Indiecast - Let's Revisit The Blog Rock Era

Episode Date: August 18, 2023

Steven was on vacation for part of the week, so he was checked out of the discourse. When he returned, he kept seeing the same face in his social media feed — the "Ginger Mumford" himself, Oliver Anthony. The folk-country artist went mega-viral this week with his right-wing, anti-welfare song "Rich Men North Of Richmond." Steven asked Ian if he's heard the song, and about the recent upswing in reactionary hits and whether this is a path forward for new artists looking for a way to break.After that, the guys talk about Ian's recent list of the greatest blog rock albums of all time. They debate Ian's choices, and compare that mid-aughts era when amateur curators were obsessed with hyping obscure bands with today's safer, superstar-obsessed era. Have things gotten better or worse?In Recommendation Corner, Ian talks about the indie-pop band dreamTX while Steven recommends the Philadelphia country-rock outfit Florry.New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 151 and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [e-mail], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Indycast is presented by Uprocks's indie mixtape. Hello everyone and welcome to Indiecast. On this show, we talk about the biggest indie news of the week, review albums, and we hash out trends. In this episode, we talk about the history of blog rock and yet another reactionary country music hit. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. I don't want my taxes to pay for his bags of fudge rounds.

Ian Cohen. Ian, how are you? Yeah, first off, fudge rounds come in boxes. I don't know what the hell this dude is talking about. But, you know, for a couple of- Fudge rounds. Am I ignorant? What are Fudge Rounds?

I've never heard of Fudge Rounds before this week. So for like a couple days, I was like really pissed off because I thought this dude was like, you know, sending strays at Fudge Stripes, which were one of my favorite Keebler cookies of my youth. But it turns out Fudge rounds are a kind of a C-tier little Debbie's snack food. You know, we all, like, am I? a coastal elite for thinking that like star crunch is like really the s tier shit whereas like fudge rounds is you know it's kind of in that uh kind of that like sea list middle ground of things

that i wouldn't touch also like i don't know is this dude country for is this cute dude country if he's like you know licking shots at little debby's well okay you keep saying this dude we need to explain what we're talking about here we're talking about a guy named oliver anthony uh he is a singer-songwriter, I believe he's from North Carolina, and he exploded this week with a viral hit that is, I believe, currently the number one song on iTunes. If it's not currently, it was this week. It's a song called Richmond North of Richmond. And I have to say, so I was on vacation in the later half of last week, in the front half of this week, and I was doing my best to avoid social media.

I was just trying to enjoy myself. I went swimming a lot. I went to some water parks. I thought of you because I heard the hooters and we danced at the water park. Philly National Anthem. Pink Summer. Yeah. Incredible.

But I did occasionally check my phone and look at Twitter or X or whatever they're calling it. And I kept seeing this dude's face in my feed over and over again. this guy who I'm just going to call him like Ginger Mumford because he looks like Mumford and Sons like a Mumford and Sons type guy. He's got like a big beard, big bushy beard, kind of a preppy looking haircut. And he's a redhead.

And it's this guy Oliver Anthony who has this song and it just became a huge hit this week. And of course I had to listen to it because I'm a music critic, got to stay on top of the trends that we hash out in the show. And this song, it's basically a lament about politicians.

Politicians not looking out for the working man, the little guy. Standard fare, if you will, for country music. And I should say that this song, musically, it is in the style of, you know, sort of hard-bitten folk music, country-tinged folk music. One could say it goes all the way back to Woody Guthrie, that kind of music. Except this song is not some lefty anthem, the kind of songs that Woody Guthrie wrote. This song has caught on in the right-wing pop culture ecosystem. And it's funny because it's really only because of one lyric where he talks about people on welfare.

There's a line in the song where he says, if you're 5'3 foot 3 and you weigh 300 pounds, I don't want my taxes to pay for your fudge rounds. And I have to say, like, the first time I heard the song... I don't know if... I don't know if, like, EBT pays for Fudge rounds. I know, like, it's really, really difficult for EBT or Snap to, like, buy certain things. So, yeah, I...

Like, citation needed on the Fudge Rounds line. I mean, the first time I heard that line, I laughed out loud because it's so out of nowhere in the song. Like, you're not expecting that. It's also, I think, really... Lumsy? Right. I mean, to me, it just takes me out of the song. Because, again, like, you watch the video.

He's, like, in the middle of the woods. He's playing, like, the Mark Knopfler guitar. The resonator guitar. Yeah, like, that's the one Boni Vair plays on Skinny Love. He's out there in the woods. There you go. Yeah. And I think that's the guitar.

If we can make another Mark Knopfler reference, it's the kind of guitar that is on the back cover of Brothers and Arms. Maybe we can have a guitar expert, correct me on that. But it looks like that. guitar. He's this backwards guy, he's singing this lament about politicians, and then, I mean, just the word fudge, I think, is funny. Fudge by itself is just funny.

There's obviously, you know, bathroom connotations with the word fudge. You know, I'm not proud that I find that funny, but I do. I just wonder, like, how many different snacks do you think he plugged into that slot before he landed on fudge rounds? I guess he had to rhyme. you had to find a word that rhymes with pounds. Or maybe he had to find something that rhymes with fudge rounds. Maybe that was like the load-bearing part of the lyric.

And he just had to like, you know, kind of work around that. Because I don't think he was like Star Crunch, what lines with this, paying for your free lunch. Not like, I think something about fudge rounds. That is such a, I mean, that's all we're talking about. That's such a distinct line. He's like, this one's not leaving. I got to work around that. And it really tips the song into like a right-wing song.

Because before that, you could say, well, this is like a song that anyone could sing on either side of the political divide. It feels like, you know, we all agree that politicians suck and that the working man is getting screwed over. I mean, these are sentiments that I think anyone could agree upon. But then he steers it into the fudge rounds realm. and it just changes the song and it's really transformed the song into this right-wing phenomenon. I don't know if you've been following the discourse

on the right-wing side here about this song. There's this famous commentator named Matt Walsh who is just a vile person. He's very vile guy. He's very transphobic and he's basically like this sort of provocateur working for the Daily Wire.

