but with, I think, a stronger sense of songwriting and great lyrics as well. And look, their whole 80s catalog, I think,

is worth reinvestigating. I've been really into it this year. But this album in particular, I think, total masterpiece. Feels a little bit like a lost masterpiece in terms of younger audiences. I don't know if people have gone back and gone to this record specifically, but they should. So I'm deducting it into the Indycast Hall of Fame,

16 Lever's Lane by the Go Betweens. Yeah, that's a great album. Go Betweens is kind of a blind spot for me. I know they're like very well regarded by a certain type of music critic. And I think there's a lot of influence on like modern day Australian indie rock. Oh, totally.

Yeah. And by the way, I'm looking at the 1988 Pazin Jop. Was not was, what up dog? Number six. Michelle shocked. Tracy Chapman at number three. Public enemy, it takes a nation of millions at number one. I agree with that.

But yeah, this is fat. Tracy Chapman, that's a great record too. Yeah, totally. But there's like a lot of like, oh, Graham Parker's eighth album is on the list. Keith Richards, talk is cheap at number eight. That's a good record too. But like, yeah, there are a lot of great records from 88, including. my next two that I'm inducting that are not on the list.

It's kind of shocking. All right. So the album I'm going to talk about is, you know, I think the people who liked our first two albums would like this one, but it comes from a pretty different style of music. Now, you know me, you know, some of the genre, some of the subgenres that I've made up that I'm into. You know, there's chill wave. There's emo, of course. And another one that I always love to dip back into is the post kid. Brit Rock of like, let's say, early 2000s when, you know, Kid A came out.

Obviously, a lot of people love it, saw it as revolutionary, but then there were many other people who kind of wished, like, we could really use another okay computer or even better the Ben's. And I would say that this band is maybe the second most enduring of the bunch, you know, behind Colplay, of course, and that would be Elbow. And I want to talk about their second album, 2003's cast of thousands. Now, I think this band has made consistently good. They've not made a bad album and they still release albums pretty consistently. I think their last one came out in like

2021 or something like that. Their first album was also a candidate. That's asleep in the back. It's kind of a talk talk, Catherine Wheel combination. I listened to it. Whenever I got like, whenever I came home like drunk on my last year of college, I listened to Sleep in the Back, which means I listen to it almost every single night. But this album is more of a kind of a streamlined, stripped down, even though it has a gospel choir on the first song. And it's this interesting sort of anomaly in the world of, let's say, Travis and Coldplay and Star Sailor, in that Guy Garvey has just like a really rich and resonant voice. And he sounds like an adult. I think a lot of the issues with this era of music is that it sounded,

like just entirely wimpy. But Guy Garvey wrote a lot about, you know, just like, like romantic troubles, but there was also like this air of like sexuality and violence to what he wrote, which made it a little more unnerving. And they also do a lot of really interesting things with production as well. This is the point, like when we move on to like 2005 and 2008 elbow, when they actually got kind of big with a day like this, which I think was like a song that was used for the Olympics. They didn't get cringy, but they did get kind of corny. Like, I think Guy Gar, in the same way that, like, the Menzinger's, like, oh, I see a waitress having a cigarette outside the all-night diner. I'm going to write 50 songs about that. Elbow can do that with, like, oh, I saw a picture of, you know, the town which I grew up as a child. I'm going to write 20 songs about that. But Cass of Thousands is, it really sticks to landing in terms of giving you that sort of warm,

a dreamy 2003 UK rock sound, but also doing so in a way that they seemed a lot more older and mature than their peers. So if you still have an itch to listen to like, you know, Rush of Blood to the head era Coldplay or, uh, the man who era Travis, but wanted to sound a little less, you know, bedwether, uh, cast of thousands. It really, it's a really, similar to Mighty Joe Moon. It, it's of its time, but not locked into it. And I think it's still. holds up really well. All right. So my second inductee into the Indycast Hall of Fame, this is the album that I would liken maybe a bit to Mighty Joe Moon, the Grantley Buffalo record you mentioned earlier.

And that record is Fisherman's Blues by the Water Boys. And this is a record that, again, I feel like in certain quarters this record is really revered. I mean, it's a record that is popular enough to have a box set devoted to it that is like literally like eight discs long. It's just like an enormous box set just for this one album. And the thing about this record is that the Water Boys were, well first of all

the Water Boys were this band. I'll call them a pan-European band because they were formed in London. The lead singer Mike Scott is from Scotland and they have like a lot of Irish people in the band and there's sort of an Irish flavor to a lot of their music. So it's all over Europe really.

that this band is drawing from. And they started out as this really viby 80s alt rock type band. They described their music as the big music. And they were in the same vein as like early U2 and big country and simple minds, like those sort of like big sounding 80s type rock bands. And the Waterboys in particular, if you're looking at like the impact they've had on modern rock music, I think. the most obvious example would be the war on drugs.

