Indiecast - Looking Ahead To 2022: Mitski, Big Thief, Beach House, And More

Episode Date: November 19, 2021

It won’t be long now before the year-end lists start rolling out, which means it’s time to look ahead to what we can expect in 2022. This week, Steve and Ian give their takes and predictions for albums coming out next year, including Mitski, Beach House, Big Thief, and many more. They each give their confidence ratings between 1 and 10, and discuss the indie rock landscape that these albums will be released upon. Some of their opinions are informed by early listens of the records, while others are pure theorizing.In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Ian is spreading the good word about Buds, the hotly anticipated new record from Connecticut outfit Ovlov. Meanwhile, Steve is enjoying the debut album from Irish quartet Pillow Queens, which actually came out last year and sounds like The Cranberries with a slightly punkier vibe.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.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Indycast is presented by Uprocks's indie mixtape. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Indycast. On this show, we talk about the biggest indie news of the week. We review albums and we hash out trends. In this episode, we look ahead to some of the most notable indie albums of 2022. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host, who from now on will be known as Crypto.com, Cohen? Ian Cohen. Ian, how are you?

Look, if a cryptocurrency wants to sponsor me, like, I am not altogether a opposed to changing my name. I mean, Crypto.com, Cohen, like Triple C? Yeah. That would be kind of awesome,

actually. That does sound awesome. I mean, my fit, what's, what's the minimum amount of money it would take for you to change your name to crypto.com?

Like, of all the embarrassing things that I've said on this podcast, like, I don't want to embarrass myself further by, you know, by putting out there in the world, like, how cheaply I can be bought.

Like, it's, I mean, Would you do it for a million? Would you be more than a million? Well, maybe like 1.1 million. Just to show my hardball negotiation skills, because that's probably the, I'm just thinking of like succession where like $1 million is the offer for just about anything.

It's like, where Roman's like, hey, to the guy with the head tattoo, will you give me your pictures for a million dollars? The kid, I'll give you a million dollars if you hit a home run. I know that's always the first offer for. weirdos like that. So I'm just going to say 1.1 to show I'm coming to the table, you know, and I'm not going to back down. Because I think it would be better for you than most people just because you have the triple C going on. Actually, there's the consonants of the name. It sounds good. And you also get to keep your last name. So like if you ever have children,

you can carry on the Cohen name. Maybe crypto.com Jr. They'll kick in another million. You know, I was thinking of, you know, because obviously we're referring to the Staples Center in L.A. is now going to be the Crypto.com Arena. Yeah, it's crypto.com arena. It's terrible. No, I think it's kind of, is this like corporate optimism that people are all of a sudden nostalgic for like a name like Staples Center? I mean, like I just think Staples is like the place I would buy poster board and Sour Patch kids when I had a college project I needed to get done. No, I mean, I think, I think the rockism here would be people.

people who are like, you know, I want names like Soldier Field. Right. Or Lambeau Field, like the old school. That'd be the rockism thing. I almost said Wrigley Field, but Riggly Field was also corporate sponsorship, right? Yeah, Riggly's gum. Yeah. In Staples Center, it does sound like there was a guy named George Staples, you know, that they named it.

You could suspend your disbelief enough where it doesn't necessarily have to be Staples. Although I guess the Staples logo. Yeah, it's an extremely recognizable logo. Yeah, I suppose so. But these names are getting so crazy that you just can't avoid the corporate connection. Like I was thinking about the KFC Yum Center. I've been there. It's an incredible arena.

It's in Louisville. Yes. Did that used to be called something else? Or was it always the kids? So, I mean, maybe, you know, like my kids will venerate the kids. KFC Yum Center the way that we venerate Wrigley Field because they just won't know any better. They won't know of a time where stadiums and arenas weren't known as that.

They'll romanticize going to, you know, oh, it's, you know, crypto.com is, uh, that's on my bucket list of arenas. What I can't wait for is like inevitably when like, say, fish or whatever jam band comes next, like all the tape traders talk like in these hushabwe. tones about like y'all do you remember the time where they played like a 50 minute tweezer at crypto dot com arena like they would have just said L.A they would have called the L.A. Tweiser they I was way out of my depth with that guy. Yeah in the jam world it's tied more to the city not so much the venue name so it would have been yeah the L.A. Tweezer okay and that would have been how they

talked about the 50 minute tweezers. One thing we got to talk about here is because One of the big stories of the week was continuing, like, vinyl controversy, you know, Taylor Swift put out the re-recorded version of Red. She did? Yeah. Did you hear about that? Yeah, that's fucking passed me by shit. Yeah. Apparently Adela has a new record, too, out today.

Yeah, it's kind of weird that no one's talking about that. But I don't know if you saw that, but there were all these reviews from Taylor Swift fans who were playing Red at the wrong. speed. Apparently, it was pressed to play at like 45 RPM versus the standard 33 RPM. So all these people were listening to Red and it was much faster. Or I guess it would be slower. Yeah, I was about to say, like I never, I never remember whether putting it at 45 makes it faster or slower. Well, it's supposed to be at 45 and I think people were playing it at 33. So it sounded like Black, yeah, it sounded like Black Sabbath. It sounds actually pretty fucking awesome.

Yeah, it would be pretty heavy. You know, just drink a bunch of cough syrup and listen to red. It'd be pretty awesome. But again, it just speaks to this ongoing conversation about vinyl. You have people buying vinyl who might not necessarily normally buy vinyl, but it's the status symbol that they're picking up. I don't know. I feel like we've talked about this.