He's been one of the big backers of this song and he went on this thing about how you know we live in a world where all songs are made by computers right people are just looking for something authentic and this is the song it's like buddy listen to indecast my friend we're talking about lots of music not made by computers on this show uh i just feel like you have to broaden your horizons there a little bit matt um but it's interesting to me because you know we're going to be talking in a minute about this general feeling in the music industry right now, this depression, this malaise about how hard it is to break new artists. And I actually think that's true, not just in music, but in all popular arts right now.

I think we're in a kind of stagnant moment, I think, collectively. But it does seem like right now, if you want to have a hit, there has to be some sort of TikTok element or some sort of social media cause behind you that's going to propel you to getting lots of streams. and I do wonder if, because we've already seen this with the Jason L. Dean song, try that in a small town. Now we have this other reactionary right-wing song. There is a market out there, this right-wing media ecosystem that is really underserved.

Like they are out here, they're banning Bud Light. You know, they're doing that kind of boycott stuff. They're looking, I think, for things to latch on to in the culture. there was that Sound of Freedom film about child trafficking that became like a huge hit film. Yeah, they won't let you see it. That's like one of my favorite subplots of the summer where people talk about like all the ways the movie theater tries to prevent you from seeing it. Like they'll turn the air conditioning up super high. Right.

The Illuminati are descending. Yeah, exactly. Like Jim, like they're trying to thwart Jim Caviesel in his anti-trial, child. trafficking campaign here. I do wonder if we're entering a moment where struggling singer songwriters are going to do

like what bands did maybe 20 years ago when they transitioned into Christian rock. You know, like how, let's say you're like a mediocre band and you can't break into like the mainstream. And then you just like rewrite your songs to

be about Jesus and now you're in the Christian rock realm where it's not as competitive. And you can really corner that market because there's just not a lot of bands that are doing that. I wonder if there's going to be like struggling singer, songwriters who are like, maybe I just add a verse in my song about supply side economics or about like BLM, you know, an anti-BLM lyric in this song, you know, and that's going to be the way that they break because there's just not a lot of musicians working in this right-wing realm. So it is almost like the old

Christian rock thing where, okay, I can't break through in like the regular music scene. But if I just like drop some dog whistles into my song, now I'm going to be able to break through. You know, because like this Oliver Anthony guy, he's been around for a while. He's, you know, you look through his history, he's been writing songs, he's been posting stuff on TikTok. This is by far the biggest song he's ever had. And if he didn't have that welfare line, I really don't think.

this song would have broken as big as it did. Because people on the right, they love it, and then people on the left, they hate it, which makes people on the right love it even more. Yeah. So I just wonder, maybe this is going to be the hot new trend. Just drop a dog whistle verse into your backwoods lament. If you're a singer, songwriter, who's not doing well. And you can get the Matt Walsh's of the world to treat you like you're the second coming of Sturgle Simpson.

Yeah, I mean, I haven't actually heard this song yet, but maybe I'm just like too ensconced in my... What? Look. Just, you didn't... Wait, wait, wait, what kind of prep are you doing for this show? You didn't listen to this song? No, because I'm just going to do it like blog style, you know? Like, I'm looking at it on mute.

I'm like, this could be like a blog-o-tech or a takeaway show. No, I'm okay. I did listen to it, and it sounded like, I mean, what surprised me is that the dude can sing. Like, I mean, he's, like, not a terrible singer. Like, it's... I saw him. compared to like Bo Bice

or like one of those country guys that gets on American Idol and also like when you talk about this like underserved right wing listening audience

you know like to quote Michael George who apparently didn't say Republicans buy shoes too but I guess like Republicans are still buying stuff on iTunes I actually think that

the fact that they're talking about like iTunes rather than Spotify makes this even funnier because I think like iTunes is still you know, where your, like, 65-year-old, like, grandfather is maybe buying music as opposed to Spotify. And I saw this tweet from, like, you know, pop bass updates.

Like, one of those aggregator twitters, where it talks about, like, how the top five songs on iTunes are all Republicans. And I think three songs were Oliver Anthony, another was try that in a small town, and another was Taylor Swift's Cruel Summer. And I think we all know that, like, the pop bass guys, probably in zip ties in a Swifty's trunk this time around. But I think that with, I think with that, this, I don't know if it's going to, look, if the Republicans want to, like, take over a small sliver of, like, pop culture and, I don't know, stop doing the other shit that they're doing, you know, in politics. I think that's a fair trade.

Like, maybe this is just all part of, like, yeah, let's give them this little toy to play with so we can, I don't know, pack the Supreme Court with, like, non-demons or something along those lines. Also, do you feel called out as someone who missed this song because they were on vacation in their cabin in the north, like, you're north of Richmond. So I think in this song, you're the guy getting called out. No, he's talking about Washington, D.C., man. He's talking about the fat cats in D.C. Those clowns in Congress are at it again. I mean, I think that's what he's, or maybe he's talking about, like, New York people, and we know what New York people is a euphemism for.

We don't need to go down that road. But there just seem to be overtones of that as well. I mean, again, if you look at this from a purely mercenary point of view, you know, I made the Christian Rock comparison before. I'm also going to bring up Gutfeld, that show, that late night show hosted by Greg Gutfeld, which is like the top rated late night show right now or like one of the top rated. I think it's like beating Kimmel and Fallon and I think it's doing Colbert type numbers. And basically his whole thing is I am the non-liberal talk show host. Like all these other talk show hosts, they're all in the tank for the left. I'm the right-wing guy.

