Indiecast - Our Backlash Against The "Reality Awaits" Backlash

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

After a Sportscast about LeBron James joining the Philadelphia 76ers and speculation about his taste in Philly indie rock (:40) and a quick discussion about old clips of The B-52's going viral this week (6:53), Steven and Ian pay tribute to the late Glen Hansard and Kavinsky, two very different musicians who passed away this week but who made their mark on the indie world in similar ways (9:39). After that, they discuss two high-profile albums they finally got to hear this week: Charli XCX's “Music, Fashion, Film” (20:59) and The Strokes' “Reality Awaits” (31:05). Then they talk about new releases by Arca and Shearwater, among other acts (45:43). In Recommendation Corner, Ian recommends Aeiou and Steven recommends Frank Hurricane (50:50). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Indicast is presented by Amazon Music. Hello everyone and welcome to Indycast on this show we talk about the biggest indie news of the week, review albums, and we hash out trends. In this episode, we give our reactions to the new Strokes and Charlie X-EX albums after actually getting to listen to them. What a new concept for our show. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. He's moving back to Philly to see LeBron play with the Sixers. Ian Cohen, Ian, Ian, how are you? Actually, that's not true.

I'm going to do it like LeBron, stay in San Diego, take Amazon Force One to see the home games. Yeah, I'm sticking around. I do. Well, he's not sticking around in California, though. The rumor, and I don't know if it's been confirmed, but that he's moving to New York. Yeah. And he's going to commute to Philly, which I don't know. Like, how's that going over with the Philadelphia community?

Are they just so excited to have him that they don't care that he's not going to. I mean, I saw a funny joke online where someone said, this is the first time that someone has moved to Westfield. Philadelphia from Bel Air. Ah. Like a reverse fresh prince situation. But he's not moving to West Philadelphia. No, he's not at all moving to West Philadelphia. Yeah, I do, I don't love the fact that he's living, like, living in New York, but

reping Philadelphia for clout. Like, it's indie rock and it's 2018. But as much as I didn't, I haven't been, like, last week I talked about how I couldn't wrap my mind around him being in a Sixers uniform. just didn't make spiritual sense to me. But if there's one thing that unifies your typical 45-year-old or 43-year-old in Philadelphia, whether it's, you know, the guy who works at a bar and still listens to the Menzinger's in the Wonder Years or like the large Muslim population in Philadelphia, it's being bald and having a big beard. So LeBron's already got the style down. I'm excited to see how

he fits in. I like to think that LeBron heard the recent Kurt Bile record. Philadelphia's been good to me and that implanted something in his, you know, because LeBron, you know, he didn't make it that far and did the Lakers make the playoffs? I forget. They did make the playoffs. They absolutely washed the rockets. Right. Okay. I'm trying to remember who they

played after, but the wheels just fell off, yeah. Did they lose the Timberwolves? It was either the Timberwolves or possibly the Thunder. Okay. It wasn't the Spurs, but it was they beat a clearly checked out Rockets team.

And then they, you know, things just ran out because you had like Luke. Actually, Luca didn't even play, I don't think. Well, anyway, he's had a long time to be chilling out, which makes me think he definitely heard the Kurt Bile record. Philadelphia's been good to me. It was like a sort of implant in his mind. Philadelphia's been good to Kurt Bile. Maybe it can be good to me as well.

I mean, I'm just trying to think, like if LeBron has a favorite Kurt Bile album, what do you, do you think it is? I mean, do you think he goes back to smoke rings for my halo? Or do you think he's like a real head and even repping for like the record he did with Courtney Barnett, getting it to bottle it in? I mean, I'm guessing, knowing LeBron, he seems like a frontrunner. Yeah. Probably like awaking on a pretty day. He read all the profiles at the time. He's like, this is someone I need to check out. And then maybe he got back on board with the latest record. The latest record got a lot a good press. He's like, I got to get back on the Kurt Vile train. And Philadelphia's been good to him. It can be good to me as well. I think, can we get shams on this? Is there any reporting?

I think that this theory might have some water to it. Yeah, I was about to say, like, with LeBron, like, he's absolutely like, what's the consensus one? But that being said, Apple Music did call Smoke Ring the essential Kurt Bile album. Like, I'm looking at the angle from, from like the rap perspective. Like, I know, like I don't, you know, someone who's like 40 years old and looks like LeBron probably does listen to state property. So I think if he like comes out in that first game, uh, coming out to what we do or flip side, uh, this will endear him to Philadelphia, even if they go 50 and like 32

this year, which is not outside the realm of possibility because this team right now, uh, is constructed like a 82 and, like 82 and O like or better. 82 and o.com team. That's the one thing I've been doing the most. Like, I've given up on social media and my whole stimming is better 82 and O. It's like five guys you would pick in a fancy draft, but they'll tell you, oh, it's redundant ball dominant creators and paint overlap.

I mean, I'm excited, but at the same time, I don't love how, like, it seems like the entire NBA has turned over in the Eastern Conference. It feels like pick up basketball rather than developing rivalries and actual hate. trip between teams, which is really what makes this league work. Yeah, I mean, my first thought was the 2004 Lakers, you know, like where they had Carl Malone and it was like Shaq and Kobe. Steve Nash. Yeah, it was like an all-star team.