I still haven't written my big vinyl takedown piece. I think I'm going to be writing that in a few weeks. So look out for that indie cast nation, but I don't know. It's funny to meet with Taylor Swift because remember that period about four or five years ago where people were essentially calling her this like paragon of white supremacy? Oh, yeah. 2017, man, we look back on those times fondly, you know, like when, you know, hey, like punk rock's going to be great again and, you know, priest is the most important band.

to emerge from the 2000s. I think we have enough distance from that time to kind of sort of kind of laugh about it, but she had this window of time, though, where she fell from Grace after Red. I guess. And then, but she's totally come back from that. She totally steered out of that skid.

Tweeting through it. Yeah, and I remember there was a concert review. Maybe I shouldn't say the public. It was in a major newspaper. Where it was a review of a Taylor Swift concert in like 2017. And the reviewer was taking Taylor Swift to task because she didn't publicly at this concert call out her white supremacist fans. That this reviewer thought that like Taylor Swift should have taken a moment to like

Richard Spencer if you're out there. Yeah. Don't buy by record. Like this is like a screwdriver concert or something. something like that. Which I thought that was the most insane thing I had ever read. That's pretty amazing that it was in a, I don't remember this happening, but I mean,

I remember that she was criticized for not having like an explicit opinion about the 2016 election or... Right. Trump won because of Taylor Swift. Yeah. Because she didn't endorse Hillary Clinton. Yeah. That was a narrative. Think of all the vinyl buyers that voted for Donald Trump that could have been

flipped, you know? That's true. And, but that's something that I, in the moment, it almost felt like, oh, Taylor Swift, she had her day with critics and now it's over. And now, like, Red got, I mean, red is, this re-recorded Red, has been reviewed at least as well as the original Red, if not more so. More so, I would say. Like, I would say that it's, I think that it's like now just like kind of understood that this is, I don't know, at least for the, you know, the modern public accommodation of like Joni. Mitchell and Prince and, you know, this is like not going anywhere.

Like it, I mean, I thought, you know, maybe there was a turn when they, when she made, what was that song, me with Panic at the Disco? Like, what, yeah, every time it would be like she'd release a lead single people like, ah, this is bullshit. And then it's like, well, she just, you know, she through like some power of like, you know, just making records or just, you know, if you can't beat them, join them. just the Stanhood refusing to let go, like not going anywhere.

And she's got a lot more albums to re-record, I imagine, as well, right? Yeah, and, you know, am I wrong? I mean, look, I understand. Watch what you say, man, because maybe... Well, I was going to say. I believe artists should,

in a just world, they would have control of their copyright. They would own their own music. Although many of the most, you know, successful legendary artists don't own their own copyrights. It's a fairly common situation. But this narrative where she is overcoming this great sort of, you know, insurmountable odds by re-recording her albums,

I mean, that seems to be something that's part of the narrative with these redoes that she's doing. I don't know if I can buy into that as much. I mean, we're still talking about, you know, multi-millionaires fighting multi-millionaires over making still more multi-millions of dollars. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I will say that with this, with Red, it is pretty cool what she's done with this record in terms of just reimagining the songs where it does feel like a separate record and not just like a petty revenge scheme against Scooter Braun.

You know, like it seems to have an artistic reason for existing, so I can get behind it for that reason, but I don't know. Just the Taylor Swift discourse, it just amazes me. I think this is like one of the great reversals of fortune that we've seen in the discourse in a long time. It just shows that she's a master of the discourse. No matter what you think of her as a musician or a songwriter, she's a discourse wizard,

Taylor Swift. Yeah, I look forward to that when we get the re-recorded lover in 2031 or whatever. And me is like hailed as this counter, like, countercounter. cultural masterpiece. Maybe she'll redo it as we. And they'll be more inclusive and then people will feel better about getting replaced Brandon Yuri with like Pete Wentz or some shit. I don't know.

Or just bring Phoebe Bridgers back. Which by the way, speaking of Masters of the Discourse, like Phoebe Bridgers got involved in Red. Of course. She was able to get into there. I mean, you know, she is another wizard of the discourse. Amazing move by Phoebe Bridgers. Speaking of discourse, I feel like that.

think we need to talk about the 10th anniversary of Camp yeah I think we do the Child of Scambino record and really the 10th anniversary of your review of this record you know what like I I've been dreading this day

for like I haven't looked up like I had not looked up when this album actually turns 10 but I just knew this day was coming and you know how like old people can apparently tell when there's going to be like a storm coming when their knee

flares up or something like that. I just had a sense, you know, leading into this Monday that it was just going to be a bad Twitter day and like, lo and behold, I mean, for many reasons, but lo and behold, I look at stereo gum and it says camp turns 10. Now, look, I

just want to go. And should we just say quick for people that don't know that you reviewed this record for pitchfork in 2011 and you gave it a 1.6. I gave it a 1.6. And here, a funny story about that is the day that it published, there was this tremendous out of nowhere storm in Los Angeles that pretty much knocked out all power. So that entire day, like until maybe 8 p.m., I was not able to access the internet. And so when I get back on, it's like, oh, it appears that

this review has caused quite a stir. Look, I regret just about everything I wrote in there. Like, I think it was very dismissive of people's experiences. I would not have taken the same tone. However, the score stands. And I want to thank, I kind of dodged a bullet with this one. I think most people at this point can recognize that this album is that bad. Oh, hold on a second. I hear clacking in the distance of indie cast listeners writing in to talk about how much they love camp.

Oh, sure. I know what, I can handle it for more indie cast listeners. People out there who were 16 when that record dropped, they probably still throw it on for nostalgia's sake. Yeah. I mean, Donald Glover called you out for that review. He did. He came after you personally.