So if you want a right-wing show, watch my show. And it doesn't even matter that Greg Gutfeld can't tell a joke at all. Like I don't have you ever watched that show. It's awful. It's excruciating to watch. Also, the thing that confuses me is that his audience strikes me as people who, like, go to bed at 9 o'clock at night. So I don't know how he's like... There's younger right-wingers, though, man.

Oh, definitely. There's young... I mean, Fox News has an older audience, but, like, there's a lot of young right-wingers out there. You know, like, we can't pretend that all young people are liberals. I mean, there's a lot of Red State millennials and Gen Zers and all that stuff. carrying their briefcase to a college, to a college lecture type people, the people who like literally think Ben Shapiro is a rock star.

Well, this leads into another topic we wanted to talk about here, which was this billboard story that came out this week, talking to record executives who are apparently like on the ledge right now because we're in an era that is, it's very difficult to break new artists right now. We have Oliver Anthony, obviously, being the exception to that,

this guy that comes out of nowhere and has this huge song. It'll be interesting to see if he's a novelty or if he can actually build a career off of that. But it does seem right now that the biggest stars in the world have been in that position for a long time. I mean, the phenomenon of the summer musically is the Taylor Swift heiress tour. And Taylor Swift, again, has been,

in the music scene now for like 15 or so years. And she's been a superstar for most of that time. Who are, who's the next Taylor Swift though? That seems to be the question. Who are, like, who's the next Beyonce? Who is the next the weekend? Who is the next Drake? And there are, you know, people like Olivia Rodrigo and Duolupa and artists of that caliber.

There are some younger emerging artists that have become big stars. But it does feel like, at least in the music industry, according to this Billboard story that we're not seeing as many young new artists breakthrough as we have in the past and you know I alluded to this earlier but I think that

this is bigger than just music I think if you look at pop culture in general there is this feeling of malaise right now you know there was the Barbenheimer phenomenon with film with Barbie and Oppenheimer and a lot of people interpreted that as a

reaction to the stranglehold that Marvel has had on movies for the last, again, about 15 years or so. And there seems to be this hunger out there for something different. And that's why people latched down to those movies. It was something different. And this has happened during a summer where a lot of these big properties, like the Fast and Furious films, like there was an Indiana Jones movie with like an 80-year-old Harrison Ford. You know, these like literally long in the tooth film franchises, which have not performed that well. There seems to be an analogy there with music as well. And I don't know. I don't want to

sound like a crusty Gen Xer, but I do think back to the 90s when there was this moment where things seemed kind of stale. And then you had, you know, grunge come along. You had gangster rap come along. You had like the indie film movement, like with Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson and Wes Anderson. All of these things that were counterculture that took over the culture. And it seems like we're in a moment now where we're poised for something like that to happen. But it's like, is there still a counterculture in 2023? Or is the structure of the media and social media and the internet and all that stuff?

Has it made that kind of thing impossible? That's the thing I'm curious about. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. Yeah. I mean, a lot of people mock this story for them using the term like depressed, like music execs are deeply depressed. And, you know, they probably are. You know, as a mental health professional, like, I can't invalidate that, even though they're, like, one of the least sympathetic subgroups of the entire entertainment industry. But, like, if you think about, like, what they

have to do on a day-to-day basis, yeah, that sounds depressing as fuck. Because, you know, the past two weeks, you know, the only thing that we really have to talk about aside from the ERIS tour is, uh, rich men north of Richmond, like, or, you know, the past. that Planet of the Bass song, which that was like two weeks ago. And, you know, that song came out as an official release and people were already like, oh, fuck this guy. Like, we're already tired of that shit. And it just reminds me of, God, like, one of the darkest periods of my life.

Like, what's to deal with that song? Like, let's fill people. You know, we haven't talked about Planet of the Base on the show. Like, what is going on with that? Can you fill us in? I absolutely can fill us in. So, like, every now and again, you would see a tweet from, you know, like, people. people my age, like, talking about how, like, Eurodance songs from, like, the 90s would have

this very, you know, peppy, perky melody. And then out of nowhere, they'd have this guy, like, you know, come in the middle, like, Freedom, not Freedom Williams. Who was the other guy in C&C Music Factory? Fuck, man. I'm, like, really shooting my cred right here. But, like, they would come in with... I'm pleased that I know Freedom Williams.

Yeah. There's no way in hell I would know the other guy's name in C&C Music Factory. No, Freedom Williams. He's the guy who, like... never wore a shirt. So, yeah, Freedom Williams, I think, is the singer, the singer, whereas Colin Clovillis, that's the C&C. But the guy, it's going to kill me for like, it's going to kill me until I figure this out.

But I'm not going to Google it. I'm not going to Google the name of the guy who does the rap and snaps. I got the power. But, yeah, like Planet of the Base is basically that. It has a video that looks like it's from the 90s. It's kind of like an Ali G show sort of thing. And it got an official release. and it's very clear that like, you know,

it just reminds me of like the, some of the darkest days of my life in 2010 watching funnier die videos go viral and then seeing those people try to like monetize it. And, you know, just, I mean, these are dark times, but like we're having like a song of the summer conversation, like trying to talk about like whether Kylie Minogue or, you know, Olivia Rodriguez or the song of the summer.

And yet these two TikTok songs, which people are either calling industry plants or parodies, are pretty much the only thing people can talk about. So, yeah, I would say that it is, you know, as Olivia Rodriguez once said, it's fucking brutal out there. And so, I mean, I don't know what the solution is. Maybe it's to just kind of embrace the fact that there is no, like to Rick Petino style, like there is no Taylor Swift walking through that door. Yeah, like what are we, I mean, I'm just, I'm just scared as a content creator reliant on content that, you know, what are we to do? Are we just going to have to like, like, we're just going to be like doing the episodes like waiting until Wednesday night for another viral song to pop, you know? Yeah, I mean, I'll just go back to what I was saying earlier about this idea of a new movement from the counterculture coming in to take over the mainstream culture. and that being this refreshing reset on what we all experience.