Those early Waterboys records, I think, are big influences on what Adam Grand Ducille ended up doing in the War on Drugs. I think his vocal style, too, is very influenced by Mike Scott. Like all the, woo, like that thing, is so Mike Scott. It's taken from him. With Fisherman's Blues, Waterboys took like a hard left turn. They got away from the vibey rock thing, and they really embraced traditional music. So they're playing traditional, like, Celtic music. They're going into folk music.

There's a country music thing going on. And on that box set, which really is like a wonderful box set, like they're basically doing like their own version of the basement tapes. Like it's all these musicians getting together and just playing any song that comes into their head. So they're doing like Bob Dylan songs. They're doing Hank Williams songs. They're doing traditional folk songs, traditional Irish songs, you know, waltz type songs. just a tremendous amount of music

and you can hear that vibe on the record because the record sounds very live, it's very loose, they're pulling from like a lot of different music styles and the great thing about it is similar to the Grantley Buffalo record is that even with those fokey elements and it's a, and Fisherman's Blues is a much fokier record than the Grantley Buffalo record

but like they're playing it like a rock band. You know, they're playing it with a band that still has that big music mentality. So, you know, it's not this sort of insular, small sounding, like, we're on a back porch type vibe. It is like, we've got a ton of musicians and we're going to make a big mystical sound. And it's so intoxicating and it's so good. And, yeah, I just feel like this record, it's kind of like what I want folk music to be. Again, I feel like a lot of folk-y type singer-songwriters now. they play so quiet and it's so like mumbly and like whispery and it's about what sounds good in your earbuds.

And I want something that sounds great in the car, you know, or on a great stereo. That just sounds enormous. And that's what this record is. And I've loved it for a long time. I feel like, again, it's loved in some quarters. I know stereo gum, I think, did like a 30-year retrospective of it in 2018 written by Ryan Lease. But I don't know. I still feel like there's more conversation to be had about this band and this record in particular.

So that's why I'm putting it in the Indycast Hall of Fame, Fisherman's Blues by the Waterboys. Yeah, while you were talking about this record, and I think they are kind of similar to the go-betweens where I hear, you know, music critics of a certain age talk about them, but I have no idea how whether or not it resonates with the younger generation. But while you were reading, while you were talking about this, on the list of Waterboys members has a, own Wikipedia page. Mike Scott estimates that there have been over 85 musicians who have been in this band, and he said that we've had more members, I believe, than any other band in rock history, and believes the nearest challengers are Santana and The Fall. Right.

It makes sense. I mean, this is a band, and I would say this for the go-betweens, too, that I think you're right. I think younger generations still haven't really caught up with these bands, but they absolutely would enjoy them if they, if they, plugged into it. I mean, there's certainly bands from this era that feel like they're more of the era and they don't really translate, but I feel

like both of these bands do have footprints in the modern era, and there's an aesthetic, I mean, because, I mean, 80-sounding rock has been a predominant influence on indie bands for a while now. It's the same three ones, you know? It's Fleetwood

MacCath, Bush, and, like, Neil Young or Tom Petty. Yeah, or like the cure, you know, stuff like that. I think that the Water Boys, they do integrate that sort of vibey rock with a more kind of fokey thing, and then you have the Celtic influence coming in as well. It's really unique, and I think it

translates really well in a modern context. And Go-Betweens are just amazing songs, and that translates to any era. So, 1988, great year. Again, this album, not on the Pausenjohnplist of that year. My favorite of the 85 former Waterboys,

just from a short view of the former members, has to be Carlos Hercules. He played drums from 2003 to 2006 and 2009. Great drummer name. All right, so my third one comes from 2010s, and I thought we talked about this one on a previous episode, but it turns out of time. It was my third choice for that episode,

but we went over only two of them. And I think that we'd be absolutely talking about this band if they had released an album since 2018, but they haven't. This is like straight up the middle Indycast core. I'm talking about Restorations and their 2014 album LP3. So this brings a couple of threads that we talk about a lot here, which is kind of heartland rock, except it's from Philadelphia. I think John the lead singer now he lives in Asheville,

which is, you know, another kind of indie cast thing to do to move to Asheville, North Carolina. But this was a really cool album from the time of Side One Dummy, that era where, you know, you were getting bands like Pup and Jeff Rosenstock putting out great records on that label. And these guys as well. And so they come from, I mean, there's the gravelly vocals which, you know, bring to my bands like, say, Gaslight Anthem or the Menzinger's. But what I don't think this album does, which sets it apart from the A4 mentioned, is that there's some Bruce Springsteen, but not a lot. Like, they like to have, like, triple guitars on every single song. They put a little shoegaze in there as well. They have songs about, you know, the daily grind of work.