Yeah, I think, like, I can't, I think it was in vice or something like that. He said, like, he saw, he saw me at Bodybuilder's Gym, which I did go to. I swear to God, I felt like I saw him one time. at that gym because there are celebrities that did go there. And he's like, yo, if I see that guy, he basically said,

if I see him, I'm going to fuck him up. And, you know, of course, that's like, oh, come on,

Donald Glover. Well, I mean, I, I, why did, but he said he saw you that one time. Why didn't he fuck you up then?

I mean, I feel like, that was your chance, Donald Glover. I honestly don't know. And, um, I mean,

that's, it's an interesting nugget to keep in my head whenever people talk about like how, you know, this is America. is this brilliant song or Redbone for that matter. I'm just like, oh yeah, that guy apparently threatened to fuck me up. Cool.

What a feather in your cap. I know. Also, I think one of the things I learned like from that piece, which I, you know, I think it was a well-written piece is that Donald Glover was like 27 when that album came out. Does that seem older young for that? No, old. Right. It seems like he should have made that when he was 19 or 20.

Yeah, exactly. And so, I mean, I don't feel vindicate. I'm just like, I'm just glad that this event came and went without, you know, any, actually, I'm not even going to go any further. I, I am okay with how things turned out and I do not, like, I do not want to poke the bear as far as Taylor Swift, nor Childish Gambino fans. Like, we are really shredding on thin ice here. Well, what, what's the deal with, didn't he put out an album during the pandemic and then he pulled it immediately. Didn't he do that? That sounds about right.

Yeah. I think that happened. No, it definitely happened. I just can't remember. Yeah, I wonder what the deal is with that. Yeah, I think what it happened is that he put out this album shortly after this is America and it's just he pulled it. I think it was like one of the memory hold our memory hold albums of 2020. I think it was, if my memory serves, I think he put out a record.

right when things got shut down. Yeah. So just a terrible time to put out a record because people are very distracted. And I feel like it was up for a day and then it got pulled and it's been radio silence ever since. I don't know if, you know, maybe I hallucinated that, you know. No, it happened. But I think that happened. Before we get to our mailbag, I was wondering, is there a statute of limitations on stories?

involving urine on the show. Because there was that brass against story where the singer peed on a person's face. Yeah, the real pee tape. And, but did we miss our window on that? I feel like that's another example of a great story dropping the day that we record. Yeah.

Or the day that our episode drops. Yeah, I really do think we need to do an emergency like indie cast on that one, or at least some bonus episodes. I mean, I just feel that. that for that artist, you know, now they're going to have to do it.

Like, it's like with Jamiroquai, how the guy had to get that, that like treadmill on the stage to replicate the virtual insanity video. Like, Dave's just set the bar so high with that, that, you know,

they're like, oh, this is not what we do as a band. It's like, no, you're the, you're the rage against machine slash tool cover band that does stage water sports on stage. Yeah, I mean,

yeah, because the singer, the woman who peed on the fan, she put out a statement saying, this is not what we're about. You know, we're having a good time. Things just got out of hand. Like, what's the buildup to that, though?

Like, what, like, where, like, what are steps A, B, and C that get you to D? Because I don't really, I've never been in a situation where someone was matriculating on another person. Did you say matriculating? That's a little. bit of a Big Lobowski reference. Oh, okay. I called an audible in my head. I wanted to do a little shout out to the Big Lobowski there. I think that's very well within the Indycast canon. Yeah, so I'm the one who looks stupid for not being able to catch that reference. That's okay. It's a minor reference, but I think people out there will

appreciate it. But from the video that was circulating online, I just didn't get a sense of the context. of what was going on there. I don't know if anyone's done an investigation, like if Rolling Stone has dispatched three or four reporters to get to the bottom of how this, you know,

disgusting event unfolded. I don't know. Release the P-Tays. Yeah, exactly. But again, I do feel like we're a little behind the times by talking about this now. That feels like an old story.

I just wish that singers would urinate on people on Monday or Tuesday or even Wednesday. It would be more convenient for us. Also, the story about the guy at the Turin Style show took a shit in the Mosh Pit. That was also a weekend story. That's true.

That's true. Yeah, that's kind of a good pairing with this. It's like the, maybe that was the same guy. Maybe the same guy. Maybe the guy who shit, the guy who shit in the Mosh Pit, maybe he went to this show and compelled the singer to pee on him. He's just sort of a chaos. agent of bodily functions at concerts.

That's my Q&OND theory for that, by the way. That's my conspiracy theory that it's the same guy, the turnstile shitter and the brass against, I guess, target of the urine. Let's go to our mailbag segment. I think it's time to segue out of there. Thank you again, all of you who have written into us. It's always great to hear from our listeners. If you want to hit us up, we're at Indycastmailbag at gmail.com.

You can also find us on Twitter at Indycast 1. Always good to shoot the bull with you on Twitter or over email. You want to read this letter, Ian? I do. All right. So this is from Blake in Bellingham, Washington. If you're, you know, if your taste lean towards mine, you automatically recognize why Bellingham, Washington is so important to me personally. But Blake...

It's a death cab, right? Death cab for cutie, that is correct. Anytime meet someone who went to Western Washington University. Yeah, that's like, oh, yeah, death cab. It's like, oh, okay, cool. Yeah, most of the time they aren't familiar with that. Ben Gibbard does not have a dormitory named after him. Anyway, Blake asks,

with the new big thief and especially the new Mitzki album announcements, it feels like the current generation of Indy is reaching a point of saturation akin to 2009-2010 for thousands-a-a-a-a-a-a-Indy, if you will. Artists that started out in their bedrooms, on bandcamp or in Philly basements are now genuine stars that dominate streaming, TikTok, and indie media coverage. You also have to mention the Phoebe Bridgers and Bedroom Pop Influence on Modern White Bread Pop Music, not to mention Bridger's feature on the latest Taylor Swift re-recorded album as well. Many of these artists are still making some of the best music of their careers,

but now in their third album or more with bigger budgets and many with Grammy nominations, mainstream coverage, they feel institutionalized in a way they didn't before. Is there truth to this feeling I have? Have we reached peak 2010-era indie? As Mitzki's new album, I'm going to be this generation's the suburbs or maybe reflector. And as expert trend hashers, where do you see the future of Indy coming from? Do you see a distinct new generation of indie emerging from the underground or just more of the same?