And that was the team that lost to. No, I don't think that was Steve Nash. Yeah, that Steve Nash wasn't on that. No, it was Gary Payton, Carl Malone, plus Shaq and Kobe. And then there might have been somebody else. Yeah, Steve Nash and Dwight Howard, that was the Sports Illustrated cover that I remember. Yeah, but this was like 04. It was like the last run of Kobe and Shaq.

And after that, it was basically over. And they lost to the Pistons. It feels a little like that to me. But yeah, you got LeBron. You also have Jalen Brown. So like two spray on hair guys, basically on the same team. You know, the Sixers are going to be spending a lot of money on like, you know, like the black spray on hair for both of those guys.

Mysterious F lights the turkey or something like that. Yeah, it would be great. It would be great. I mean, you know, it. It was better than him, like, going to Miami. Like, him and Janice, I think, would have been depressing. Yeah, not that fun to watch. Being in Philly, because if it goes bad, you know Philly Media is going to step up,

and they're going to roast this team. And if it's great, then it's great. I mean, I think they're going to be a fun team to watch. Sure. So good for you. Good for you, Ian. Philadelphia. You got the Eagles coming up here.

You got LeBron and with the Sixers. It's good times for Ian Cohen sports. Although you're a college football guy more anyway. I mean, you're just thinking about Georgia probably right now. I'm thinking about Georgia and the fact that they'll probably be like the number five team in the country, not have any plays longer than 20 yards and lose to like Alabama somehow. So yeah, looking forward to that. You know, speaking of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, have you noticed there's been a bunch of B-52s?

Yes. We've talked online lately. People sharing clips of the B-52s. early B-52s, them playing my own private Idaho, and them on Saturday Night Live when they did Rock Lobster, iconic performance. And did make me think, they're one of those bands that obviously you think Love Shack with the B-52s. That's their most famous song.

But they are this band that has this other history that predates that. When Ricky Wilson was their guitar player, Ricky Wilson passed away from, from AIDS complications in the mid-80s. A lot of people don't even know that he was in the band, but he was like the driving force of this band early on. They were like this cool, you know, like one of the early, I guess they weren't an indie rock band because I think they were on a major label,

but they were like one of the early kind of like new wave American bands outside of New York. Really cool band. And it's always fascinating to me. We're going to be talking about the strokes here in a minute. In a way, this is true for them with a younger generation, younger generation of people. who have really gravitated to like the new abnormal that being a record that you know huge with

with with gen z and like whatever the generation is after gen z do they have a name the alpha right is it alpha okay yeah the z's in the alpha they love new abnormal not as big on the early records it's kind of a similar thing like new abnormal is like their love shack in a way um i mean i I think it in rainbows. Well, that, yeah, I mean, I'm joking with the Love Shack thing, but it's always fascinating to me when bands have that second life and how the new audience comes in and they don't always know about the older stuff. I mean, I feel like when we were young, there were a lot of bands like that.

I remember Aerosmith. Oh, absolutely. That's like that Chicago. Yeah, or like Genesis, you know, like, Phil Collins wasn't always the singer. And you had no idea if you were eight years. years old watching MTV like I was. But yeah, I'd love that. I think that's so interesting. And to see it with the strokes, we'll talk about that more in a minute. You know, they have had that second life. And to see like the older fans who don't know how to process that, who get upset

about it, because they realize like, oh, this isn't really my band anymore. But they grew up, but I grew up with them. Like they're my age, but this other generation has claimed them. Fascinating phenomenon in music. Yeah, so now we've got to talk about sad stuff, unfortunately. Yeah, yeah. So let's talk about two people passed away this week. The news was announced on the same day. Within the span of like 15 minutes.

It felt like that. I mean, I think, so we're talking about Glenn Hansard, the Irish singer-songwriter, lead singer of this band, The Frames, also had a long solo career, probably best known for the film once, which came out, I believe, in 2009. He won an Oscar for that film for Best Original Song. He passed away this week. I think that was announced on Wednesday. I think he died actually maybe overnight.

There's a time change difference, so it's hard to know exactly. But he died in a motorcycle accident. He was 56 years old, way too young, a tragic accident there. And then the French DJ musician, songwriter Jack of All Trades, Kavinsky, also passed away around the same time. He's probably best known for the song Night Call, which was featured in the 2011 film Drive, plays over the opening credits. Awesome song.

Very great tone setter for that film. He passed away around the same time. He was only 50 years old. His cause of death is still unknown. I read that authorities are suspecting a stroke in his instance. Apparently he was complaining of headaches earlier in the day before he passed. You know, these two people that could not be more different, you know, Glenn Hans are to me like a quintessential like earnest singer-songwriter,

playing acoustic guitar, kind of pouring his heart out. And then you have Kivinsky, the quintessential kind of cool. French DJ playing, creating these records very 80s influenced, very kind of in a daft punk type of vein. And yet they do have this shared thing where I think they're both best known for these films that their music was featured in. Movies that came out around the same time, movies that were huge at the time culturally. And very much, I think, I think of them like once and Drive being like very millennial type films.

Drive especially, I think, had a big impact on the indie rock world. This was around the time M83 put out, Hurry Up I'm Dreaming, Midnight City. There was something in the air about 80 sounding music, that synth pop

thing was really coming back. And that was in the process of becoming like a dominant form of indie music and also pop music as the 2010s unfold. Drive was a big part of that All the music on that soundtrack Once as I said

You won the Oscar for Hansard for Best Original Song which was falling slowly I think is the name of the song Yeah And I feel like both films I don't want to say they've been forgotten I feel like the stature of both films Has fallen a little bit

I don't see them getting talked about as much as they were like 15 years ago They don't feel like they have like the same maybe cultural import. I haven't seen either film in a long time. I haven't seen once in a really long time. Drive I saw maybe five, six years ago, and it still really held up for me.

