Indiecast - Steven Saw The Oasis Reunion Tour In London, Plus: Is The New Tame Impala Single Bad?

Episode Date: August 1, 2025

Steven and Ian open this week's episode with Steven reflecting on his experience seeing Oasis in London (5:38). Ian counters with his own big concert experience -- Waka Flocka at San Diego SeaWorld (9:35). From there, they touch on some news that they missed when Steven was overseas, including the death of Ozzy Osbourne (15:22), the new Tame Impala single (24:42), and the trend of indie artists leaving Spotify (33:27). They also do a "yay or nay" on music reunions (43:35). In the mailbag, they address Indigo De Souza's reaction to a recent negative review (47:49).In Recommendation Corner, Ian talks about the shoegaze band Bleary Eyed and Steven stumps for psych-rocker Cory Hanson (1:02:32).New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 250 here and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [e-mail], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Indycast is presented by Uprocks's Indy Mix tape. Hello everyone and welcome to Indycast. On this show, we talk about the biggest indie news of the week, review albums, and we hash out trends. In this episode, we talk about stuff we missed last week because I was in England. The Death of Ozzy Osbourne, the new Tame and Paula single, which I feel like nobody likes, and the Exodus of indie bands from Spotify. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host.

He'll be replaced in our next episode. by Josh Freeze. Ian Cohen. Ian, who are you? Yeah, don't threaten our listeners with a good time because what they can have is me taking every third episode to like talk about things I read about Tool and Guitar World in 1996 or get someone who actually knows what it's like to be in the studio with Maynard. Yeah, Josh Freeze.

He's played on every record. I saw an interview that he did recently. I think it was on Tim Heidecker show where he talked about how he's the drummer on the first Puddle of Mud record. Really? Yeah, and like, they apparently hired a new drummer during the session, so they asked him not to take credit in the liner notes. And Josh Freeze was like, no problem. You could take my name off this record.

Because they just, they needed a drummer, and he's one of the top studio cats for rock records. So he plays on the first puddle of a month. So like, you know, blurry. And she hates me, all those songs. Like, that's Josh Freeze laying down the grooves. You could tell, you know, it's got the. that Josh Free's snare tone, you know, like West Scanlan, that's definitely not the guy who's, you know, pushing the thing for for Puddle of Mud. Oh, yeah. You know, if I see, if I see a Puddle of

Mudd reunion show, that needs to be legit. If it's not Josh Fries on the drums, I'm just not accepting it as real puddle of mud. Well, the reason we brought that up is because this week, Josh Fries, who was recently fired by the Food Fighters, was hired by 9-inch Nails. He's going to be on their upcoming tour, which I think I'm going to go see. All right. It's kind of coming to St. Paul. I've never seen Nine Inch Nails live before. They're on my list of bands I haven't seen that I want to see. I feel like that'll be a pretty awesome show. And then the Food Fighters, who did the Food Fighters hire? Wasn't there like a swap? Yeah, it's this person named Alon Rubin. And I don't really know who that is. I mean, as far as I'm, I think I saw Nine Inch Nails play

FYF Fest, but otherwise never seen them live for real. And, you know, I think that that's, That's like a must-see band, I'm told. Oh, yeah. In my mind, like, I don't think about, I mean, I do have to think about Nine Inch Nails. It's, like, touring Colossus. But the only band that I have in my mind for Nine Inch Nails is the one that was in the March of the Pigs video. Like, that's it. If it's not them, it's, if it's not the guy with, like, the kind of Marilyn Manson band haircut on, on, like, bass.

I don't remember what the drummer looks like. Or the one in, oh, my God, wish that video. Incredible video. But otherwise I have no idea who plays with, I don't even know what Atticus Ross looks like. Yeah, I mean, I think it's just a bunch of hired cats that he's bringing in. But, you know, that's good. I don't really care about who else in Nine-H-Nech Nails.

But I guess Twiggy Ramirez. Was Twiggy Ramirez in Nine-E-N-N-H-Nails? Was he also in Marilynne Manson's band? Yeah, I mean, if their name was Twiggy Ramirez, they were definitely in Marilyn Manson, but I think they were also in Nine-E-N-N-H-Nails. I think that's the person I'm talking about who had, like, the most interesting haircut.

Otherwise, what you would see in those videos, just like people who were, like, super jacked before Trent Resner got jacked. So it was like those songs in sound and visual kind of look like what the armed is trying to do now. So, yeah, and they have a new album out. So, yeah, so Alon Rubin, I think, quit Nine Inch Nails to join the Foo Fighters. And then Nine Inch Nails hired Josh Freeze, who was just fired by the Foo Fighters. I feel like Nine Inch Nails is coming out ahead here. I don't know much about Alon Rube. Again, apparently Alon Rubin played in Nine Cheneals for 16 years,

so a well-tenured drummer in that band. What a great gig. Yeah, it would be good. I don't know if you're on retainer, maybe, if you're not on tour, or if you're just paid when you go on tour. Because in that respect, it wouldn't be a great gig because they don't tour a ton. But, so yeah, there's a drum swap there.

Very interesting year for drummers. We've already talked about this. All of the drummer turmoil. It's been great to see. I'm going to make a transition here to one of the big things I did when I was in England, which was go see Oasis, which I'll talk about here in a second. I mean, that was an amazing show. They had some drummer drama because Zach Starkey was their drummer for a long time, but then he was going to tour with the Who, so he couldn't do this Oasis Tour.

But then Zach Starkey got fired twice from the Who, and he's currently on the fired side. He was fired, then rehired, then fired. So he couldn't join OASIS, so they hired Joey Warnaker. It was another one of these, like, studio cats. I keep saying studio cats. Yeah, is that a UK thing? Is that something you picked up over there? I don't know.

I'm like a, it's like I'm a jazz critic now. Like a middle-aged jazz guy, got to get some, like, blocky glasses in, like, a fedora to fully make it work. But anyway, he's playing in the band. He sounded really good with Oasis. Ian, that was the best stadium rock show I've ever seen, Oasis in England. And I just want to say, like, because you saw a show too. We're going to talk about it. You saw Waka Faka Flame at the San Diego SeaWorld.