And, of course, he mentions the fact that the new Mitzky song has Dan Wilson of Semi-Sonic and Adele fame. So, Steve, how do you answer this? I mean, this question that cuts to the core basically everything we discuss. Well, and this is a good question for this episode because we're going to be doing some prognosticating on some of the big ticket indie albums that have already been announced for early 2022. So Blake, and again, thank you for writing in Blake. He's asking us to get the crystal ball out and, you know, predict where we're going to be headed here in the next few years. I mean, this question is, have we reached a point where the stars of the 2010s have hit their peak and are we on the verge of maybe

seeing a new generation of indie stars? Because you and I have often talked about on this show about how a decade ago you started to see a lot of the Otts era indie bands start to fade a bit and by about 2013 there was this new generation emerging. And it's an interesting question. Obviously, we don't know the answer to this. We're just going to be guessing. It does seem like we've hit peak singer-songwriter at this point, you know, where the most talked-about artist, it seems like, are people, mainly women,

who play acoustic guitars and write introspective songs about their lives. And that's a model that really exists in, I think, every era of music, you're always going to have some element of that, but there does seem to be a really strong focus on that at the moment. And I don't know where we're going to be going with this. Part of me feels like, and I don't know how you feel, just going back to 10 years ago,

you know, I do remember certainly in critical circles that there was rumbling going on in like 2011 that, oh, there's too much conversation about indie rock. We need to refocus more on pop music. Yeah. And that started to reach critical mass a few years later, and that's the realm that we've been in since then. The thing that I hear, and I don't know how widespread this is, maybe this is just like in my Twitter feed. You know, I always have to do that as a, you know, as a caveat here before I say anything, I think, on this show.

But the thing I keep hearing is that things are too mild in indie and that maybe there's going to be an opportunity for more aggressive. music to rise. And you've seen, for instance, a lot of nostalgia for New Metal in the past few years, among younger people, people who didn't necessarily live through the original era of New Metal.

And you're seeing a lot of hype for a band like Turnstile who, I mean, I saw that they were, there was a big GQ article about them. I think that was this week, or I meant them late last week. They're now getting that kind of mainstream

coverage. I kind of wonder if maybe in a few years we're going to see more bands like turnstile that have similar reference points to, you know, they've been likened to new metal in the past. I think that's like a little overstated, but there's certainly a more physical band, a more aggressive band.

Maybe we're moving more in that direction after a few years of, again, more sort of bedroom pop type music, more introspective, more quiet music. if I was going to make a guess, if, you know, just going like with the pendulum swings from one extreme to another, I would tentatively make that prediction, but I don't know, it's hard to say. What do you think about that? Yeah, I mean, I think turnstile is sort of an exception that proves the rule in that,

yes, they've elevated themselves to a point where they're going to be, you know, a mainstay on, you know, year-end list, and they've already had a lot of people in the bag for a while because they also happen to be a very fashionable rock band. Maybe the fact that like we're slowly out of peak pandemic era means that people want to see bands more. But, you know, what I see is that maybe we are in the suburbs era where, you know, in a weird way, folklore is the suburbs with, you know, Phoebe Bridgers and the National being involved with the Taylor Swift album, where it's like a, it's kind of like a proof of concept for.

indie as mainstream music. And I don't think there's going to be like a reflector going on, but you know, at the beginning, I think what happened, what might happen is that the flip side of people identifying so strongly with these individual artists in a way that they never did with say like Animal Collective or Dirty Projectors or Grizzly Bear or any of like what typified Outs era indie is that I don't know maybe people just kind of get bored of them after a while because at the beginning of this year I would have been any amount of money that if there was like a lord or Casey chambers album like that was going to be mortal lock for album of the year and they came back with albums that were I mean look they're going to be fine but kind of mildly received and I don't

think there's going to be any sort of like reflector type miscalculation happening well But maybe solar power is the reflector. You know, like the Lord record from this year, that could be the reflector. Or is it the centipede hurts, maybe? Yeah, exactly. The record that comes after the album that's really beloved, like if you want to call melodrama, the suburbs in Lord's trajectory, or her merryweather post pavilion, you know, it does feel like solar power is the less, you know,

certainly less well received. It feels much milder. I mean, if you want to look at that, I mean, look, what's too early to tell, but I could see solo power being a bellwether for a certain kind of critically acclaimed indie-leaning singer-songwriter record that might start to feel a little played out.

You know, in the years... Because, again, that's been, like, a pretty dominant form of indie and critically acclaimed music now going on, what, like three or four years at this point. And I just wonder, you know, if we look at music trends as being a series of pendulum swings, if we're going to be maybe moving away from that a little bit.

I mean, I do think that, you know, like when we talk about Otts-era indie, you do have bands like, say, Grizzly Bear, who had their moment, and then it seemed like after the Otts ended, they faded a little bit. even though I think they still made good records. I like painted Roons a lot and other albums that they put out. But then there's also bands like The National who were able to just to kind of carry on and become a legacy band.