And that used to be something that was commonplace. And I just wonder if that's still something that can happen. I see a lot of willing things like that to happen. You know, the indie sleeves conversation being a perfect example, which is something that I don't really think is an actual thing. I think that was invented by some culture writers in New York who saw a few things in their backyard that might, have signaled to them in some small way that this was going to be a thing. I see no evidence of that

really spreading beyond those extremely small circles. You know, I think we always want these counterculture things to be a positive thing, something that we can be excited about, when in reality it may be these right-wing country songs coming in, and that is the new trend. I mean, obviously, that is something that is speaking to people. And it's... speaking to an audience that is not typically addressed by mainstream entertainment companies. So there's something going on there. It's hard to know if it's something real or just a novelty. But yeah, it's a very, it is a depressing moment, I think, in culture right now. And you hope that there is some Messiah figure who we haven't heard of yet, who's going to make a

record that is amazing and it becomes popular and that transforms where we're at right now. I just don't see a lot of evidence that that is like a realistic hope. So I don't know. This is a depressing thing. I'm joining the record executives on the ledge, I think, right now. Yeah, and if there isn't like a new Nirvana, if there isn't a new Dr. Dre, if there isn't a new Snoop Dog, we'll just continue to do mailbag episodes. Well, or we can talk about musical movements from, you know, 20 years ago or so.

Oh, yeah. This is my segue into our blog rock conversation. And this is inspired by a column you wrote this week for Uprocks. You ranked the 40 best blog rock records of all time. And I've got a lot of thoughts on this as well as the era in general. But I'm curious, well, I'm curious, this will be a two-part question. One, what inspired you to do this piece? And two, what are your parameters for blog rock?

Like, how do you define it? Yeah, I think one minor but crucial correction I needed to make is that it's the greatest blog rock albums because, like, if it were just the best, the list would look very, very different. There are some things on there that are just not very good, but they were just fun to write about. And I know you've talked about that with list making where you just want to throw some things in, you know, towards the end that are just, you know, good ways to get jokes off.

Not necessarily, like, look, I'm not going to listen to that fucking sound team album again. But what inspired it? So, wait, it's not greatest. Like, what is it then? No, it's the greatest, not the best. Great can mean just bigger immense, like, great, like, oh, this was a profound thing. If it were the best albums, that would be different. But, yeah, what inspired it?

Gosh, this thing, I really dragged my. feet on this. Like, my apologies to Phil, our editor. But, you know, there was a tweet back several months ago where someone posted a list of seven albums. It was, you know, all the, the GADP ones that we had talked about on past episodes where it's, you know, like Merriweather Post Pavilion, Vecatimist, It's Blitz, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.

And they threw in the XX. bat for lashes two sons and this person said like we need a video essay to explain what the fuck was going on here in other words like please explain indie rock 2009 um because you know these were the biggest albums of that time you know not just in like the little corners of the internet but seemingly uh culture at large and i think people have to remember that these were still pretty minor in terms of culture at large. You know, you look at the top 10 albums from that year. I mentioned that, like, Taylor Swift's Fearless was the best-selling album that year.

Number 10 was the Kings of Leon's, whichever one came out in 2008. And so, look, I've been sitting on a blog rock type exegesis for a lot. I don't even know if I pronounced that word right, but it just made sense. Like, look, I've been dying to talk about white rabbits. I've been dying to talk about someone still loves you, Boris Yeltsin. How can I make this work and how can I make this fun? And I haven't done a list in like two years. So this made sense.

And so, yeah, as far as the toughest part, obviously, was how to define blog rock because, you know, there's blog rock. There's like, clap your hand say, yeah. There's like, you know, someone still loves you, Boris Yeltsin. Like the things that you had mentioned when you were written about blog rock a few, years back. And then there's the public conception of it, which is basically indie rock as a whole from the 2000s, which would include things like Vampire Weekend and LCD sound system I saw being referred to as Blog Rock or MIA for that matter. And this was a purely exercise and remember some guys. Like, how else am I going to talk about annuals in 2023 or how else am I

going to talk about Rah, Ra, Ra, Riot in 2023. You know, these albums, there's no peg, there's no newspeg whatsoever. But I just, I wanted to kind of cure the malaise that I've been experiencing this summer by just remembering a time where, like, people really rallied around this kind of stuff, you know, like there was, yeah, I was going to say, you know, because like, when we talk about these bands, like, when I think about block rock, I'm thinking, like, it's like mid-2000s indie rock bands, not the top tier bands, but the second or third tier bands. Exactly.

And getting back to this idea of blogs, which I think we need to explain a little bit because we are pretty far removed from this time. And there's probably a lot of people who didn't experience this firsthand, or maybe they don't remember it. But there was this period pre-social media where a lot of people, they had their own websites and they were writing about music. And there was this idea of sort of amateur curators out there, people who could be tastemakers, even if they weren't working for spin or Rolling Stone or Pitchfork.

And what strikes me looking back on that era is that it's basically the opposite of what we have now, where the big complaint about the music media at this point is everyone is focusing on the same mega famous people. and you're trying to achieve scale when you reach readers. You're trying to find the artists that they all care about so that they'll click on your story and you can have an audience. And back then, the idea was you find an obscure band or singer-songwriter and you hype the shit out of them. And you make your name by being the place that people go to

discover music that they've never heard before. So it really, again, is the opposite of what we have now where you were encouraged to seek out obscure stuff and turn them into stars, essentially. And back then, the complaint was about hype. Right. That there were a lot of so-so bands that were being declared the next big thing, and there was a certain level of burnout associated with that. And even when the bands turned out to be great, that ended up being a big part of the narrative.

like Vampire Weekend, for example, who, and I want to get into this with you because your story, you definitely went after the Remember Some Guys type bands, the bands that have been forgotten. And you didn't really write about artists that really could be classified as Blog Rock because they literally were boosted by blogs back then. But we don't think of them that way because they transcended that scene or that terminology. Because Vampire Weekend was one of them. And one of the things like when that first record came out that people wrote about endlessly was, does this band deserve to be on the cover of X magazine? Like, are they really deserving of this? Have they just been hyped beyond what they deserve to be?