And the music press is going crazy over San Diego SeaWorld. So we'll talk about that here in a minute. But I did see a lesser-known show. I saw The Oasis for Union tour in England, their first show at Wembley Stadium. I think they're doing like six or seven shows. at Wembley. That's it. Well, I mean, it's 81,000 people bit in Wembley and they're also played like Manchester and Cardiff. I mean, England's not that big of a country. They're going all over the place. You know, they're going to be playing in America later this month like New York, Chicago, L.A., I forget

where else. A handful of American cities. I think they're all sold out. Based on what I saw, I think those will be really good shows. The band sounds great. Liam's voice sounds as good as it's ever sounded. He's really laying off the sauce, I think, because he has had, like, issues with having, like, a hoarse voice at times in the past. Just sounds amazing. Noel sounds amazing. He's doing a lot of guitar soloing and stuff. These guys clearly are taking this seriously. They're loving the experience. So I think the American shows will be good, but they will not be as good as seeing Oasis in the UK. The home field advantage that Oasis has in England, I think, it's unprecedented. I've never seen a band that is more in their element in their home country

than Oasis in England. And it has to do with the audience. The audience at Wembley was so ecstatic. And they were doing this thing that I often don't like at shows, which is they were singing along with the songs. It was like this massive sing-along. It was like dashboard confessional early 2000s, except it was 81,000 blokes and like Paul Weller haircuts and football jerseys singing all of these oasis songs. And I normally don't like that kind of thing, but it really elevated the experience. It made it feel like you were in a pub and you were hoisting the pints and you were singing these songs.

And it made me realize that, you know, all the criticisms that you could make of Noel Gallagher as a songwriter, you know, his lyrics are often pretty stupid. His melodies can sometimes feel like a little samey. But when it comes to writing songs that large groups of people in various states of inebriation can sing together in unison perfectly, like he's a genius at that. Like Bob Dylan or Beethoven, they have nothing on Noel Gallagher when it comes to mass sing-along anthems. And it was just incredible. I mean, I don't think that there's an American equivalent, really, to have. band like Oasis. Like you go over there and I just saw OASA shirts like all over all over the city.

And I'm sure this tour had something to do with it even though it was on the back end of my trip there. I got there on Tuesday and the show was on Friday. But there were Oasis shirts all over the place. And they really feel like a national mascot band, you know, like a band that everyone likes. Not everyone obviously, but they just feel very communicative. in that way. I don't know if there's like an American band like that. I guess you could say Taylor Swift. Yeah. That was my first thought. Is she like more popular here than the rest of the world? I kind of feel like she's not as America coded as Oasis as British coded. You know what I mean? Absolutely. I got to Taylor Swift. You go to any country in the world. People love Taylor Swift. It doesn't feel specific to America as Oasis does to England. So being able to see them over there, I was really great for. for that. It was such a great experience

being in that building and feeling it. Not as good as being at San Diego Sea World, right? I mean, because that's a pretty, seeing Waka Flaka Flame at the San Diego Sea World, I mean, that's a pretty special occasion. Yeah, I mean, all I can say is that Rolling Stone called the show I went to on Saturday,

part of the summer's most viral concert series. They did not say that about Oasis. I don't know if you've seen the videos, but like last year, I recall seeing on Instagram, people posting from a Soldier Boy bow wow co-headliner that happened at SeaWorld. Now, mind you, like, SeaWorld is, you know, like it's a theme park, but the stage in which they're performing, it's almost like this, this island, right? It's surrounded by the water. It's not surrounded by like orcas or things like that, but it is like on the water and it's, it's like where you would

watch like the dolphins, you know, perform. And last year they would have, like Soldier Boy doing crank that and just all these people like going wild throwing ass like and you know it's funny it's at sea world it's kind of like this combination of laughing at people and laughing with them because you know everyone in the audience knows the deal um this year they had uh waka flaka which i saw on saturday week before that i think he had like fat joe uh trina's going to be playing genuine um there's a package one with like jquan and uh bubba sparks and pdi pablo So you're going to get like kind of nostalgia rap acts. Throw them on for like 30 to 45 minutes and you're just going to have people just completely wild and out.

And like because it's known to be viral now, people are going to like step it up in a way they didn't before. Now as far as the show itself, like it was included in my SeaWorld ticket, which we have because we have like annual passes. I would, yeah, I would say that, I mean, I think it was like $50 if you wanted like quote reserved seating, which, you. You don't need reserve seating. If you're thinking about going to see Genuine, you don't need reserve seating. But yeah, I'm like, whatever, what do we got to do on Saturday? It's at 6 or 7 o'clock. Flocka Valley is one of my favorite rap albums in the last 15 years.

I told people that at work, they didn't believe me, which I'm not totally surprised. But the show itself was 50% of it was Waka, Flaka, kind of doing edited versions. like doing the edited lyrics of his songs over the unedited CD of Flakavelli, which was, you know, really unnerving. It was like Zyrika in a way. But otherwise it was like him headbanging over other people's songs. Like they did like ASAP FERG work and of course they did not like us. And I mean, it was like fun.

It wasn't really like a concert experience, but it was like, hey, here's Waka Flaka. isn't that funny? Let's do it. And besides, like Waka Flaka has been doing, as noted in that book we praised last year, among the bros, he's been doing like EDM festivals and, you know, doing these frat house gigs where you pay like $10,000 and it'll play, oh, let's do it for like five minutes. You know, I think it's cool. I think it's cool that something like this is happening in San Diego. Next year, I'm really interested to see how they book now that this thing has momentum.

them. But yeah, was it as good as seeing Oasis? I can't really tell because all I'll be able to do is perhaps see them in L.A. And I thought like the difference between seeing Oasis in America as opposed to the UK, when I was in London, there was an NFL game and you would see like people walk in the streets in Jets and Vikings uniforms. I imagine it would be like seeing an NFL game in the UK, like seeing Oasis in America. Yeah, right. Yeah, I think there is some of that thing. I mean, in my column that I wrote about it, which you can read on Uprocks, I mean, I was talking about how on social media, anytime I talk about Oasis, especially lately, I do get a small group of Oasis haters, and many of them are from England. And I think it's just because they have probably had Oasis ram down their throats. entire lives and they're just sick of hearing about this band, which I can empathize with. But, you know, there's like this conspiracy theory about Oasis and Brit Pop that it was like a government plot to like gin up nationalism in the 90s. And, you know, which may very well be true. I mean, if that is the case, it's like the greatest triumph of the British government since like the liberation of France, you know, it would be a pretty incredible thing to pull off.