So some of these artists that were big-time stars in the late 2010s are going to carry on and be perennial successes. But there will be other people that fade a little bit. And, you know, I'm just curious to see who that ends up being. Yeah, I think the interesting wrinkle, though, is that, like, Grizzly Bear, all they could really do was make albums, whereas, you know, Phoebe Bridgers or, you know, Japanese breakfast or any, like, any artist that you would say is, like, typified of what we're seeing now is that there are so many other options for them to keep, you know, keep in, keep in their name in the conversation.

But I think what if anything's going to topple what we see now, it's a new surge of young kids who associate Phoebe Bridgers or associate like Mitzke with like their older siblings. And they become, I don't know, similar to like what bright eyes might have been. It's like, oh, that's some old people stuff. You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, you know, there has been this younger generation. of artists coming up who I feel like are referencing sort of less fashionable forms of 90s music and maybe even Otts era music,

where it's not just about, again, playing acoustic guitar and writing personal lyrics. It does seem to have more of like a pop rock bent to it or more of an aggressive bent to it. I don't know. That's something I'm intrigued to see if that develops. I mean, I know you call it turnstile an outlier, but, you know, as there's, profile raises, I do see them possibly being more influential than they have been now and that there may be a crop of bands who like are aping what they're doing or taking what they're doing and moving in a different direction. I don't know, I'll be curious to see how that plays out in like two or three years, you know, because there's, because there are like 19 year olds and 20 year olds who you know, are hearing glow on right now and they're seeing that there's a lane opening up for that kind of band. And they're starting bands right now, and they're going to be putting out records in a few

years, and we'll see. We'll see what happens. I'm curious to see how that develops. This is a good transition into the meat of our episode, because Ian and I, we're going to be talking about four records, some of which we've heard, some of which we have not heard, but it's not going to prevent us from talking about them and speculating on whether they're going to be good or well received. And what we're going to be doing is

we're going to be assigning each album a confidence rating. A scale of 1 to 10. Did you want to explain our confidence rating scale? Yeah, this is a completely original idea, which you'll see in no other forms of trend hashing, especially not sports. But this is just a sense of like, where's the vibe at? Like how confident are we that this record will,

you know, A, be? good and be well received. It's just where like based on the singles based on the general discourse like where are we with this album? So the first record we're going to be talking about

is I would say maybe the biggest indie record that has been announced for early 2020 and that would be Laurel Hell by Mitzki. Am I right to say that? I feel like you know she put up Be the Cowboy. I think 2018.

It was a consensus choice, certainly among indie sites, as the album of the year at that time. And it feels like the table is set for her to really blow up with this record. It seems like she's moving in a more pop direction that we mentioned. She co-wrote at least one song with Dan Wilson

from Semi-Sonic. He's also, of course, worked with people like Adele and the Dixie Chicks. So he's like a big-time pop-hired gun. How do we feel about her? Is she going to blow up with this record? I should say, I've not heard this album yet. I've only heard the singles.

I've not either, yeah. You have not either. I don't know if promos have gone on for this album yet. So we're mostly ignorant. We're only reading the discourse tea leaves with this album. So take our words with a grain of salt. This album might be great. It might be terrible.

We're only really basing this on the singles and what we're hearing so far. But what's your take? What's your confidence rating for the Mitzki record? So I would put it at a six right now. What I feel like when you describe this is like whether it's going to blow her up, like I don't know if Mitzki really even wants to get bigger like to even like a Phoebe Bridgers level because what we saw after Be the Cowboy was just some of the most, I guess, disturbing parasocial relationships between Mitzky and her fan base to the point where I wasn't sure

if she was going to make another record again. and, you know, just because it's like, why, like, this seems terrible, you know, why would I put myself out there like that? So I do think this is out of the ones that we're talking about today, the most highly anticipated. And I had this feeling that if she were to come back, it would be sort of like a Fiona Apple situation where she comes back like every five to eight years, just being completely divorced from any sort of discourse and existing in her own planet. But four years after be the cowboy, this is just, you know, hey, the new, the follow-up to be the cowboy. So far with the singles, I'm not overwhelmed. I feel like they're a little bit like anticlimactic, particularly the new one, the only heartbreaker, which, you know, it sounds fine. But as far as like the synthesizers and the lyrical themes, it just seems like Mitzki lending her voice to a,

different, less distinctive songwriter's song. And I get the sense that maybe she's not going in as hard as she was on Be the Cowboyer Puberty too. Maybe as like kind of this necessary, kind of this necessary defense mechanism where it's like I can't put myself out there personally as much on this album as I did in times past because look what happened. So I don't, I imagine this album will do. fine. I imagine that people are just so excited to have Minsky back that this will be just kind of lauded just because. I mean, I'm not excited to listen to it until the album actually drops because the discourse around her is just so fucking exhausting.

Yeah, yeah, I'm going to disagree with you a bit on whether she's going all in because I do feel like this album is being set up as a really significant record coming out in 2022. It's not a quickie follow-up to be the cowboy. She's waited four years to put out a record, so there's been quite a bit of build-up. I think, again, if you're going to work with Dan Wilson, who, you know, among other songs he's co-written, are someone like you by Adele, just an enormous power ballad from the last decade.

He's not someone you call up if you just want to make a modest record that doesn't grow your audience. I mean, I do feel like she's ramping up to hit that Phoebe Bridger's, level. I think that she would love, for instance, to be playing on Saturday Night Live by the end of this season. And maybe that will happen for her. The only thing that gives me pause is the Lord example that we were talking about before. Because I feel like that album cycle, it feels a little like

this Mitzky one so far in that, you know, I agree with you. I think the singles are a little underwhelming. Like, they're pretty good, but they're not knocking my socks off. It's not giving me the same alarm bells that some of those early solar power singles did, but still it's like, you know, I'm not hearing, you know, best American girl yet. You know, I'm not hearing a song of that caliber. And I want to say, too, that, and I think I've talked about this before, either on this show or maybe I wrote about it, but I feel like Be the Cowboy was a record that benefited in a way from critics not giving as much credit to puberty to as they maybe should have. I mean, that record, I think it was number 15 on the Paas and Jopold in 2016.