But, you know, with Hansard, I don't know which one you want to talk about first, Ian, but with Hansard, he's someone, I have to say that I don't have a ton of experience with his music. I know who he was. I recognize him from the film. He always seemed like a very likable sort of down-to-earth every man type musician. You know, being a busker was a big part of that film and is a big part of his persona.

He seems like the kind of guy that if TikTok had existed in 2008, he would have been huge on that. You know, that kind of thing. Like, I'm just a normal guy on the street, but oh, look at me. I'm actually like really good. I feel like that sort of thing always goes over well. those platforms. So he was kind of like a viral star before there really were viral stars in a lot of ways. But then he went on, he had this relationship like with Eddie Better and like you two.

He kind of like had relationships with like really famous musicians and he would open up for them. And he was, but he's more of a cult guy, I think ultimately. I don't know. Like, I know you were talking about being a fan of like what song were you mentioning that you love by him? Yeah. when we when we were conceptualizing uh indie cast hall of fame the frames 2004 album burn the maps is always been on the short list i just never really got around to that that record rules um it is

uh you know it's kind of every man sort of look i mean he looks like an every man but that album is uh kind of what you would get if you wanted uh snow patrol that was angrier and grittier. It's still very much in that Alexis Patsavik core, 2003 to 2005 mode. You know, it's like somewhere in between like, let's say, Snow Patrol and Frightened Rabbit. That record's really cool. The one after that not so into. I've never seen once before. Oh, really? Yeah. Can you believe it? Even being a fan of this Frames record, you never thought I want to see this film? I don't because like, because that Frames record's got some like,

angry, kind of raw, maybe more pixie-ish sort of songs. Whereas I listen to Swell Season and I'm thinking, you know, this is leaning a little too heavily into chasing cars type Snow Patrol, as opposed to chocolate snow patrol. That was definitely more of his commercial stuff. Oh, absolutely. Him going into that. And that kind of like, you know, yeah, like the Snow Patrol cross with Frank Turner type type music.

You know, well, I mean, I'm not, I'm not saying that as a. joke. I mean, I'm just saying... No, that's true. I just never, I didn't expect you to say that. That very kind of earnest European rock. I guess Sam Fender would be a moderate example of that. Although he's taking it to a different place, I think. Guy Garvey from Elbow. Damien Rice, that sort of deal.

You know what I'm saying? Right. Yeah, totally. And Kovinsky is someone, I have to say that I don't know, I don't go deep on Kivinsky. I know Nightcall. listen to that song three or four times before we got ready to record. I think that is an awesome song. Totally in that Midnight City, Def Punk Zone. Cromatics. Italians do it better. I mean, that would. I never saw Drive. I have to admit that. What? Do you not watch films, Ian? You never saw Drive? You're a guy our age and you've never seen Drive. That is a see, once I can understand, but drive, blows my mind that you haven't seen that.

Yeah, I think my whole 2011 to 2013, all I really did was, like, write 6.5 reviews for pitchfork and play NCAA on PS3. I had no other social life, but I figure, like, living in L.A. at that time and reviewing, you know, interviewing Johnny Jewell for a Pitchfork cover story and reviewing, hurry up or dreaming. Like, I kind of absorbed it. Like, it's so funny. It's not funny.

tragic these two passed away. But these two albums, or not these albums, but these, I guess, pop culture phenomenons on like the one hand you have ones, which is, you know, very earnest, singer songwritery, and then a completely opposite drive, which is very neon and dark and cool. These to me feel like kind of boundaries on the same time in my life, uh, 2007 to 2011. Like, Obama Corps 1.0, like these are the outer margins of it. And, For whatever reason, they just both remind me of being on dating apps at that time. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I mean, for me, it would have been the period where I was married, but I didn't have kids yet. Wow. Which, once you have kids, it feels like you're single if you're married without kids. Like, when I think about me and my wife, it's like, it still felt like we were dating, even though we were married. So that was a period. I feel that every day with my wife, if you're listening. It feels like we're dating all new. Well, aren't you a sweetie pie there? Look at Ian.

Does she listen to the show? Does your wife listen? Yes, she does. That's romantic. Because I don't make my wife listen to anything I do. I don't make my wife listen to it either. I think she voluntarily does it. Yeah, she does it willingly. Good for you. Good for you. You can live with me and still not have enough Ian Cohen. I know exactly. It's like, wow, I am volunteering to listen to Ian when he's not here. That is love right there. That's beautiful.

But no, to me, it's both of those albums, I think, are indie rock-coded in their own way. I think once is an album, I'm sorry, once is a film that feels very much a part of like the fokey indie that was happening in the late 2000s. I mean, he's, a lot of that music was American, you know, Bonnie Bear, Fleet Fox's, Iron and Wine. and he's coming at it from a European perspective but still it feels a piece of that whereas Drive is very much signaling okay this is what the 2010s

are going to sound like in their own way drive is a great movie just go rent that this weekend Ian with the wife sit down I do think that that movie in a way plays like an extended music video for a type of music that I know you love so if you just want to see

cool cinematography with moody music playing in the background. Like, you will love drive. Also, Albert Brooks plays the bad guy, and he's really good, being evil in that film. So anyway, RIP, Glenn Hansard and Kovinsky, both two young men. You know, I'm going to be 50 in just about a year.