But, you know, ultimately. They don't strike me as being a government that really has its shit together to pull off something that complex. I was just thinking about how like if you're in England and you hate Oasis, that has to be a very lonely feeling. And the analogy I would make is, you know, to the NFL, it'd be like hating the NFL in America because it's so pervasive. And it's one of the last forms of monoculture really in the United States. And you got to feel really lonely if you're one of the Oasis haters in England. I just feel like hating Oasis is a lot less fun than loving Oasis. If you can't even like appreciate the ridiculousness of Oasis, which I think is part of loving them,

just the silliness of that band and like all the crazy things that have happened in their history, if you can't laugh about that and you get angry about it, I don't know. I feel sorry for you, especially if you're in England. That's got to feel, that's got to be like Travis Bickle level of alienation to experience that in England. Let's talk about things that we missed last week because there are a few things that we didn't get a chance to talk about. We had this banked episode, which I looked at it in my Apple pod app and just looking at the subject line and I was like, this looks kind of sad. It's kind of sad when you do the banked episode because it's like, oh man, like Ozzy Osbourne died last week. That would have been in the subject line.

We would have talked about that last week. Chuck Mangione also died. the jazz musician great and then Tom Lairer whose work I'm not that familiar with but he wrote a lot of political songs in the 50s and 60s he was kind of like one of those like

you remember Mark Russell remember that guy on PBS? I do not know who that is he was like this guy that wore a bow tie and he'd play the piano I think it's Mark Russell I could be mixing him up with somebody else but he would basically do these like topical

humorous songs about politics and I just I don't think I ever watch watched one of his specials, but I remember seeing them advertised and it would, it was kind of like Prairie Home Companion, like when that would come on the radio, it just sounds like the manifestation of like boring adult entertainment when you're a kid, just putting you to sleep. But anyway, we're not going to talk about Mangione or Tom Lear, but I do want to talk about Ozzy for a couple minutes here. I thought it was interesting. I was looking at tributes

that were written about him after he died. One thing I saw a few times where people saying, oh, I never thought Ozzie would ever die, or he just seemed like he was indestructible, or he's the prince of darkness, and he's immortal. And I was like, have you people seen Ozzy in the last few years? I mean, he's been ailing, I feel like, for a long time now. I mean, even if you want to go back to the Osbournes, you know, he was a little shaky, he was a little off. I mean, I feel like he had an extended decline. And then he had that farewell show with Black Sabbath three weeks ago, I think. It was July 5th, I think that show was. And I remember watching that and thinking, on one hand, that it was really cool that they got to play that show in their hometown and say goodbye to the fans, especially in light of Ozzy's death.

But I also remember thinking, like, wow, Ozzy looks really fragile. So like when he died two and a half weeks later, I wasn't shocked. I mean, it did feel like he had Parkinson's. It did feel like he was maybe not in the best shape. But I don't know how deep you go with Black Sabbath. Like, I'm a big Black Sabbath fan. I like the Ozzy era. I like the Dio era. There's a dude after that whose name I can't remember.

Josh Freeze. Yeah, Josh Freeze was singing for him in the 80s. I love Black Sabbath, especially the first five albums, I think, are just perfectly recorded. rock music. Like, it's a standard that I think a lot of people still, like, you would listen to those records and be like, I want our records to sound like this. And it has a lot to do with just how good those guys were as musicians. But the drum sounds, the guitar sounds, it's all perfect. It's kind of amazing because those guys were just, I just feel like they were, you know,

messed up on drugs 24-7 back then. But they were so good at what they did that they could just go in the studio and lay down these tracks and sound amazing. I really feel like Ozzy is underrated as an artist. I feel like people sort of look at him in a lot of respects. Even after he died, there was this attitude toward him that was like a little condescending. And a lot of that has to do with just Ozzy himself being, I think, a very self-deprecating person. And leaning into the more sort of outrageous and oafish aspects of his persona, you know, I think similar to Elvis in his later period.

Elvis could lampoon himself and play up his grandiosity. While at the same time, like if you saw him live, it was still amazing. I think Ozzy had a similar thing where he could be this exaggerated version of himself, but he could also deliver the goods when you saw him live. But I think as a singer, he's really, to me, one of the most influential modern rock singers. And I think that becomes more clear when you compare him to other rock singers. singers that were successful around the time that Black Sabbath started putting out records. You know, people like Robert Plant or Roger Daltry, you know, these guys that had like the long

blonde hair and like their torsos were sticking out and they had these big voices that were like operatic type voices. And then you have Ozzy who was more limited vocally, but he had this naturalism to the way he's saying that could be theatrical, but it could also like an assumption. song like Black Sabbath could convey like genuine menace and fear. And he feels like a singer that is more like an Iggy Pop than like a Robert Plant. You know, there is sort of like a pre-punk aspect, I think, to certainly his attitude. Very blue-collar attitude, very sort of salt of the earth, non-pretentious, a way of being a rock singer,

which I think, again, was like pretty revolutionary. for the time that he came out of. So I don't know, he's just a hugely important artist. And like those Black Sabbath records are like just some of the greatest rock music ever. Do you go deep with Sabbath at all? I mean, I made a joke that like whenever someone turns 13 years old, they should be given a copy of We Sold Our Soul for Rock and Roll on a Max L cassette tape, which is exactly how I came in touch with Black Sabbath.