And of course, the Vampire Weekend, it proved to be, yes, they deserved to be that. They were a band that was built to go to the distance. But then for every Vampire Weekend, there were a lot of bands like Black Kids, for instance, who you write about in your piece. Oh, yeah. And you you hilariously quote reviews of that band written at the time, which are just cringe-inducing. Because they, I think, are, you know, and it's unfortunate for them, but they are, I think, a textbook example of, I think, like a kind of like an okay band being treated as like this bellwether, that they were going to be like a revolutionary type. band and it's almost like this temporary madness that people were under and then because they put out

an EP right that like was acclaimed and then they put out their full length album and everyone hated the album well the thing about the thing about party traumatic uh which was produced by the guitars from suede bernard butler a nice little factoid but um the interest i think that is the culminative story of blog rock even though it went on for for a few more years because the reviews I quote of party traumatic are like all, pretty much all positive. I looked at it and it had like a 75 or something like that on Metacritic. The only one that people remember is the one that ran at Pitchfork where it's like a picture

of like Ryan Shriver's Pugs or something like that. And it just says, sorry in the I Can Had Cheeseburger type font. And that was pretty much grand opening, grand closing right there. And it's interesting. Would you say Oliver Anthony has experienced a blog rock type trajectory? Well, you know, there's, I mean, TikTok, I guess, is the closest thing that we have now to blog rock. I mean, where you have something that feels more organic maybe than, because I think at the time in the 2000s, again, there was this period of time where blogs seemed really refreshing, you know, that you could go to these places and they weren't written like a regular, you know, music public. I mean, even pitchfork in a way, you could say was part of that even...

Absolutely. Because they were less professional back then. They were just like the best known blog. But, yeah, there was this group of blogs that you would go to and you felt like, okay, I'm dealing like with a specific person or maybe a group of people. And they'd have, like, you know, taste that were, that applied to that blog, you know, and you would go to certain blogs. Maybe this is like an Americana blog.

is more of electronic music blog. And it just felt like you were dealing with someone who really loved this stuff as opposed to some of the corporate magazines, which felt a little stale at that point. And you felt like, oh, they're just regurgitating press releases. And then over time, I think with blogs, there was this exhaustion that set in because the way that they made their bones again was by breaking new artists. But it's like there's not always great artists out there. You know, there's not always like an arcade fire or a vampire weekend or a bonnie

of air or an animal collective or an MGMT who, by the way, I think are all artists that you could group under the blog rock umbrella. But again, I totally support why you didn't put them in your story because it's more fun to write about the obscure stuff. And like artists that transcend blog rock, it almost feels like they shouldn't be counted as part of it. But yeah, there was just a situation like where a lot of restaurants. records that like weren't that good were being hyped beyond what they deserve to be and people got burned out on it.

And of course then you had like Twitter comes along. And I mean, I think really that's what wiped out blogs because now instead of writing a blog post, you could just go on social media and post about stuff. It just took away the motivation for having this kind of thing. So that ended that. Yeah, I ended the blog rock era. in 2011, which not coincidentally is the time where I got on Twitter. But yeah, that was also the time where, you know, streaming was starting to pick up. And so, you know, Block Rock in some ways was still kind of a gatekeepery.

It was a more benevolent sort of gatekeeper phenomenon. But it was still like, hey, you go to this person to find out about music that might not be totally accessible. And yeah, I just, God, I had so much fun remembering, like, the, not. not just the blog rock bands, but the blogs themselves. You know, people just going after firsties and hyping up, not the vampire weekend, but like, you know, the trickle down of Vampire Weekend of, like, this band called Princeton. That was one where it's like they sounded like Vampire Weekend.

And they actually predate Vampire Weekend, but because they were called Princeton, people assume that they were on the same shit, you know, bands like LaCross, that's another one. Harlem shakes I couldn't give any sort of love to they just didn't fit I want to be abundantly clear that this might seem so small potatoes but there were so many bands that I could put in this list that I could not find the space for they were getting signed to major labels they were getting signed to like big indies like this was actually a phenomenon well and like as we get like up into the upper echelons of your list and I do want to talk about your number one choice here in a minute but like you you had bands like Slaybell

up there and you had Los Campesinos, which I knew you were going to put on there. Any excuse to talk about that band? I almost feel like you could say that they transcend Blog Rock. I almost feel like Slay Bells was too big. I thought so, too. Yeah, because I had my doubts about including Slay Bells because they were, you know, they were like legit big in 2010. And I think for a few years after that, same with my number.

They were an SNL. Really? They were like an SNL. Yeah. That makes sense. And it might have been for their second record, but yeah. And I remember, like, when they were on the show, they had, like, these huge fake martial stacks.

You know, like, I don't even know if there was, like, anything in them, but they had, like, the cabinets on stage with them. You know, like, they were, you know, the Who playing in, like, 1975. So, yeah, they were pretty big. And Los Camposinos, I feel like they've just been around a long time. Yeah. You know, because, like, a lot of these bands, I feel like, you know, they sort of came and went. and they're very much of that era.