Like, my 49th birthday is coming up in a month. So seeing guys in their 50s die, like, hits differently. For me, right now, I have to say. Because it is a little like, holy crap. Okay, they're not that much older than I am. Like you lay down with a headache and then you die. That is insane to me that that can happen. Yeah, and I don't want to, and I'm probably going to be the first person to mention that I just saw that

Amon Green, the Green Bay Packers career leading Russia revealed he has Parkinson's. I saw that. Yeah. I saw that, which I don't know if that's football related. Hard to believe that that isn't maybe part of that in some way. I don't know. Amon Green, they had the Packers leading Russia of all time. Very sad. I used to watch him in the 2000s. Great, great player.

Let's talk about two albums we talked about a bit last week. Reality Awaits by the Strokes and the new Charlie X-E-X album, Music Fashioned Film, which is a list of Ian Cullen's three favorite things, I think, listed in order of preference. definitely film last for you. Like you're not going out to see the films. Yeah, I'm trying to think of who my music fashion film cover would be. You know, you'd probably have like Uncle Merta,

Sid Mashburn, and the guy who directed Nirvana, the band, the movie. I mean, she's got Scorsese as her film. I would keep him. I'd put, you know, Dylan in there. She's got John Kale. I'll replace Mark Jacobs.

with Dylan. And in the middle, I'll put the guy who invented black band t-shirts in the middle. Yeah, Bob Gilden or whatever his name is. Yes, exactly. Whoever was the first person to invent a black band t-shirt, that would be my fashion person in the middle. But anyway, we talked about both of these albums last week, but we had not heard either album. And now we've heard both albums. So we want to talk about them a little bit, give some reactions. Which one do you want to talk about first Ian the strokes or charlie xxiex well i feel like we got more to say about the strokes so let's do charlie first um and in a way it it makes sense to talk about them together because i mean we just transitioned from you know talking about mortality i think both of these

albums are very much about aging about legacy uh and really what music's all about to people like us, which is generating articles. Right. We've talked about how it's been a week year for like indie cast-y purposes of album cycles, but these two have really, really, really performed as a stimulus package

for the article generating community. And, you know, with Charlie XX, you know, I mentioned last week that there was something extremely 90s coded about the album cover. It had that kind of black and white Anton Corbyn look.

it had that were shying away from our most popular album feel to it and when I listened to it what I was struck by is how not that it was not that I expect you know it sounds like Charlie XX for sure but it's like 30 minutes long it's very kind of slight I enjoy it and at the same time I get this feeling from it where the way people write about it does not feel in a accordance with what it actually is because, you know, the whole thing is that, oh, my gosh, she's going to, like, freak out the casuals who got into Brat and haven't heard her past stuff, as if Brat itself isn't, you know, within the scope of what she's been doing this whole time. I get the sense of sometimes when I'll, like, hear a guy on a podcast and it's like, oh,

that's an interesting book. I'll go read this book, which is, you know, a nonfiction book. And it's like, you know what, this could have been an article. And I feel that way a little bit about this album. I enjoy it. I like how it engages with a lot of the post brat indie pop out there. It moves really quickly, but it doesn't really say anything about fame or, you know, celebrity or what have you, that I couldn't imagine just from reading articles about Charlie X, X, X, X, reading up to it. What I think it's really more about, and this is, I don't know, maybe just projection on my end, but when I read people talk about this record, it's almost about being 35 as much.

as like a national album was about being 35. Oh, I think that's a great comparison there. Because I think Charlie XX is the national for a different cohort of music writers or just people online. You have the sad dad contingent that you associate with the national. There's like sad moms slash sad, sad single women or whatever that are like, relating to Charlie and I think a very similar way that people would relate to the national

or a band like the Strokes. You know, one thing I wrote in my notes here is that I think enjoyment of this Charlie XX album is really contingent in how engaged you are with the idea of Charlie XXX. 1,000%. And I say that fully knowing that what I'm about to say about the strokes

is definitely reflective of me being engaged with the idea of the strokes. There's an element of this record, of both records, where it's part of a conversation about kind of like what you were saying about where these people stand right now in their overall careers and like what they mean to people and what they're maybe saying to people that are in a similar place of life that these, that the artists making these records are. One thing I said, I made a comparison about this online and I was semi-serious and semi-joking, but I think I'm more serious than joking,

which is I think that there's a good comparison to make for this album is pop by U2. Whereas, because like on the U2 record, you know, they made this album, they were a rock band coming off this great success. You know, they'd made Actoon Baby. They had this Zoot TV tour. They were very successful.

They had to figure out a way, how are we going to follow this up? Zuropr was in there as well, but kind of like an adjunct to the Actune Baby era. Now we're in our new era. We're in the late 90s. New metal's big now. Teen Pop is big. Rolling Stone is putting the prodigy on the cover. How do we stay relevant? We're in our late 30s now. How do we stay relevant? And they made this record as a rock band that was engaging with pop music as a way to talk about the media. A lot of media commentary. A lot of commentary about capitalism and how capitalism can corrupt. and how art can stand up to capitalism by somehow mocking the capitalism aspects that are infiltrating popular culture. And I feel like all these things apply to what Charlie X, the X is doing. Only she's coming at it from the opposite side where she's making a, she's a pop artist engaging

with rock music signifiers, as opposed to a rock band playing with pop music signifiers. Although I think that the records kind of end up sounding the same. You know, they end up in a similar place. I think this is an album made by a person who knows that she was not going to top the previous record in terms of the pop culture impact. So she very deliberately made a record that is scaling back from that. And, you know, I do think, I mean, I think Charlie X, The X, X, X has always had a big sort of intellectual pop fan.

part of her audience. People have always, you know, critics have always loved her, and they've always loved writing about her. And this album, I think, certainly feeds into that. But she also has this much bigger audience now, I think, after Brad.