I don't remember who gave me that tape. It certainly wasn't my old. brother. But nonetheless, like, that was all my friends and I could talk about for, like, a couple months, you know, when we weren't listening to, like, The Chronic or whatever. It is absolutely one of those, you know, like, blowing the teenage mind. Like, that is the perfect time to get into Black Sabbath. And it was interesting going back to, I think, like, or Apple Music, maybe this is the same on Spotify, but we sold our soul for rock and roll. It's like a half hour longer on streaming because it includes like all the medleys that the songs were taken from like war pigs might now be like

12 minutes instead of like just six um but you know we sold our soul for rock and roll was so good and all of what i had read about black sabbath going forward was like yeah you don't need to check out the albums like the singles are all there that i never really went deep and then i listened to paranoid beginning to end for like literally the first time the day Ozzie died and it's like oh wait that's like all hits that like entire album is on we sold our soul like you can argue that every single song on that record created a different major subgenre of heavy metal right um and i mean i also love i definitely want to check out like Sabbath buddy Sabbath is probably like my favorite like uh black Sabbath song but i also just love how as

they progressed. And I think this goes into what you were saying about them being just like completely destroyed on drugs in a way that seemed like kind of more human than say the Rolling Stones or whatever. Like Keith Richards is indestructible. Ozzie like he definitely like took that that took a toll on him. But I love how the guitars would just get lower and lower. But Ozzy's voice somehow got higher and higher. And that discreate and that just sounds like a band falling apart. And that that's a really cool. aspect of how things progress from there. And then you hear like changes. It's like, oh wait, they actually have emotions.

But I do think their blue collar aspect was like very important because like they were from a really downtrodden part of Birmingham. You know, which is like really just like soot covered, totally industrial, like no hope whatsoever. And they didn't try to hide it.

You know, they leaned into it. Because a lot of other rock stars came from blue collar backgrounds, but they would dress it up and rock star glamour and they would transform into something else. And Black Sabbath, they like emphasized the grime. You know, they made that their brand in a way that I think was genuinely unique at the time. And I think, again, very influential. Like if you just look at, I mean, certainly, you know, metal, one of the architects of that, but large swaths of like alternative rock and indie rock, oh, well, a ton to Black Sabbath. And I'll just say, I think the,

The studio albums are definitely worth investigating. You mentioned Paranoid. That's a good entry point. I love Volume 4. I think that's a great record. And it's cool because you can get into songs that haven't been played to death. You know Iron Man, you know Paranoid, but, you know, Snowblind or Tomorrow's Dream, like these songs that are less well-known but are just as heavy and also just as catchy.

I mean, they were a great pop band along with being a great metal band. So great band, great artist RIP Ozzie Guy we got to say our salute to him on the show Another thing we haven't talked about And this I think came out I think this would have come out

Friday yeah It was last Friday We wouldn't have been able to talk about it anyway But last week Tame and Paula released a new single called End of Summer They didn't announce an album But I assume this song will be connected

to a record? I guess they have put out standalone singles in the past, but I would expect a new Tame Apollap Project full-fledged album to be announced shortly. But yeah, this song is called End the Summer. It's nine and a half minutes long. There's a music video for it, and you can see that Kevin Parker got a haircut. So that's some news right there. You know, I was checking social media when I was in London

every now and then, and I felt like when this song dropped that it was like uniformly panned. I didn't see anyone saying, great song, I love it. It was either this song is kind of meh or I actively hate this song. And I'll say for myself that I don't hate it. I'm probably closer to the meh side.

It's really interesting because, again, it's a long song. It's this sort of dance rock type track. I was looking at our outline here. You were comparing it to like, Madchester records from like the late 80s or early 90s. Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, stuff like that. And I think that's a good comparison.

It also made me think about Let It Happen, which was the first single from Currants, and it's the first track on the record, which is also a long song. It's kind of dancey. I think Let It Happen is a much better song than end of summer. It has, I think, a stronger hook. I don't know. Kevin Parker to me, he's such a tune smith. I associate him with like these,

they're classified as indie rock songs, but he's really good at writing pop tunes. And this is not a pop song, which is totally fine. But I don't really know what it is. It's not a pop song, but it's something else. It feels like a jam almost that didn't get shaped into a song. I don't know.

It's a very odd choice for me as a single. I feel like this song, Assuming it is on the next Tame and Pauler record, maybe it would make more sense on an album, but just releasing it on its own, it's a bit of a head scratcher. I was thinking about Taman Pallel. We talked about Currants recently because of the 10th anniversary of that record. I was just thinking about Kevin Parker lately. He put out the slow rush in 2020.

He had a song on the Barbie soundtrack. I guess that was his last single, came out in 2023. He did that Diana Ross duet. for like the minions movie? I mean, you know, no offense, Kevin Parker. I know you're making a ton of money being involved with the minions and Barbie. But it's been a minute since he's done anything genuinely cool, you know? And going farther than that, he's done a lot of kind of lame things lately, hasn't he?

I don't know. I'm a little concerned. I just want to say I'm seeing a little. warning signs here of what might be ahead for Tamapala. Yeah, well, the lame Impala punchline was like right there. But, I mean, I think his past five years have been more in common with something that, like, Coldplay might do in terms of their, like, brand synergy. But, yeah, I mean, I mean, I mean, or even, like, Maroon 5.

Like, you're doing the Minions movie. I mean, come on, man. Yeah. I mean, look, I know we're in this, like, post-poptimism world, but there's got to be at least a little bit of, like, Thinking about indie creed or coolness? I mean, come on. What's that compared to him getting like a new scarf? Is he still, maybe he got a haircut, but is he still wearing the scarves?

In the video, I didn't see a scarf. He's smoking a cigarette and he has a haircut. No scarves, though. I think the scarves, I think that was current era. I don't know if he didn't tour for slow rush. So I don't know if he was going to carry over the scarves to the slow rush. I guess that's one of the great things we lost because of the lockdown. Yeah, the beginning and end of Scarf Corps.