One thing, because it seems like, I don't know how far back you went, it seems like you started maybe around 05-06. O3 were the first albums I included in there were 2003. There was like a Menomino record in there, I believe. That might have been the earliest. But, yeah, I think 2003, that felt like the right time. You know, you could probably say 2004 and 2005 is like when it really picked up steam. But I think in 2003, I remember that being a time where it really felt like,

you know, like pitchfork and associated blots were like breaking bands, like breaking them for real. That was like the social, broken social scene year. That was like M83 coming out of nowhere. That was like when Sufyan had his breakthrough. So yeah, that felt right. Even though like 2005 is really like, I guess, blog rock par excellence. See, because I was wondering about like the post-strokes bands that would have been coming along that time that you didn't put on your list. like one of our beloved Remember Some Guys bands from this era The Stills

Like they weren't on your list Yeah Or like Long Wave Like the Long Wave record Which I still break out from time to time Like that didn't make your list Although you did put Rogue Wave on there I did

I think they were in your top 10 I think But like why not Longwave or The Stills Like those kind of bands Because I would think Like a big part of like how I figured this out Was like could this band have made it Without blogs? And like long wave to me seems like more of a trickle down of like the strokes.

And they were like an NYC band. They were like a scene band. The stills also kind of a sceney band. They struck me as like, you know, bands that maybe like, you know, got a lot of play on the internet. But like I feel like if you take blogs out of the equation, you would still have longwave. You would still have the stills. They seem a little bit more spillover from like post-9. 11 rock than its own discreet thing in a way that like rogue wave came like rogue wave like came out because like

you know people needed a kind of a franchised version of the shins you know yeah and i think i i think that there were actual connections between them and the strokes too yeah i mean the strokes because there's like blog rock and then there's like proto blog rock and like the stuff that's like just kind of pre this stuff i i totally see your rationale for not including including that stuff. We need to talk about your number one choice because I got to say I think you overthought this a little bit

because you put Peter, you put Peter, Bjorn, and John riders block at number one as your number one greatest blog rock record. And that album certainly belongs on this list, young folks. It was the,

try that in a small town of its day, at least in terms of being a viral hit, you know, just kind of went everywhere. but I feel like the obvious choice is clearly clap your hand and say yeah, which you not only, you didn't put it at number one, you put it at number four. And was it just because it was too obvious? Because that was my thought when I read your list because I thought, and I do the same thing when I make lists. Sometimes I don't want to do the obvious thing at number one. But it's like, how is that not?

Like the number one blog rock record. It's certainly the most blog rock record. If you ask anyone who knows anything about blog rock, name a blog rock band. I feel like clap your hand and say, yeah, is like the Beatles of this scene. Like there's no other more blog rock band than that. So like, why wouldn't that be number one on your list? I mean, it's kind of secret sauce, you know, vibes. And like, look, I think it would be the most obvious choice to put it number one.

Do I think it's a better album than writer's block or, you know, hold the, now youngster? Not really. But look, I don't think that this list was made for posterity. It was more, what's going to entertain me enough to, like, see this through to the end? But, but, but, hey, don't cop out here, though.

You need to, what is your case for writer's block being number one? It's the best album of the ones that I include under the umbrella of blog rock. I mean, this album is fucking incredible. And I think it, it gets, like, weirdly underrated because like the impact of young folks overshadows everything else on it.

I think we've actually had like conversations about the closer poor cow on this episode where it's like kind of a real bummer. But before that like it is, you know, it's the album that like I would think of like I could put this up against anything from indie rock of that era. Whereas like clap your hand say yet is the most blog rocky. But, um, Is it as good as like, you know, comparable albums from 2005? And the answer to that is not really. Yeah, I would say that like, I would say that's it. It's like this mix of like quality but blogginess and in my own formulation,

which is completely unimpeachable, by the way, that clap your hands say yeah is a little bit higher than treats, but slightly below behemey. See, I think clap your hands say, yeah, they just epitomize this error to me kind of like for the reasons you were saying before where I don't know how that band becomes as prominent as they were for a brief window of time without online hype. You know, they were not a band, I think, that was ever going to be going through like the major label system, you know, in a way that you could say maybe about long wave of the stills. You know, I think they were literally. a band that was like mailing CDs to people themselves.

Yeah. You know, like when people were ordering, I remember ordering it and like having to wait a long time after that pitchfork review came out. I remember being in a bar in Madison, Wisconsin, and they had that album in the CD jukebox. And it was like the most incredible thing ever that you could listen to this album in a bar. And it was, I think, again, like right around the time that review came out. So I don't know if this person was like,

just the head of the curve with clap your hand say yeah but um they just seemed like a band they epitomized the era for that reason i think that they were a pretty good band yeah but they were they were they were i think oversold by the hype and they paid the price for it later on when they continued to be a pretty good band but like not this paradigm shifting group that they had been sold as initially and that's unfortunate for them I don't think that's their fault, you know, because they were always just doing what they did. But, again, I think if you're looking for the blog rock story and miniature, looking at clap your hand say, yeah, is a convenient place to go.

Because I think they epitomize what was good about that era and also what was maybe a little self-destructive about that hype cycle at the time. I agree with you. And I think I did a little bit of a makeup call by putting some loud thunder on there as well. They were the only band to make it there twice. You put Sam Laud Thunder on there too? It was like number 22 or something. Because, because A, it's a great album.

Like, I will defend that one on any circumstance. I'm just, like, walking around this world, like an MPC and, like, Grand Theft Auto waiting for someone to engage with me about Some Loud Thunder. But, you know, that was the, that was an album. Like, my claim for that is that it's the only blog rock album to actually reckon with the impact of blog rock. They did not sign to a major label. They continued to self-release.

I think they might be putting out albums on an indie these days, but, you know, they turned down major label offers. They still got Dave Friedman to work on Some Loud Thunder. And, you know, they made this very reactive antagonistic sort of record that, you know, takes

the hype into account and pushes people away so that they could have this kind of sustainable weirdo career. so many of the bands that were mentioned on the list, like your Vox Trots, your sound teams, they pretty much broke up the moment they got a bad review. Or the black kids, for that matter. So clap your hands say, yeah, like very admirable.