I mean, Brad was really the, not that she didn't have successes before that, but I feel like Brad kind of made her, finally, the pop star that a lot of people in the media wanted her to be for a long time. Right. It exploded her beyond the, cult that she had been a part of for like about a decade and put her on the level of

not quite Taylor Swift but like the next tier of pop stars. In this album, I think, is a way of treading water without looking like it's treading water or putting treading water in ironic quote marks. Like I'm self-aware about treading water, which means I'm not treading water. Yeah. Yeah, I think that this one, like, I don't want to say like stopgap or, you. transitional because like she's put out a lot of records and each single one is in dialogue with the previous one and yeah to your point it's like it's really easy and fun to write about because like

the way most people in our community engage with pop music you're listening to pop music but you're also writing articles you know it's like you have both the music and the think piece combined as one it's one stop shopping and so you listen to a song like wink wink where it is kind of meta in that regard or just like rock music which look there are guitars on this album and they sound to me some they they're they remind me at times of like not france ferdinand but uh you know maximo park or future has it's like no the guitars play as much of a role as like the synths you know it's an instrument it's not like the thing you know so is that all we have to say about charlie xx I mean, at least for now.

I mean, it'll be interesting to see how this one holds up. And look, I mean, I do think there's something extra, I think Charlie X, X, X is very much millennial. And I know that kind of strips away the pop star mystique. But, you know, so much of like what she experiences as a pop star, like the distinct, the dissonance between, like, who you are publicly on social media and who you really feel you are, is very much a millennial concern. And, you know, maybe I don't, that doesn't resonate with me as much.

But look, I think our guy Larry said, you know, Larry Fitzmaurie said like Charlie XX and Brat in some way was a little way of like kind of weaning off being a Swifty or at least like engage, like to do the same sort of like I see myself. Like this pop music is a mirror for me, my experience. I still think that's the case. And, you know, let's just be honest about it. It'll be interested to see how this one holds up by the end of the year. Well, let's talk about reality awaits.

Because like you said, I think we have more to say about this album possibly than we do about the Charlie X, The X, The album. And I wrote a big thing about this for my substack, evil speakers. You can go online and check that out. I wrote about the album. But I also wrote about the response to the album, as well as the tour, which I talked about last week and how it was predominantly young people. people around me and predominantly people that were really excited about new-ish stroke songs albums songs from the new abnormal and and they also played a couple tracks from from this record as well one thing that's been really interesting about the

reaction which I would say is certainly mixed I'm trying to decide where it leans positive or negative I feel like this is influence by like what things, you know, what the algorithm is putting into your feed. I definitely feel like the algorithm was favoring negative reactions to this album. Although I think somewhat predictably, the reactions got more positive as you got away from like the blast radius of the release, which was last week. I mean, this record, it starts off with a song called Psycho Shit, which I think is a great song.

I love this song. But it's a song where I feel like in a way, If you want to ascribe trolling attributes to Julian Casablancus, this is a song you put at the start of the record to alienate people. And it's a song you put on, if you know people are going to tweet immediately after hearing 30 seconds of a record, this is a song you put at the start. If you want to get the most hilariously,

sort of hyperboically negative reactions. Because it's like the dirgyest song on the record. It's like one of the longest songs on the record. I think it's like a great piece of music. music. It actually reminds me a lot of O to the Mets, which is the last song on the new abnormal. It's another kind of stately,

long-winded song that builds to like a nice crescendo at the end. It reminds me of like the most forbidding cure songs like Shake Dog Shake or a hundred years from like the really drugged out early part of the cure.

And by the way, we got to mention, we make fun of Rick Rubin a lot here, but you know, system of a down cycle. psych uh you know psych or psycho sexy psycho shit he's got a good track record if you're putting the word psycho in your music so you think Rick Rubin was like hey can we get a psycho song in here this is part of my lineage as a producer we get some psycho in here uh I like that theory um you know

one thing that's interesting to me about the reactions is that I think a lot of the reviews that I've seen are written by people around our age yeah and I I think people around our age have a lot of baggage with the strokes. And you see this in some of the reviews that things that were litigated and relitigated constantly about the strokes. Back when Is This It came out and Room on Fire came out and First Impressions of Earth came out. Which, by the way, those records were also had mixed reactions, room on fire. It was too much like, Is This It?