I think separate songs. That should have been a classic. The video is really incredible as well. And it just has this element of being this kind of gritty sort of like, you know, street-level Philadelphia band. But the production is just enormous. It was done by John Lowe. It's a guy who I know worked on a couple of national records. And it's an interesting record that slipped through the cracks a bit, I think, in 2014, somewhat similar to like Symbol Zee guitars lose,

which we've talked too much about that band for it to ever be in the Indycast Hall of Fame. I know for me I didn't get to write about this record because I kind of had to make a little promise to some powers that be that I would kind of ease off on the emo during that time. And it's not an emo record. There are some elements of it. They put out a record on tiny engines in 2018 after a side one dummy imploded. But, you know, good band. It's kind of like if you write about sports, I guarantee you'll like this band as well. word around town is that they are working on LP5 LP4, which came out in 2018, was quite good, and all their stuff is good. It's just like an Indycast, like, recommendation corner band that we just haven't talked about because they haven't put out of new music. As you were talking about this record,

I just Googled quick to confirm that I wrote about this record for Grantland, and I did, and I did a profile of them. No shit. Headline was your new favorite punk band, Restorations Keep Hope Alive. You can find that on your nearest search engine. Yeah, I'm a fan of this record. You know, I would like them to like an American Constantine's. Like, you know, they have like that Constantine's type vibe where you have a little bit of the Springsteen, but there's also like the Fugazi element and also these other kind of

musical influences that get brought in. Really great band, kind of like a lost record of that time. But it's still out there for you to enjoy. I totally endorse. that being inducted. My final record that I'm going to induct, my third record from 1988, is called Green Thoughts,

and it's by a band called the Smithereens. Oh, yeah. This is a band that I think I would describe as sort of like a poor man's replacements. You know, like they were another band from that era that was making rock music on sort of like an indie level, and then they tried to become a mainstream rock band over the course of the 80s.

and they were actually a little bit more successful than the replacements were, at least in the short run. They had a radio hit in 1991 called A Girl Like You, which if you like, you know, arena rock from that time, you know that song. It's a very blustery song. It's a great song. I'm a fan of that song. You might have heard that song in a baseball game or something. I feel like that song still has some play out in the world. But by that time, I mean, they had really morphed into like a full, blown, like, yeah, we just sound like a more intelligent, like Motley Crew-type band. You know, like, we write really good songs, but we have that same sort of sonic flavor,

very heavy guitars, very loud, late 80s, early 90s sounding drums. But earlier in the decade, you know, they were more of this band that was really plugged into the Beatles, like they'd have Beatlesque rockers balanced out with, like, ballads that kind of sound like Elvis Costello's songs, especially, you know, him working in that like more croonery type mode of like almost blue or that song shipbuilding, you know, like that era of Elvis Costello. That was informed in the smithereens as well. And with Green Thoughts, which came out in 88, it's kind of like a happy medium of like their early period and what they became later on like a more blustery rock band. Like there's a lot of bluster on Green Thoughts, but it's like

just the right amount. And there's also still that kind of brainy Elvis Castello element also being involved there as well. And I really think that this band is more influential and important than they get credit for. Again, you know, kind of going back to the thing with the Waterboys where when people talk about 80s rock bands, they always kind of talk about the same bands. It's always REM, the Smiths, the Cure. And then there's all these other bands that kind of get overlooked. I think the smithereens are a band that like ends up getting overlooked by the replacements and and that kind of that kind of 80s rock band that's the thing that people care about now but the smithereens with green thoughts this is a record that was like a big influence on nirvana like they've like kirk cobain

in his journal he actually writes about the record before this that the smithereens put out it's called especially for you which came out in 86 and then there's a story like butch vig apparently like he talks about how when nirvana was in the studio making Nevermind. One of the records they were listening to on repeat is Green Thoughts. This is a record they were trying to make, which is kind of crazy to say, but you can kind of hear it because again, like what is Nevermind, if not pop songs with like really heavy guitars and loud drums?