I guess they are also, in a way, like a testament to the resilience of Blog Rock. Because, yeah, they didn't change the, They didn't change music as we know it, but I think the bigger thing. And the last line of the pitchfork review of Clap Your Hands, ASL titles, like, damn, maybe this is how it's supposed to work. I think people still kind of think that. Like, they want this kind of farm-to-table sort of thing where you just cut out the middleman of hype, you cut out the PR, you cut out the labels, and, you know, bands just get discovered on their merits. And like you said, this created this arms race for firsties where, you're, you know, you cut out the PR, you cut out the labels.

you know, it wasn't enough to say that Tokyo Police Club made a great record. It's that Tokyo Police Club is like the next big thing. Like, and of course that was unsustainable and led to a lot of ridiculous shit, much of which is covered in this list. So, well, it's a good column and I love the idea of Sam Laud Thunder being the in utero of Blog Rock, you know, that it's the reactive Capstone album. You know, blog rock hype has paid off well. Now I'm bored and old. Fuck, man. I want your list now. That is like, the most astute thing I've heard said about the era. All right, let's get to our mailbag segment.

Thank you all for writing in. We got a bunch of emails this week. I put out that call for emails. Listeners responded. We are due for a mailbag episode. We may do that next week. We'll see what happens. But keep writing us.

We love hearing from you. We're at Indycast Mailbag at gmail.com. Ian, you want to read this week's letter? I absolutely do. This comes to us from Jason in Oklahoma City via Reno, Nevada. Yeah, that's like sounding like a Sturgle Simpson song right there, Oklahoma City via Aria. First time, long time. I was curious to know, what is your all-time most anticipated album and did it meet your desired expectations when you first heard it?

Thanks for your discipline to your craft. I've read both of you for years and appreciate you putting into work each week to do the podcast. Saying that kind of thing won't guarantee that your mailbag letter gets read, but it certainly doesn't hurt. Yes, yes. Thank you very much. Man, most anticipated album Well, I just told the story about seeing Clap Your Hand Say Yeah

at the Madison, Wisconsin Jukebox, you know, CD Jukebox. So that was a pretty anticipated album. I mean, I don't know how you feel about this. I suspect it's similar to me where, you know, there's two different lifetimes here as a music fan. There's the lifetime you have as a teenager where those are really the most anticipated albums

I've ever had in my life. I mean, Kid A is an obvious answer here. Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness is an obvious answer here in utero. You know, shout out to in utero again. That's a big answer. You know, especially after reading all the stories about how unlistinable it was and how Steve Albini, like, ruin the band and all that stuff. Couldn't wait to hear that record.

I mean, honestly, like the Usure Illusion albums are probably the most anticipated albums of my life. Like, seeing You Could Be Mine, the video for that, the T2. So fucking badass. I could not wait to hear. those records. And it's just different now because as a music critic, you get a lot of albums in advance. So you're not necessarily waiting until the release date to hear stuff.

And that just changes, you know, the sense of anticipation. I mean, I was thinking about like the last 10 or so years. And I feel like the Frank Ocean albums, Channel Orange and then Blonde, like there was a pretty big anticipation for those and like the online community for those, like how I felt like everyone was experiencing those at the same time. So, like, maybe that would be. But again, I mean, I can't really compare that to being 17 and, you know, being really excited to hear melancholy and the infinite sadness.

I mean, like, that's just a different level of anticipation. I mean, is that similar for you? I would guess that it probably is. I can't believe I'm the one bringing up verses by Pearl Jam. Verses? That's another one. Oh, yeah. And vitology.

be another one. Yeah, especially versus because you would just hear it's like, oh, they're not making videos. And I think I heard Animal, they may have played that on MTV Video Music Awards or something like that. Like that was... Yeah, with Neil Young. Jeez, man. Like, all right. I, look, I, I, I can hold my own in a Pearl Jam conversation, at least for the first, like, 10 years of their career. But, yeah, I mean, there's, like, the obvious memories of, like, I remember being super hyped to buy okay computer because I saw the paranoid Android video and read, like, a four-star review in Rolling Stone and felt like, oh, this is going to be life-changing shit. And I bought it in an Israeli record store.

So that, you know, I was listening to it in the desert, just having my mind blown. So that's really formative. And I mean, yeah, we can bring up, like, all the stuff for my youth. But, like, to me, those are, like, my experience waiting for those albums are, like, the same as anyone else. Like, you know, you can't get it online. You got to, like, wait, go to Sam Go to Sam Goody on a Tuesday. You buy it like everyone else. Maybe it's just in the spirit of the blog rock discussion, but I want to talk about the experience of like wanting an album, knowing it's out there and not being able to get it.

And so for that, I got to think back to Arcade Fire Funeral. You know, as the legend goes, the pitchfork 9.7 review dropped like nine, like two days, I think, before it got into stores. And like, you couldn't find it. Like, it sold out extremely quickly. and I would go, I think, like, every day for like a span of five days until it showed up at school kids records. And of course, you know, besides the fact that it's like one of my favorite albums of all time, the anticipation certainly made it seem like extremely more profound than it would be if I just had gotten it like any other album from that era. I also think about the Sufion Stevens, Illinois, because I also couldn't get that in the store at the time because they had to change the cover art to take Superman off it.