It was number 18 on pitchforks year-end list that year. And those are two strong showings, but to me, like, that is the ultimate Mitzki record still. And if any album was going to get the, like, all-time treatment, I think that's the one that deserved it. Some of the praise for Be the Cowboy felt like a little bit like it was compensating for people maybe underrating Puberty 2 a little bit. In a way, I thought Puberty 2 was a little bit of a makeup call for Barry Me at Makeout Creek. Well, yeah, exactly. It depends on when you come in on Mitzki. I mean, I think there are people probably out there that feel like her albums have gotten progressively weaker over the arc of her career.

But anyway, I still feel like there's a lot of love for Mitzky. I do have faith that she will, I think, ultimately pull through with a good record. I mean, she has a really good track record. So I don't know if I actually gave my rating yet. I gave it a 7.5. And I would go higher with that, but again, like the Lord example gives me a little bit of pause at this point. So anyway, excited to hear that record and to find out if it actually is greater or not great. Let's move on to the next big indie record coming out in early 2022.

And that album is Once Twice Melody by Beach House. Beach House. And, you know, you were saying earlier, you were talking about the stars of the late 2010s and how they're going to progress in the new decade. And you were saying, like, which artists will be looked at as older brother music or older sister music, you know, that will be tied to a generation more? And I have that similar question with Beach House, because they've been around for a long time at this point. debut album came out in 2006.

Yeah, so, you know, they have, they've been around, you know, over 15 years by the time this record comes out. And I feel like for millennials, like millennial music writers, this is like one of the most praised and adored indie bands of like the last decade and a half. but I wonder if we're now reaching the point where their albums are just going to seem like another album, you know, where it's like, they're good, but I'm not being knocked out by this band. Or are they a band that younger people like, too? Like, are the zoomers into Beach House? That's something I don't have a read on. I mean, they make chill out music that's very vibey, and that kind of music is pretty timeless.

Yeah. So maybe it doesn't matter, but I could also see younger audiences just dismissing them as like a boring indie band. I mean, you could go either way with Beach House. I think that they are, I think they're more immune from having people like describe them as like boring indie rock because they don't really present as a rock band, even if they do play guitars and keys and drums. Yeah, and I also don't think that it's in the same way that you were with like Grizzly Bear or War on Drugs or the National. Like they, it's hard to project anything bigger than the music itself on Beach House. So they are kind of immune to any like hot opinions one way or the other. I have my like based on what I've heard so far, I'm thinking like 7.5 as far as my confidence rating.

I'm pretty confident this will be this will serve the purpose that Beach House album. do for me, which is something I can put on in the car when other people are in it or at the office or what have you. And yeah, I would love, the thing that I've always wanted to hear is like, what would a shitty beach house album sound like? And this is kind of why an 18 song Beach House album is interesting to me because when it's either... They're really pushing it.

Either it's going to be like a beach house album that's like a typical beach house album that's twice as long or it's going to be. be their like Sandinista or melancholy where at like track 14 or 15 you start to get these like bizarre weird and totally skippable experiments where you see what happens when they like totally get weird. I'm hoping that happens. From the sounds of the singles, it's it just sounds like maybe they're going more of like an air or stereo lab direction.

I think it's great that they do the least amount of work possible to keep me interested. And I mean that as a compliment. Like they make the smallest tweak to the beach house. sound. It's like Malibu-Stacy getting the new hat. It's like, oh, hell yeah. Like, they've shifted from this Twin Peak sort of thing to this stuff I worked

at the gap and stuff I heard of and I worked at the gap in the late 90s. This is awesome. Yeah, I mean, the 18-track thing to me is a real risk because, well, it's a risk for me, and maybe it's not for Beach House fans, because my take on this band is always that every record has at least two or three songs that

I love, and then the rest blends together. in a monotonous, again, pleasant, but not terribly distinctive, massive sound. And expanding that to 18 tracks, it just seems like that tendency will just be exacerbated. So like you, I'm curious to see how that evolves. I have heard parts of this album. I haven't really dug in deep yet, so I'm not going to give a verdict on this record yet. We'll have plenty of time when this album comes out in February.

But I have to say that with Beach House, I kind of feel like, Oh, this is how some people feel about the war on drugs, where some people hear the war on drugs, and they think, oh, this is pleasant, it's nice background music, but it doesn't really hit me on any kind of real significant level. And I feel that way about Beach House. But I know that there's lots of people who love all of their albums, who think that they're a very significant band,

and feel a tremendous amount of emotion when they listen to them. So, you know, take my words with a grain of salt. for me, I'm going to give this about a 6.5 on my confidence scale. Just because, again, I think they're at a point in their career where there's a lot of beach house records and you have to justify why you're making another beach house record. And I don't know if they're going to be as distinct on this record as they need to be. But again, I'm someone who thinks all of their records kind of blend together. So I may not be a proper judge of that.

let's move on to our next record and it's big thief and I need to consult my notes here on the full name of this record it's called Dragon New Warm Mountain I believe in you and it's another double record 20 songs on this record

and this is a record I got this yesterday I got a promo of this yesterday so I've gone through most of the record already I will not say how I feel about it. I'll wait. I mean, I still need to figure out how I feel about it. But what's your confidence rating for this record?