Like that's what that record is. It's very polished. There's that sheen to it that Kirkobain came to hate and reacted against when they made in utero. But you listen to Nevermind. and then you go back to Green Thoughts and you're like, oh yeah, like never mind is just kind of like a more refined version of what the Smithereens were doing on this record. So that would be my elevator pitch for this album. I mean, aside from the fact that I think the songs are just great.

And again, you have the power pop element going on. But it doesn't have that sort of mild quality that power pop can have sometimes. That's sort of like very kind of like shy guy meek sound that some power pop records have. This is like a muscular record with really good melodies and memorable lyrics. And the songwriting is totally on point. So again, this is another record I feel like is important, but it gets overlooked. And I want to bring it back into the conversation. It's Green Thoughts by the Smithereens.

Do you have any experience with the Smithereens? I mean, I have, the name itself, you know, immediately brings to mind a girl like you, which I thought you were going to go in the direction when you were introducing this is like kind of a, you know, a dumb-down version of like the Bodines or something like that. Like I get, I put them in this kind of mix of late, like I don't remember if it's 80s. I don't remember if it's 90s and I don't. By the way, I recommend that if you're listening to this and you have like your phone nearby, like look at the Wikipedia picture for the Smithereens.

It's from them in 2009. It's the most New Jersey picture from 2009. you could imagine. But yeah, I have no... I mean, they were like a bar band, I think, at that point. I mean, like this, again, they were a band that, like, they had that hit, but then that was about it. And then they just became, I think, almost like a regional band after that.

They would probably play a lot in the Northeast and they had their fans, but they never really had their moment. Even though I think that the albums they made before that are really good. And, I mean, I know what you mean about the Bow Deans thing, but I think a girl like you is more Bo Deans-ish. But like that's where they evolved to. Like they started out in a different place that was more, I think, in a replacements type fame.

Yeah. But like straight ahead rock band that is slightly left to center, but like they want to get into the mainstream. And again, in the short run, they were like a little more successful, I think, than the replacements were. Because the replacements never had a song like a girl like you. You know, like that kind of like you,

ubiquitous radio hit. They never really hit that. The Smithereens did, but then they didn't have any of the mythology of the replacements or the Great Back catalog, you know, this kind of sustained interest for future generations. They're just like one of those bands that gets lost, you know? I think that's the common thread in both of our picks here is that you have the bands that end up sort of defining their time and they dominate the conversation when people go back and plug into new music. But there's all this other stuff that was also really good that gets swallowed up. And it's our job to kind of dig it out of the dustbin and pull it back out and say, no, this was good. You should check this out. Yeah, I think that like the, when we talk about

like definitive albums of a certain year, it's not necessarily going to be, you know, the cure of the replacements, the big stuff. It's going to be like the number 37 type album where it's like, this is what it was like to be engaged with music like throughout the entire year in 1988 and also I'm looking the Smithereens made a song with Diane Warren yeah see again they really yeah they really went for it yeah like once they got into the 90s they were like yeah where do we sign to sell out we will do anything to become popular I mean a girl like you I genuinely love that song I think that's a great song I think that's a great song I think The record that that's on, has some stuff on it.

Yeah, 11. I think that that record, I don't think, is as good as what the smithereens did in the 80s. I think the rest of that record has some, like, real arena rock dross on it. Like, not in a good way. Like, I love arena rock stuff, but, like, it's sort of, like, yeah, they really kind of dumbed it down a lot by the time of that record. Wow, yeah. I mean, like, it's so funny. Like, all these bands that you mentioned, I love the fact that it was all from insane.

year because they all kind of swim around in my head as like the kind of, you know, with all due respect, like, not B-team because I think the go-betweens are like one of the best bands of their era, but like they're not the band that's going to show up in the best of the 80s list. You know, when you span it out to the decade, you include like pop and you include rap and you include like all other genres. You know, this is the stuff that eventually gets lost in the mix. But, you know, I love all those picks because like I knew. of these bands, but, like, I don't know shit about the smithereens besides a girl like you.

You know, and sometimes I probably thought it was like a Matthew Sweet song. Me and Kurt Cobain. I love smithereens. So hopefully that's enough for you all out there. We're endorsing the smithereens, me and Kurt Cobain. I think that about does it for this episode of Indycast. We're going to skip recommendation corner today because we just don't do that on Indicast Hall of Fame Day. We just focus on the old album.

So thank you all for listening to this episode. We'll be back with more news and reviews and hashing out trends next week. And if you're looking for more music recommendations, sign up for the Indie Mix Taped 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.