And then First Impressions of Earth came out. And it was like, oh, this is not enough, like, is this it? And it's been like that so on and so forth. I would say that for the bulk of their history, the strokes have been this like odd art rock band that is oftentimes, and when I say they, I mean Julian Casablanke is for the most part. But like they are willfully messing with people's expectations and doing things that are upending really this image that they have

of being like a throwback rock band, which is the image that. that was forged, I think really by the photographs of the band from Is This It? Because even if you listen to Is This It? The guitar sounds and the drum sounds are pretty paired back for like a major label rock record. Like they've never really made like the just unadulterated epititech for destruction. Definitely maybe type rock record. Even when they were writing like rock songs, you know, there was always something going on with the vocals.

they would be distorted or there'd be like a weird drum part that was made to sound like a drum machine even though Fab Moretti was playing the drums or the guitars would sound kind of wiry and downplayed. So when this record comes out and people act like, oh my God, I can't believe that they're messing with the vocal sound or that they're, they have lyrics that don't really make any sense or there's like weird song titles. It just makes me wonder like, have you not paid a... attention to these other records that they've made or like Julian's truly insane side project, the voids, which is like way off the charts. And the answer is probably no. I think a lot of these older people have not paid attention. And instead we get reviews, like the pitchfork

review is like relitigating whether the strokes are real or not. It's like what? Or like the Rolling Stone Review has a line in there about like they referenced some article from the Irish time saying, can the strokes still save rock and roll? Like, we're still regurgitating these narratives about the strokes. Whereas I feel like the younger people who are into the band now, they don't have that baggage and they don't view the band through that lens. I mean, I do think that there's a difference with this record, but from the new abnormal, like on the new abnormal, Rick Rubin really pushed to not have any effects on Julian Casta Blancas's voice, which is something that Julian in interviews, I think, had a lot of

mixed feelings about, because he's always had this thing with his own vocals where he wants to be like another instrument in the band, as opposed to being front and center, the way it normally is for a rock band or on a pop record. And that went out the window on this album, because he's going hog wild with the auto tune, which has been the most polarizing part of the record. I have to say, for me, I guess I've been Stockholm syndromed by the strokes, I didn't even really notice the auto tune. I guess I'm just used to that sort of thing on a Strokes record. So it didn't bother me.

I don't know. I feel like there's a lot of great jams on this album, like Lonely in the Future, going to Babylon, you know, songs like that. Going shopping, yeah, great song. They're all, like, really catchy. Like, if you want the bangers, they're on the record. I don't know. I really love the record a lot.

You like the record, too, which I was surprised. Because I know you, because you haven't really paid attention. you obviously, you know, have this, I mean, I've paid way too much attention. Yeah, I know. But you've been liking the record, too. Yeah, I think it's fair to say, you know, as somebody who has written a book, which, by the way, out September 8th, right? Thank you very much. Thank you.

Yeah. Is this it, it's called? You can pre-order it anywhere right now? Yeah. I think you're the one with the dog in the fight here. Like, for me, like, I don't know if I've actually listened to the new abnormal all the way through. I did listen to Come Down Machine. I reviewed Come Down Machine.

And apparently that's like the one album that like most Strokes fans would be like, yeah, we can't really like go to back for this one. But, you know, I listened to Reality Awaits. Like I thought the cover was cool. And what really strikes me about this album, especially in comparison to Charlie X, X, X, X, X, not that these two are in competition. But when we think about like what it really means to be divisive,

this album's actually divisive. Like, it is making people. upset in ways that feel really new and just unusual in the current day. Because, like, I don't imagine people, you know, like, maybe someone who listened, who loved Brat doesn't hear the same amount of bangers on the new Charlie X, X, X, X, Island, but it sounds similar enough. Like, the auto tune is a new angle for them. I think the lengths of the songs are a different angle.

The kind of cantankerous nature of Julian Casablan. his lyrics, and we haven't even mentioned him bringing up Anthony Fontano, which I think is funny. I think that's a funny lyric. I'm not upset about it. I am too. There was a New York magazine article that was castigating this lyric. Like, who are you to diss the weekend? And they didn't say Fantano's name.

They called him a YouTuber. Which. I don't know if that was a shot at him or what. I mean, Fantano, I hope he takes it as a badge of honor to be dissed by on a strokes record. I mean, if that happened to me, I would probably have a heart attack. But I got like vague posted on a proto-marter record and that's all I got, you know. Right. Like he's going to actually say your name, Fantano.

Because I think he says Fantano in the record, right? Yeah, he does. He doesn't. He says the needle drop. He says fanta-so he's saying your name in amphitheaters and arenas all over the world from now until when the strokes break up if that ever happens. Maybe what he'll do is like he'll change. the lyric like whenever the strokes tore and just got talk about like you know maybe when he's in Chicago it'll be about Jim Deerogatis and you know maybe in San Diego maybe I'll hate my book

and he can slip me in there. Fantano I guess Hayden has one fewer syllable but you know you can say my whole name I guess yeah but it rhymes with a lot of stuff too I wouldn't have known that they mentioned Anthony Fontano if it wasn't online but I think this gets to the you know him mentioning this or just like Julian Casablan just having these this very i think like a lot of guys who are too online or just like to engage in media just the very incoherent form of politics but or just like a viewpoint and i think that's what makes this resonate with me like i like look i love the first two strokes records but i don't really have this emotional attachment to them i have an emotional attachment to the circumstances

surrounding me listening to those records but it's not it's their hangout records They're not ones where I think about like, oh, what, you know, New York City cops or, you know, under control meant to me. Heart in a cage, I, you know, that's a song that, like, hits me on a deeper level. But this one actually, like, resonates with me. I'm having an emotional experience with it just because it's so bizarre and so wants to be seen on its own terms. And people really hate this record. You know, I haven't seen. People are coming around to it, though, because I posted my thing this morning, and I'm hearing from more people saying, I like this album. I think, again, it's the kind of record where there's so many things initially that are off-putting about it, whether it's the auto-tune, whether it's songs like Liar's Remorse, which is at the back half of the record, which sounds like the score to a clockwork orange cross with, like, the most stone-sounding songs from McCartney, too.