I mean, Big Thief, they're very, they seem to be a band that they're in their moment right now. Yeah, I'm pretty stoked on this one because I was blown away by little things when it came out a few months ago. Less so by some of the songs I heard them debut at Pitchfork Festival or some of the other singles, which kind of go for more of like the folky sort of earnest. sound that they occasionally do and then uh time escaping the new single blown away by that as well and yes what what strikes me is that when i think about all they've released like five songs from this album thus far i think and the ones where they sound more like davy matthews band those are the ones that i'm like super stoked for like i want them to go full tie-dye because

the thing that has kind of kept me from like fully embracing them as a band i love as opposed to one that like I simply like is, you know, they tend to get like super duper, like, you know, faux deep, hippie-dippy about their artistry and how they're just all limbs on the same organism. I want them to go full tie-dye. Like, I want them to be, like, occupy this space, like the Animal Collective sort of did, where it's, like, kind of pure indie rock, but also, like, just really silly press photos and like very, like very hacky sack with it.

Just like a thing where I can hear it and just be, like, it feel like it's kind of ambient, ambiently joyful. I know that's not a word, but I love that way more than the, you know, the two hands sort of sound where, you know, it's kind of like salt to the earth throwback. Also, I like the fact they're making a double album. Like, I'm hoping this becomes a thing amongst the indie elite. like in the late 90s when every rapper, you know, had to make a double album.

Yeah, and I think unlike Beach House, I'm more, I'm more bullish on a Big Thief double record because I think that format, it suits them well. I'm excited about the idea of them, you know, really kind of sprawling out and trying a lot of different things. I really think Big Thief has the potential to do that. I agree with you 100% on the tie-dye aspect of. Big Thief. You know, little things and time escaping.

I think those are both great songs. Very jam bandy. I tend to gravitate to that side of what they do versus the more acoustic songs that sound more like Adrian Linker solo tracks. Yeah. Like the meandering, like acoustic stuff, which is nice. But when I hear the band stuff, I just gets a lot more excited about that. And based on my brief listen yesterday, I think that there is some.

some really promising material in that regard on the new record. My score for this is a nine, by the way, because I do think I'm excited for this record. I'm excited to listen to it more. And I just think that Big Thief, it feels like their moment. I feel like they're going to get a lot of good press for this record. And I think people are going to appreciate them taking a big swing here. One thing I wanted to bring up quick, this is kind of a funny tantal.

tangent, but I was on the podcast How Long Gone recently, which is a great podcast if you don't listen to that. And I was talking with one of the co-hosts, Chris Black, and he made this comment that, like, I didn't think was a common knowledge, but he's not a music writer.

So I feel like it's become part of this band's narrative or conversation, but in our episode, he was talking about how the New York Times hates big thief, and they won't cover Big Thief. And I think you and I have probably like DMed about that sort of thing. But I didn't think that that was known out in the public or or thought to be like a thing with with this band. But I mean,

because you've heard that, right? It seems like there's like a weird big thief like bias at the New York Times. I don't know what that is. Okay. I think what happened is that like on popcast they just, you know, there are some of the more prominent names. I guess you would just in Poptimist-leaning music criticism and, you know, they, I think they said that Big Thief was kind of boring and it became like a controversy for like two days on music writer, Twitter because no one ever gives Big Thief even mediocre reviews. And look, I think that's like, I would imagine that's an exception to the overall rule. I imagine if you like, you survey people who read the New York Times and like Big Thief, they would assume New York Times loves Big Thief. And I think if you were to go in New York

times and talk to people who would be inclined to like Big Thief, they would as well. So, I mean, I think, I mean, I know what you're talking about with that, with that podcast thing, but I, I might be wrong, but I don't think they've, like, like, ran, like, a profile of Big Thief. You know, I don't think they've, like, really even talked about them in, in the newspaper proper. So I think that's part of the, uh, the griping here. I just love the idea of, like, an anti-Big thief bias at the New York Times, you know,

like, people talk about, really fine. liberal bias. You have liberal bias. You have big city bias. You got the anti-big thief bias. Which is funny because they're in New York band. Right. And they would, as you say, I would feel like the average New York Times reader would, you know, there'd be a lot of overlap with the big thief audience there. So I don't know. It's a funny thing. You know, I want to see Tucker Carlson go on Fox News and rail against the big thief bias at the New York Times. Joe Rogan, you know, getting angry about Big Thief getting slighted in the mainstream media. Let's get to our last record. Yes.

And it's the latest record from Spoon. This record is called Lucifer on the Sofa. Do I have that correct? Are you Lucifer on the couch? No, Lucifer on the sofa. All right, there we go. Well, I think it speaks very well to our hype for this that we can't even get the goddamn album title, right? Well, you know.

Lucifer on the Soca. I'm more into this album than you are. This album also comes out in February. I believe all these albums are coming out in February. So we're going to have a stacked February. Yes. On Indicast. Indicast Q1, 2002 is just going to be like,

like we're at the peak of our powers. So this is, it's a spoon record. This is their 10th record, believe it or not. I mean, this is the most. veteran band out of all the acts that we've been talking about, a band that has survived many different trends and many different hashing of trends over the course of, like, I think, 25 years or so. Yeah.

And they're one of those bands that they just seem to continue to get good press, no matter what they do, they've got a really good following. I haven't dug deep into this record yet, so I don't even have any, you know, vague impressions that I would, you know, share on this show. It's hard for me to believe, though, that Spoon won't get good reviews and this album, like, won't at least be solid. I mean, to me, arguing against that is, like, arguing against gravity or arguing that, like, the sun isn't going to set in the West tomorrow. It's just inconceivable to me. So, you know, I'm going to go, I'm going to go high on my confidence score.