But yeah, you know, I brought up like, you know, Balearic pop, Manchester. And I think Manchester works when you have a guy like Ian Brown or Sean Ryder who's just kind of like a purposeful idiot. Like I think that's the tension that makes it work. And that's why Oasis learned a lot from like Oasis was like rodeeing for in spiral carpets who did not have that type of person. But this sounded to me like a remix of a. Tame and Paula's song. Like, you know, like when you get like the slow rush, like all the bonus tracks, you get, you know, these electronic artists who might, you know, kind of downplay the hooks, downplay

the guitar parts and just kind of let it ride for about nine minutes and occasionally pipe in some of the lyrics. Like that's what it sounded like to me. And with his haircut, like he kind of looks like a guy in Turnstile now, which made me think of there was a remix EP that Turnstile did with an Australian artist named Mallgrass. before glow on came out. And I think that was like a good lesson in that, you know, turns out obviously loves the same styles of music that I just mentioned.

But at the end of the day, they're like, yeah, we're really good at writing riffs, though. And like these big shout along hooks. And, you know, Kevin Parker, I think has kind of misallocated his resources because when he was doing psych pop or psych rock or like the things he was doing on currents, it always came back to this guy can write hooks. this guy can write bass lines and i don't think he's anywhere near as good as can you know working on ableton or something like that but you know i felt that way about um the i felt that way about uh the slow rush singles i ended up liking that album that being said with i had forgotten he had done that soundtrack

work and i think back to um what song was it i think it might be time from slow rush it's like when 50 minutes have passed on that album where he talks about like feeling like yo i might be kind of washed. Like that was like one of the eight advanced singles. I just don't know what kind of what moves Taman Pala to make music anymore. And I think that's kind of the worrisome part about it. Not so much that this is, you know, the most obvious leap from the slow rush, you know, even though it's five years later. I just don't really. I mean, it's never been a emotionally compelling listen. I mean, there are some songs that are like hit me super deeply. But you just like wonder, like if it was just like

you know he makes music because that's just what he does. Like I do wonder about the inspiration. Well you know I think if you want to take a glass half full look at this song you would again go back to let it happen which was this

long song. It was the first single from the record. It was the farthest out there track really on currents and then after that he started releasing all the pop bangers from that record, then the less I know the better, because I'm a man, and the more accessible song. So maybe this is the let it happen of this album, again, presuming there's an

album, and then he's going to drop a bunch of other bangers. It's hard for me to believe that every song on the record is going to be like this. This feels like an outlier, probably, on the album, and then he's going to deliver a bunch of really catchy songs. But you do hit at something, I think that's a larger question with this band. And we've talked about this with other artists that at some point, sometimes an artist can put out a record that's so perfectly encapsulates

like what they're trying to do that it's really hard to follow it up, that it almost feels redundant after that. And I wonder if that progression from inner speaker to currents was that for Tame Impala. And now what's left to do other than to reiterate currents?

Because that's what the slow rush felt like and now is he going to do that again with this album? I mean, it was five years between currents and the slow rush. Assuming we get an album this year, it'll be five years from the slow rush. It could be six years if this album comes out next year. I don't know. It'll be an interesting question. But yeah, there's more questions and answers, definitely, with this song.

More questions and answers sounds like a currents B-side. Exactly. More questions and answers. Oh, there's one other thing that I wanted to bring up that happened last week. I think it was later in the week, so this might be another situation where we wouldn't have talked about it last week anyway. But it was about King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard Wizard. They announced that they are pulling their music from Spotify, which is a lot of music. You know, this might be half of the music that's on Spotify.

It might just be King Gizzard albums. But they pulled their music from the platform. it's part of this growing trend that we're seeing with indie bands pulling music off of Spotify. Deer Hook did this recently. Zuzu did this recently. I think there's other examples, but these are some of the bigger ones. King Gizzard might be the most popular band yet. And, you know, there's that rule that if there's three examples of something, it becomes a trend.

And I think with King Gizzard now pulling their music off of Spotify, we can definitely call this a trend among indie bands. And, you know, I think if you're looking at it from the perspective of, oh, is this going to affect Spotify's bottom line? Clearly not. Spotify is going to be fine, whether King Gizzard or Deerhoof are on the platform or not. But I do think that there is a growing sense, one, that doing business with Spotify is a bad idea. And this has been exacerbated lately because of some of the side deals that Spotify has been involved in. I think that they're involved with an AI company. Wasn't that like one of the big things that's really kind of...

It's hard to keep track up, but I'm sure... Like, that one does sound familiar. Yeah, I mean, they, oh no, this is the, the artist leave garbage hole platform after CEO invests in AI weapons. So there's like AI war tech ties apparently. So it's even worse. Yeah, not just fake Uncle Tupelo songs, you know. Yeah, now we're building weapons.

So there's this AI militaristic side to Spotify that a lot of artists are objecting to. And it's not going to affect the company in any real financial way. But I do think taking a longer view of this, because there's the moral aspect of Spotify, you know, them not paying artists very much. Again, some of these weird side investments that they're getting involved in. you know, there's certainly moral arguments you could make against Spotify. But I think more and more people are also realizing that Spotify isn't like Netflix is for streaming video, where there's a lot of things that you have to get Netflix for if you want to watch it. You know, if you want to watch Happy Gilmore 2, which my kids wanted to watch that,

so I subscribed to Netflix. I canceled a while ago, but I subscribed to it again this month because they want to see Happy Gilmore 2. you have to get Netflix. It's not available anywhere else. With Spotify, everything on that platform is available elsewhere. And if you include YouTube,

you can get it for free. Yeah. You don't have to, you know, so it's readily available. Even their original podcasts, like all the ringer stuff, you can listen to that anywhere. You don't have to have Spotify to listen to it.