And then you've got like Julian doing like a fake British accent. Yeah, I love that. And Dyn and Dash and things, you know, things that you could just. It's kind of meanish. If you're, yeah, exactly. There's things on the record where if you're kind of half listening to it, it's very easy to dismiss it as like, oh, this is just a bunch of bullshit and they don't care about it. But the thing with the strokes is that like if Julian really didn't care.

Because, you know, Julian, like, and I thought this when I saw him live, this is especially true of him on stage. He has this demeanor to him that actually reminds me a lot of Bob Dylan. I think there's a lot of Dylan-esque qualities to Julian Casablancus, starting with his on-stage demeanor, which just radiates this feeling of like, I don't give a shit. That's always been his manner. But if he really didn't give a shit and he really just wanted to cash checks,

like the strokes could just do the thing that some people claim that they want, which is just a retread of Is This It? Record it the same way, write those. same kind of songs. I think that there's songs on this album that if you stripped away the production and you played it in the style of 2001 strokes, it would sound like those songs. Like they're just not presented that way, but he could present them that way if you wanted to, which I think would please more people and it would maybe make it a more likable record for a lot of people, but I think it would be a more cynical album and less interesting in the long run.

The thing with this band, I don't think that they get enough credit for, for actually evolving over time and being genuinely different now than they were when they started. I think, again, I think a lot of the people who write about them, they had their minds made up about the strokes 20 years ago. They're the band that didn't say rock music in 2001, and now, oh my God, they're still around? Like, who even cares about that band? Meanwhile, you have an audience out there that's young and engaged who don't look at them as a nostalgia act. that is very much engaged in what they're doing now.

And I find it very fascinating that a lot of people writing about this stuff don't even know that that audience exists, even though that they're probably the bulk of their audience at this point. At least they were when I saw them live. And judging by what other people have told me about other shows that they've seen with the strokes, it seems like that's true across the board. So that duality with the strokes,

circling back to what we were saying earlier about the B-52s, how for some people, they're the band that made Rock Lobster. For other people, they're the band that made Love Shack. You got a lot of people that are kind of stuck in an image of this band from a long time ago that isn't necessarily like the popular thing with them now or the common thing with a younger audience. Yeah, and it's exactly, not exactly the same thing, but quite similar with like deaf tones, where it's, if people our age, you know, might think of, you know, back to school, or my own summer and there's this young, like very young and diverse audience who has just had a

completely different experience with him. But man, I would just love to go back to my like college apartment in 2001 where I was listening to, uh, is this it and white pony all the time? Just getting completely housed and dang like, hey, you know, keep the faith because 25 years from now, these are going to be both equal, uh, pillars of youth culture. Okay. So, we're both on board with the Strokes album. What a shock, but I'm very happy to hear that. Maybe we're going to build a new consensus with this episode. Let's talk quickly about new releases out this week. There's not that many of them, Ian. No. So it's a good thing we don't have a ton of time left because there's not much to discuss here. There's a new ARCA record. It's called X. There's

like five X's in the album title. This is sort of like an already electronic project, would you say? Yeah, it's a producer who's done a lot of really innovative work, you know, with artists like Bjork. It's definitely a very fascinating on Wheelby catalog. It's probably not that dissimilar from hearing a new Apex Twin or Square Pusher album in the 90s. I don't go super deep on them.

If I did know this album was coming out a few weeks ago, definitely would have put it on my fantasy draft radar, especially since TIEC. Ila, one of my picks is only clocking in an 81. So, yeah, I'm fascinated to hear it. Pretty much guaranteed to be number 22 on the year end list. So I'm excited for it. There's a new Ariana Grande record called Petal. I'm not totally clued in with the hierarchy of pop divas at the moment.

So maybe this doesn't really hold a lot of water. I feel like Ariana Grande has slipped in the power rankings. In that world, I don't know. I agree with that. Yeah. It seems like she's obviously extremely famous, but in terms of her new records, it feels like she's maybe moving into that arena where, like, the new records don't matter as much anymore. I would say that's true. And she's been around for a long time.

So, I mean, she's had a long career. She's going to be able to play Vegas for, like, the next 40 years. She'll be making movies. So she's doing great. But maybe, you know, we can be totally wrong. Maybe Petal is going to be a huge record. Shibuzi has a new record out, the Outlaw, Shari Lee, and other Western tales. Shibuzi has that song about drinking, right?

Isn't that? That's his big hit? Yeah. Tipsy, there you go. And other drinking. Yeah, yeah. Another just enormous song of the 2020s. It's like one of the few songs.

It's like, yeah, it's pretty funny. Like, I think of it along the lines. Like, this song is so ubiquitous that even I've heard it. Like, because I still haven't heard shoes in Texas yet. But yeah, I've heard another drinking song or what have you, yeah. I mean, I think, you know, there should be, you know, people talk about like, You would know it. Well, you know, songs that you hear at like at a Walgreens or, you know, at a grocery store,

you know, there's that genre. There should also be like the Uber song genre, you know, songs that are so popular. Yeah. Classic man. Yeah. Classic Man is the ultimate Uber song. Yeah, exactly. Or I remember like that, like I didn't hear Benson Boone, really, until I heard it in an Uber.