But, you know, even before you talked about, like, your experience going to, he listened to clap your hands, say, yeah, like a listening, like an impromptu listening party in Madison, which I'm super envious about. That one strikes me as like the last time I would be super anticipatory for now because I didn't just buy it in the mail. I bought it on insound.com. Only 2005 bloggers are going to remember that. And just going to the mailbox every single day, like it was a college admissions letter and just being like, I can't wait to blog about this album. People need to know what I think about this. Does it live up to the hype? And it was interesting because, like, yeah, it was good,

but it was like, it's just a good indie rock album. And, you know, this is part of why I have such nostalgia for that era because it was a time where there was this balance between music being, like, way more available than it ever was, but, like, also being not totally available. So you still had to put in a little bit of work. Otherwise, you know, I think that in the, modern era, the only thing that really does come to mind is like those albums like My Bloody

Valentine's MBV or, you know, Frank Ocean's, you know, blonde, where like you hear about it like three days in advance and then it happens. So like nowadays, I'd say like anticipation for a record has to come like within the span of, like you learn about it. It's coming and then you wait to listen to it at nine o'clock on a Friday like everyone else. Yeah, I mean, what we're talking about here is scarcity. You need scarcity in order for there to be anticipation. There has to be scarcity plus hype, really, for you to anticipate something. It's interesting because we're listening all these records that we anticipated, and they're all records that we love. And one of the questions here was, did the hype ever affect us negatively? Was there ever anticipated, like a

record you were anticipating and the anticipation in a way dampen the listening experience because it wasn't what you wanted it to be. I'm trying to think of an example. I'm sure there is for me. I can't think of one right now. Be here now. Do we have to talk about be here now? I love be here now when it came out.

And then I didn't like it afterward because people kept telling me it was bad. And I listened to them like a fool. And then I came around to it again and loved it. I think with me it's a lot of like rap. I have to like really plumb my memories. but, you know, it would be something like, I don't know, Master Pete MP, The Last Dawn, or Wu Tang's Iron Flag or something like that. Just these, like, really terrible, like, half-ass rap records that I still paid 18 bucks for.

And, like, those are the times where, like, I really remember, like, the thudding sense of disappointment. Or, holy shit. The obvious answer to hype and disappointment is, it's, there's no other option besides the spaghetti incident. Yeah, that's true. Although, that was a covers out. album so yeah I didn't know was I didn't know that at the time um I mean I was thinking about like if speakerbox the love below would would count here for me because I do like that album but I remember feeling like you know coming off of like stanchonia that like this isn't totally what I want here like this is like letting me down a little bit I mean I think that's a good answer like a lot of like rap records from like the like early aughts would be be a little disappointing at the time

but like the M&M show or something. Oh God, yeah. God, I remember. That is bringing me back. I'm like, after the first, I'm like, wait a minute, this thing sucks. Fuck.

Being up in my shitty little college apartment, like packing my stuff. Oh my God. Like I, I do not, I'm going to have to like listen to like sing for the moment just to like purge this awful traumatic memory. Oh, do you want to put on cleaning up my closet after we get done recording that song?

Jesus. All right, we've now reached the part of our episode that we call Recommendation Corner where we talk about something that we're into this week. Ian, why don't you go first? All right, so this is a little bit of like a blog rocky sort of sentiment with this record. It's from a project called DreamTX. I don't know if it's pronounced Dream Texas if you say it out loud, but it is a previous obviously Dallas-based artist named Nick Doss.

And, you know, this reminds me of blog rock for a few reasons. First of which is that, like a lot of the records that I put on my list, it reminds me of a lot of contemporaries in the indie rock space. And also, this is one where the artist was like kind of emailing me directly saying, hey, I think you might like this. I think you might like this. And when I finally listen to it, I'm like, oh, shit, you're right. I do. So it cut out the middleman in that regard. But as far as whether you might like this album,

I'm just going to throw out some names. Maybe this will appeal to you. I mean, Paranol, Jane Remover, formerly known as Delete Zeke. One of the songs, my favorite one, which this guy called his most emo song, made me think of how to dress well meets broken social scene. Whoa. Yeah, I know.

Like we're talking about like basically like every album I reviewed from the years of like 2012 to 2015. Also, apparently they remember the release of Merryweather Post-Mavilion as a life-altering event. So I can relate to that. Maybe that's their version of like, use your illusion. But, you know, this is, it's an album that's like pretty modest and it's execution. It's like 35 minutes. It's, you know, it's kind of the lo-fi bedroom produced.

But it just reminds me, it's, if you like any of the stuff I typically talk about on recommendation corner aside from like the hardcore stuff. stuff, I guarantee you'll like this. And so I can envision this artist, you know, taking the acclaim for this one and maybe making something a little bit bigger, grander. But for now, Dream Texas, DreamTX, living in the memory of something sweet. Just an album I always like to throw on when I don't know what I want to listen to, this hits the mood. So my record this week is also an album that for me, people kept telling me you're going to

like this album, you need to check it out. And I did. And I do like it. It's called The Holy Bible. It's by a band from Philadelphia called Flory. And this is a band that on their earlier releases lead more like in a traditional indie rock direction. You know, there's elements of Riot Girl in there. There's like some Sonic Youth signifiers in there as well.

But this new album is really kind of putting that aside and embracing this more sort of sloppy country rock sound. And it's interesting because in all the things I've read about this record, No one has mentioned what I think is the most obvious touchstone for this album, which is the early 1970s Rolling Stones. And I have to tell you that I had lost hope that there would be a newish indie rock band that would in any way tip their cap to albums like Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street. It just doesn't seem like bands today look at those records as touchstones. well the Holy Bible has restored my hope because this record totally has the vibe of those albums with again this sort of like sloppy slightly kind of drunken feel

to like a lot of the recordings and there's just like a lot of riffs there's like some cowbell there's like I feel like there's like some slide guitar on some of these songs it's just like a really fun rocking record and yes this is patio music through and through so that's another reason why I like it particularly now in the dog days of summer.

So yeah, people told me I'd like this record. They were absolutely right. It's called The Holy Bible. Band is called Flory, F-L-O-R-R-Y. Check it out. And enjoy some Stones-influenced indie rock in the Year of Our Lord, 2023. I love how, like, at the end of a block,

like an episode we talk about blog rock, you know, in terms of like, Candice Band match the hype. It's like, here's this indie rock album that reminds me of Rolling Stones. But like, I've listened to this album and you're absolutely correct. Like this is definitely hitting that mark.

Love it. Thank you all for listening to this episode of Indycast. We'll be back with more news, reviews, and hashing out trends next week. And if you're looking for more music recommendations, sign up for the Indie Mixape 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.