So there's really no compelling content reason that you have to be there. And I think the argument for a lot of bands for a long time was, well, you have to be on Spotify because that's where everyone is. And if you want people to hear your music, you have to be there. You have to make a deal with the devil. And it's really obvious at this point that that's not true. I find it hard to believe that there's anyone that only listens to Spotify. Maybe there's people that don't really care that much about music and they have this app on their phone. So they just listen to it sort of passively. They have like a workout playlist on their

Spotify account or something. But I think like the high usage listeners out there, you know, if you have Spotify, you're probably also going on YouTube. You probably maybe have a couple other apps that you have to listen to music. Like for me, I don't have Spotify. And it's not like for a moral reason. It's just because I have Apple music. And with Apple music, I have a lot of physical music that I'm uploading onto my computer. I download like a lot of live bootlegs and I put that into my Apple Music app and I can listen to my own music on the app and you can't really do that on Spotify. So that's why I prefer Apple Music. It's also a much better sounding app than Spotify is. Spotify is very quiet if you're listening to it on headphones, especially compared to Apple Music

or YouTube. I mean, YouTube, I think, is phenomenal. I mean, there's tons of stuff on YouTube that you can't find it on any other streaming platform because it's out of print. But yeah, to me, this is just a sign not just a small but growing tide against Spotify and what their business practices are and some of the weird things they're doing outside of just streaming music. But I also feel like there's like a larger realization that like they're not as essential really as some people might want to say they are. does that make sense yeah i mean i have to i do think that there is like the bulk of spotify

listeners are for lack of a better term kind of normies who just know spotify as the thing where you go to listen to music and may not uh you know it's not know to go anywhere it's just a way to consolidate things and you know i think the one thing that uh spotify has still as an advantage over you know better sounding apps such as apple music or more comprehensive apps such as YouTube is the discovery part. Like the algorithm is effective. People love it. I find that the social component of it is better.

But I think I do sense that maybe there's like a bit of a turning tide, how meaningful it will be to Spotify is unclear. Because I mean, I don't know if like we had a, if we had like a repeat of like when Neil Young or Drag City refused to put their albums on Spotify. Like no single person is going to bring it down. And I also like and not even like Taylor Swift removing her stuff. Although I do think it might that would lead to some concessions. But yeah, Spotify like I don't have it either just because it is so terrible as like a audio platform.

It's it's night and day. And also I just, you know, keep YouTube on check because that's the only place I can listen to the Wu Life album Tell Fire to the Mountain, which has somehow disappeared. I thought it was just... It always comes back to Woo-Life. It always does. Yeah, because I had like this mix from like 2011 that had Wee Bros on it. And I'm like, oh, why is it darkened out? And it's like, oh, they've taken down all their music except for like that new single they put out a few months ago.

But yeah, I think you have to like wonder as a band, like whether it is worth it to have that like kind of news bump and, you know, be saying, hey, we're taking our stuff off Spotify. If that is in the long term more helpful than whatever pennies you could get from Spotify, I think it is like kind of a calculated decision. But I don't think not being on Spotify is going to ruin bands, especially ones like Deer Hoof and Jujoo and King Gizzard, who I just have these insanely big catalogs, all three of them. Well, King Gizzard, too, is a band that I feel like a lot of their following is based on the live show. Yeah.

So if you're a fan of that band, you're probably also on band camp. You're probably also on, like, I think King Gazert is on Nugs. Yeah, they are. I was about to say, are there bands who like take a stance on Nugs? Like, hey, we're pulling our stuff off Nugs? Not that I'm aware. I don't know what the breakdown is in terms of money on Nugs. I do think that for jam bands, it's really good for exposure because it encourages people

to follow your tour, basically, do a couch tour. with your shows and certainly bands like Goose and King Gizzard, they've benefited a lot from that. But I don't know if there's been any controversy. I mean, they're a much smaller app with a smaller body of bands that are even on there. So it's a different situation. But, yeah, I mean, I think Spotify, you know, I think they're going to benefit or they have benefited from this perception of dominance, that this is the place that you go to listen to music. Like that thing you were saying about like how for sort of like normal,

everyday listeners, Spotify maybe is like a Netflix. It's like, I go to Netflix to see what's on tonight or I go to Spotify to listen to music. I do think that that's vulnerable though. I don't know if, because again, I don't feel like they offer anything specific, I guess other than the algorithms that you're talking about, although I would say that the YouTube algorithm is also very good. And if you listen to music on Spotify, it will, I'm sorry, if you listen to music on YouTube, it will bring up other similar type of music, and I've discovered things that way. YouTube to me, I mean,

I don't use any other app nearly as often as YouTube at this point. I watch a lot of stuff on YouTube. I listen to a lot of stuff on YouTube. To me, they are clearly the dominant streaming platform for music and for video. And they don't get talked about as much as these other places do, but I don't, for me personally, I watch that more than anything else

like throughout the course of a day Yeah like it's not even close Especially me because I like some visual stuff Like I'll watch like these Memphis Jukin videos Where you'll see people like dancing to like Project Pat deep cuts But also to like 311 and Al City for some reason You can't get that on Spotify Yeah no it's great I love YouTube

I mean YouTube has their own evil things going on too But uh and I don't want to be the YouTube pitchman here But clearly I think that they're they're easel the biggest platform right now for all this stuff. So, Ian, we have a new segment on our show this week. We're going to be doing this every week. It's not really a new segment, but it's new in the sense that we are going to carve out a place in every episode to do this.

A couple minutes. We're doing it for the TikTok generation. We're doing it for the IG, something that they can cut out of our episodes very easily to reach the people who maybe aren't listening to this podcast. And it's a little something that we like to call yay or nay. And this is, as we all know, this is where Ian and I give a very thoughtful, yay or nay, to a particular topic. The topic this week, very apropos given me seeing Oasis last week,

band reunions. Are they a welcome return or are they a crass and tiresome cash in? Band reunions, Ian Cohen, yay or nay? Yeah, when we said like we're doing a new segment, of it that's kind of old. You know, I thought people were going to do, like getting to sports cast,

but I like this one better. I think this one has more pull with the general populace. So, yeah, with band reunions, I mean, I've got a little recency bias going on

because next week either so, you're going to hear about a band who's reuniting that is maybe putting out my album of the year. But beyond that, like, you know, in the past,

people would say, like, well, you got to distinguish between the band reunion, that happen with creating new music and those that are just like an opportunity to cash in on doing anniversary shows but you know my take nowadays is like really what difference doesn't make like I'm fine with bands choosing whatever they are doing even if it is like kind of a cynical um you know

whatever we just want to do a 15th anniversary tour of our one popular album and I'm not even saying that and it's an impossible to sell out sort of way but you know making a good album making an album that people care about 10 or 15 years after the fact is such a monumentally difficult task that I have no problem if a band is rewarded for that forever and ever and ever. Like when you think about just how few albums there are that reach that sort of level of, you know, where people love it that much that they will go out and see, you know, I'm not, this one's all my mind because it's just like kind of a funny anniversary, but like real estate doing like I believe it's a 11 year anniversary for Atlas or something like that.