Yes. At some point. So. Yeah, that's exactly. That's where I heard Teddy Swims for the first time. Yeah. That's where I heard jelly roll for the first time. It's where I heard Lil Nas X for the first time.

So, yeah, that's a great category. Yeah. Alex Warren is a total Uber song. There's a new Shearwater record out today. the New World is what that's called I haven't listened to Shearwater in a long time We were talking about that era of like indie kind of That era of 2000s indie folk

I associate Shearwater with that I haven't heard any records really of his since that time I reviewed the last one It was pretty good Rook, that record rules And then there's a new album for my friend's cheekface They have a new album out today Oh no it came out on Tuesday

They're kind of getting old school with it Oh! There you go. Well, look, we've set our piece about cheekface in the past, but I like them releasing music on a Tuesday. I am a nostalgic for music being released on that day. It's also better for people like us, I think. For music critics, I think that was always a better release strategy because an album would come out on a Tuesday and then you'd have like three days to talk about it. It wasn't released on a Friday and then you enter the twilight zone of the weekend and then it's like a new week.

after that. So, uh, before, people forget what it was like to have albums come out on Tuesday, but and you publish your best new music review on Friday to hype it up that.

People forget what, you know, the power, the, the, the, the, the, the,

the, the, those were good times. And, you know, and now cheekface can benefit from that. Yeah. They can put out this record in,

in the streets can sing their praises. We've now reached a part of rep, episode that we call Recommendation Corner, where Ian and I talk about something that we're into this week. Ian, why don't you go first? All right, so I'm going to assume this band's name is AEIOU and not pronounce like in some sort of French-Canadian way like we or something like that. But it is AEIOU, and the name of the release is Jesse Ward. Shout to our guy Eileenis for putting me on to this, even though I have to apparently now acknowledge that Emo is on its sixth wave. Wow.

Yeah, I know. It just, it reminds me that, like most things, reminds me of an onion article. fuck everything we're doing five blades like fuck everything we're doing six wave that's probably going to be a midwest emo song title in the near future but you'll love how this album uh start it's more of an ep i'd say it starts out with the changing the radio dial trick like queens of the stone age's songs for the deaf oh nice except it except that has like there's like a promise ring song there they have braids first day back followed by the actual band first day back ian mackay's quote about emmo corbying the dumbest fucking thing he's ever heard.

As far as the album itself, they're in New York band, they're in a bunch of other bands, and I do think Six Wave makes sense in that it taps into the 90s revivalism of First Day Back in Returnello form, which I've talked about. By the way, first day back kind of blowing up. With more of a, I guess, shit posty, they are cutting a body of water-style sensibility

where the songs feel like fragments and they're kind of screwed around with in Pro Tools. It's very interesting stuff, and there's definitely something happening in this realm that feels pretty legit with the bands I had mentioned, Blimp being another band. I'll be interested to see if like a real home like no place is there type album comes there that everyone coalesces around. But this is the first time I felt kind of excited about emo in a long time. Wow. And this is part of it. High praise from the Minister of Emo music criticism to what we're going to call you, I think, from now.

The High Priest? Yeah. Should we call you that? Well, I think as somewhat, you know, as a podcast where we have both Packers and Eagles Allegiances, I think the minister of, like, you know, as a Reggie White tribute, probably makes the most sense. Yeah, I like it. The minister of the Church of Emo.

Ian Cohen. I want to talk about a North Carolina native named Frank Hurricane who recently put out a record called Southern Shrimp in the Big City. This is an artist who, I read about actually originally Andy Kemp. Cush did a interview with him for hearing things. So shout out to hearing things in this episode. I would describe him as having this sort of like feel good hippie image reminiscent of like Matthew McConaughey in the beach bum or like if Jimmy Buffett ever had like a Neil Young ditch era. It's a persona that I think would maybe be a little much if he wasn't such a good songwriter.

But I think on Southern Shrimp in the Big City, he really threads that needle of, I think, having, again, this kind of outgoing persona. Like, he's a big guy in search of, like, big transcendence. And he's writing about consumer culture. And he's writing about, like, living in the woods. And he has this song about an outlaw who is hiding out in a Chinese restaurant. And he says, the guy dipped his testicles in the sauce. But he pronounced testicles as testicles. So I've been doing that.

Not that I talk about testicles all that much in my daily life, but if it ever comes up, I refer to them as testicles. So he threads this needle of maybe kind of goofiness going on. But he also has like real songcraft going on in a real, I think, sense of outsiderness in his music where he's out. In many ways he's a protest singer, but he's not a protest singer in the pedantic way that someone like a Jesse Wells is. He's a protest singer.

in sort of like an advocating and stepping outside of mainstream culture. And I think listening to his songs feels like dropping out of society three minutes at a time. And it's that great combination of humor, but also insight and also just like genuinely good, kind of like folk melodies going on. It's a record I like a lot. I think it's a funny record. I also think it has a lot of heart to it. And I really encourage people to check it out. I think it's really good.

Again, it's called Southern Shrimp in the Big City. The artist is Frank Hurricane. And check it out. Yeah, I can't stress enough that shrimp is spelled with a Y for some reason. Yes. I'm looking this guy up. I tell you, he's freewheeling, man. He is ignoring the rules of society, even whether you put a Y or an eye in the word

shrimp. So drop out with him. That about does it for this episode of Indian. We'll be back with more news reviews and hashing out trends next week.