I'm going to go eight. that this will be a good album that is well received. My confidence rating is skewed by, was Hot Thoughts underrated? Did people like that record? Keep talking. I'm going to Google the consensus on Hot Thoughts. Was that the last one?

That was the one that came out in 2017, because 2017, this kind of loops back to the mailbag question. Pitchfork score of 7.4. Very respectable. All right. From pitchfork. All right. So not the best new music, but, you know, a veteran band 7.4.

I mean, you're not going to kick that out of bed. Very solid. Yeah, I mean, I think with like Spoon, it's in a way that they're like, they're so consistent that maybe they can be a little like overrated in a way. Like, because, I mean, I don't remember the last time I listened to transference, for example. Can I just tell you, like, take a guess what they want my soul got from Pitchfork? I think that one was like really highly regarded. 8.6.

Best new music. That was the one with the song that sounded like Foster the People to me. What song is that? Do you or something like that? It's the one with the whistling in it. There's a song on there called Inside Out. No, that one's a good song. That's a good song.

I was just going to say they're covered by the hot young jam band Goose. Oh. You know, I got a shout out Goose on there. They do a really good version of that song. But, you know, as far as like my... my excitement for this record. They talked about how they were going to get, like they're going to make a down-dirty rock album.

We connect with their Texas roots by getting into ZZ Top. And, you know, the first single, by the way, terrible video, like just unbelievably bad. And the song itself sounded to me like the difference between them and the Black Keys or like Latter-day Queens of the Stone Age

was imperceptible. Like this just sounds like a baby driver music where you see like it's like oh yeah this is like you know real rock and roll right here it's like you know it's like leather and uh you know like uh whiskey and like uh weird looking hats um yeah to me it just it it fell so flat for me but then again like maybe the record itself like also and this is going to be like super nerdy shit like i am so outside of the zeitgeist i am like I have so little juice as a music writer that when I get a big time

non-emo record in advance, I'm like, this record's definitely in trouble. I got the Spoon record. Man, you've been sharpening your knife for the Spoon record for a while. I feel like by the time we get to fit in the way. I like Spoon, man, but... You're gonna be ready to go.

It's gonna be like the beginning of gangs of New York, like where they're just getting ready for a street brawl. Yeah, I'll probably end up liking it. Who the fuck? I don't know. You've been queuing up on the Spoon record. I don't know.

I'm not going to dispute anything you just said, but again, it's like saying Tom Brady's not going to make the playoffs. I'm not going to bet against them until I actually dig into the record and I see the bad reviews. Then I'll believe it. But other than that, Tom Brady's going to make the playoffs,

and Spoon is going to make a well-regarded solid album. I think the person who's excited enough to review the Spoon record's probably going to like it, So, yeah, whether or not it, like, you know, goes the distance as far as, like, being thought of in the upper echelon of Spoon albums. Well, I think there is more to be said. But once again, I, you know, I need to listen to the Spoon record rather than just doing what I usually do, which is listen to RXK Nephew YouTube's. All right.

We've now reached the fire of our episode that we call a Recommendation Corner where Ian and I talk about something that we're into this week. Ian, why don't you go first? All right. So today on Up Rocks, I have an interview running with Steve from this band called Avlov. They have a new record called Buds Out. And man, I am excited for this interview. A, I like the record, but we get into a lot of very interesting tangents,

particularly about a Hari Krishna rock album that he made with Murph from Dinosaur Jr. Not going to spoil it, but I'm very proud of it. Steve's an incredibly cool guy. Avlov is a band that that name itself is kind of a throwback to the mid-2010s when I mean it's still ongoing

but the rise of New England indie rock like as Steve himself said the dream of the 90s alive on exploding in sound bands like Pyle and Krill and Avlov and they've called this their green album which just kind of shows how indebted they are

to indie rock from the no weezer's not an indie rock bound But you know what I mean. But it's, you know, it's just like fuzzy, catchy, dinosaur junior style rock songs, but without as much fuzz. And it's eight songs, 28 minutes. If you ever, like, if you just think like, oh, what does indie rock sound like? You put on buds. Like, yeah, okay, that's indie rock right there.

So it's good to see them back. And their new album, which is out today, maybe not my favorite. I think Am is. is just the most iconic of the bunch. But this is, I'm just glad that Avlov is still making records. So the band I want to talk about is called Pillow Queens. It's a band from Ireland. And they don't have a new record out.

They put out their debut album in 2020. And I'm talking about them now because I feel like I'm still playing catch-up on young indie bands that put out their first record in the early days of the pandemic. Because I just feel like I was in a haze. the whole world was in a haze and there were, I think, a fair number of records that just fell through the cracks and I feel like it's better late

than never to talk about this band because I've really been enjoying their record, it's called In Waiting, that came out last year. And this band ended up on my radar because Wild Pink, which is of course a band that Ian and I talk of a lot about on this show. They recently recorded a cover

of this song called Brothers, which is the ninth track on In Waiting. And, you know, I think the easiest way to describe this band is to say that they once recorded a cover of dreams by the Cranberries, another Irish band. And I would say that Pillo Queens owes a lot to the cranberries. There's a similar melancholy, jangly rock vibe to what they do. A little bit more of an aggressive edge, a little bit more, I think, punk rock than the cranberries were, but definitely sliding in that same area. And in waiting, again, it's a record that I missed last year, but I've

really enjoyed catching up on. And Pillow Queens, a band that I'm curious to see what they do next. So definitely check out that record in waiting. It's a year old, but it will probably be new to you, just like it was to me. We've now reached the end of our episode. Thank you for listening. 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 Indy and I recommend five albums per week and we'll send it directly to your email box.