Yeah, like why not do it? I want bands to get paid and if this is what they've got to do, take another bite of the apple. Worst case scenario, you get like a Jane's Addiction situation where they play like two shows and start suing each other. But I think that's also super perfect for the kind of band dynamic that they have. So I'm full in on yay. So I'm full on Ane for band reunions. And I will say that there was this prejudice for a long time against bands who would come back and not make new music. It was perceived to be not as legitimate that you were just cynically chasing dollars on the road

by playing your old songs. Not to play devil's advocate here, but I do think that in a lot of cases, coming back without new music can be preferable, especially if the band isn't feeling inspired. If you're feeling like you want to write new songs, then definitely go ahead. I'd be very curious to hear that. But if you want to just come back and play the songs that people want to hear, I don't think there's anything wrong with that, especially in cases where bands, like Oasis,

haven't been able to play for younger generations. It's been 16 years since they've been on the road, and there's a lot of people that probably assume they'd never get a chance to see this band. And now all of a sudden, you're in a stadium, they're playing Wonderwall, and it's a beautiful thing. So I'm strongly pro. I don't see why you would ever be nay on this. I think it's a great thing.

Yeah, and I've reviewed later day at the drive-in and refused albums, and I'm still pro. All right. That's the end of that segment. Thank you all. I hope you watch that on IG, on your TikTok, on all your apps, so we can continue to have a job here at Indycast. Let's get to our mailbag segment.

It's always great to hear from our listeners. Thank you all for writing in. You can hit us up at Indicast mailbag at gmail.com. Very topical email this week. You want to read this one, Ian? Yeah, I will, but like I'm kind of disappointed that you won't because I do want to hear your accent of a guy named Connor from Dublin. But this is coming to a guy coming from Ireland, a big fan of the pod.

This evening I saw Indigo to Susa, very cool Sun Kill Moon song title. in some weird Instagram fan chat explicitly asking her fans to leave negative comments under the recently published Pitchfork review for her new album, Precipice. It got a 6-6. Also, ironically calling

pitchfork internet bullies. Pitchfork doesn't have a comment section, by the way. I was taking pretty a bet. Was she being ironic when she said that? I don't think she was being ironic. I think she really believes that they're... Or does he think it's ironic that she called them?

Yeah, I think it's ironic because she is bullying on the internet, but Connor was taken aback by this kind of naked pettiness, and it got me thinking about the enduring power of the critic. Even in an age when most music critics make little to no money and are generally in it for the love of the music, their opinions are still held up as some sort of singular determination of the validity and worth of a piece of art, often by the artist more than anybody else. Inigo, Desoza, has a lot to be happy about. She has the freedom to explore whatever sounds she wants, a bigger audience than all of her old Asheville contemporaries

like MJ Lenderman and Wednesday, and apparently a bunch of adoring fans to stick on critics. Why is that not enough? This isn't even like the recent tennis rant, which was about how they were reviewed unfairly their whole career. Indigo DeSuzza got Best New Music just two albums ago. So I guess my question is, are you guys surprised at how artists are still having meltdowns in the year of our lore 2025, about a middling score from Pitchfork? I certainly am. Bonus question, what tier of fan army does Indigo DeSuzes fall into? I'm guessing a couple of grades below Miley Cyrus.

Peace and love, Connor from Dublin, Ireland. All right. So the question is, am I surprised that an indie musician would be upset about a middling pitchfork review? The answer is no. I am not surprised. And the thing is, I feel like there's this assumption. I was called a misconception that there's a level of fame or success or money or whatever it is where you become impervious. to criticism where you don't care that someone writes something about your work that is negative.

And that clearly is not the case. I was just in this HBO documentary about Billy Joel, this two-part movie that is currently on the platform. I recommend you all go see it. And not only because I'm in it, but because I think it's a good movie. But one of the things that documentary talks about is that Billy Joel, at the height of his fame at the height of his success, like when he's having multi-platinum albums, he's dating supermodels, he's playing stadiums, he's on top of the world, he would go on stage and he would

rip up negative reviews of his work. He would complain about music critics disrespecting him. And this is Billy Joel. If anyone had reached a level of success, where these reviews clearly did not matter. You know, critics could say whatever they want about him, the public was still going to buy the stranger and 52nd Street and all those records. So for an artist who is a lot less successful than Billy Joel in the 70s and 80s, it clearly is going to affect them. And look, in a case like this, I'm always going to side with the critic because I'm a critic, and I believe that review was written by Grace Robin Somerville, who I know a little bit from social media. She's a very thoughtful critic, good writer. I thought she did a good

job with the piece. You know, she wasn't mocking the record. She wasn't being mean about it. I think she was pretty measured and, again, just sort of thoughtful review. So I'm going to side with her. But I do empathize with artists. I totally understand them reading a review like that and being disappointed and maybe even maybe even being pissed off about it. I think that's a totally normal human reaction. Now, encouraging your fans to complain about it, or I don't know if she said this exactly, but I think the

implication was, go after the writer of the piece, harass them online. That's something I don't empathize with, and that's something I think is just a terrible look, along with just being like a crappy thing to do and a very sort of petty reaction to it,

to a bad review. We've talked about this before on the show, but I'll just say it again, that if you're an artist, make sure you have like two or three people that you can text when you get a bad review and where you can like make fun of the writer and you can make fun of the publication.

But you keep it between your friends. Like Ian, when your book comes out on Emo, I guarantee you someone online will say something about your book that is very annoying that is going to piss you off. And I want you to text me about it. And we'll make fun of that person and we'll call them an idiot,

and you'll feel better about it, and it will stop there. Like, that is where I should stop. Like, her, like, Indigo DeSuzza, she went on Instagram, and she was like, I think she filmed herself, like, yelling into a pillow.

Did you hear about this? I think there was, like, some big reaction that she filmed herself giving, and she was just complaining, calling Pitchfork Internet bullies, which, again, I understand from the perspective of the artist that they would look at Pitchfork as a bully,

because they look at Pitchfork as an institution, not as individual writers. They're looking at it as this place that's, you know, saying bad things about my work and maybe even hurting my career on some level. Like that's their perspective. I totally get that. And I think, again, that's a human reaction. But going on Instagram live talking about this stuff, like, if I was her friend, I would just be like, this is a terrible look.

You look terrible doing this. just complain to me, complain to your friend. Get it out of your system and just leave it at that. These people, they don't have the text threads. You need the text thread, Ian. You need the DMs. You need the person you can DM and be like, get a load of this idiot and what they said about my work.

You can get it out of your system that way and no one gets hurt. And no one will look at you any worse. But I feel like in all these instances, it's just always a situation where the person didn't text their friend. They vented publicly, and they wanted their fans to make them, you know, Indigo DeSuzza, she felt bad about this review, and she wanted her fans to tell her, oh, you're a genius, you're great. You know, don't take this review personally. But that is not going to work out well. You need to get that from people in your life, not from the public.

Yeah, I mean, I appreciate that you keyed in on, like, the deeply healthier I have. I can probably name the exact writers who are going to say negative things about my book. Exactly. And we'll make fun of those writers in the text thread, but you don't need to go on Twitter to do it. Yeah. That's the difference. Yeah. And by the way, I think it's interesting that between this artist calling pitch for internet bullies and this character Zev on the new Lena Dunham show being this quote failed music writer, which I don't think failed music writers really exist. Like that's, you're going to be somewhere. You might not be like a famous one or like one that's successful, but you can't be a failed one. But between those two things, like, I feel like there's been this real revival of like 2008 era pitchfork jokes that I really do feel like Goupon your Grinch is like the last pitchfork joke that will ever come up. People like we're losing recipes.

People are just not coming up with good new material even though there's so much there. But, you know, I think with the question as to why are we seeing this happen now, I think about like artists that are kind of doing what Indigo's. to susa is doing and grace like i love how she dedicated i love how she like dedicated an entire paragraph uh of this to a phenomenon of which indigo de suza is a part of which is that um you get artists of this ilk uh you know i would say like after 2017 or so which you know it's like indie rock isn't like animal collective anymore it's not grizzly bear it's not like uh you know these bands of like white guys um It's the, it's, it's, it's more of like kind of like a singer-songwriter type indie artist, but also one who has some sort of basis in like Taylor Swift pop, meaning that you're an indie

artist who is the main character of their songs, right? Because, you know, so much of the album promo is about like confessions and, you know, trauma. And so, you know, if you're the main character of the music, then any critique of that is going to inevitably be taken personally. And And in this paragraph, like, Grace brings up, like, a ton of artists that have gone from, like, indie-coded music to making kind of more pop where you don't necessarily get like Jank Antonoff to be on your record. But, you know, you get someone who maybe had a cup of coffee while Charlie X, X, X was making brat or something along those lines.

And, you know, when people take issue with the direction or the songs don't feel as intimate, like, how is it not going to be taken personally? And so I understand the desire to be upset or to, you know, vent. But I do think it's the ironic part is that in this pivot to pop, so to speak, that they do the very pop thing, which is, you know, sticking your fan army on the artist or the person who wrote the review. And I think that this stuff can kind of cut deeper than having like Kid Cuddy or Miley Cyrus fans going after you because there's this feeling of like equality. it feels like Pitfork actually is maybe, in their view, punching down even in 2025. And I think that... Oh, totally.

Yeah. And that's like... And so, you know, you might ask like, well, you know, pitchfork reviews can't have a fraction of the impact they might have had in 2010 or whatever. But when, I mean, this ties into what we were talking about with Spotify, the pie is so much smaller that I think people are more anxious in the scarcity mindset about fighting over what little crumbs they... have or seeing a bad review as a way to increase fan engagement. Well, and look, I mean, the paradox of reviews is that they're not written for the artist. They're written for the audience. I guess as a critic, it's your job to tell the audience what you think of the album and why you

feel that way. It's not that you're given constructive criticism to the artist. I mean, that's not your job. You know, it's to tell readers what you think. but at the same time the person who cares the most about your review is the artist and they're probably the only other person

other than you who's going to remember it and like when you get reviewed Ian when your book comes out you get reviewed you'll realize that like every review you'll look at it doesn't matter where it comes out you're going to look over it and it's going to be not just like the negative stuff you're going to close read it

you're going to be like well why did they say that was good and not great or why did they you know what I mean like You do that. The petty part of your brain will analyze these reviews wherever they come from or like some random person tweeting at you will say something. That will stick in your mind. To me, like for critics, I think it would be good to know what that feels like. To be reviewed yourself, I think it gives you a perspective where I think you do empathize more with the artist here. Even though as a critic, you have to put that aside and not worry about her. hurting someone's feelings. You have, because your contract is with the audience.

Like, they are trusting you to give your opinion. And, like, if Grace had written this review and she thought the record wasn't that good, but she soft-pedaled it and she gave it, you know, they ended up giving it an 8.0. And then people heard the record and they were like, no, this isn't very good. You know, then you're not going to be trusted anymore. Like, you have to give your opinion, but you also know in the back of your mind, that the artist is going to care more about what you write than anyone else. So that's an unresolvable paradox, I think, to the whole critic artist relationship.

And look, artists, they're not going to like critics, and they probably shouldn't. You know, if, you know, would you have Taylor Swift going on Instagram and thanking music critics for writing nice things about her album, which she's done, I think, a couple times? Oh, yeah. That's that good. You know, in a way, this kind of dynamic is healthier to me than this symbiotic thing, like, where pop superstars are thanking critics for writing nice things about them. That, to me, in a way, is ickier than this sort of thing, which is pretty icky. But, again, you know, just don't encourage people to harass writers. Otherwise, I think you have more than the right to complain about a review.

I think that's totally fair. But yeah, just don't encourage mobs. That would be nice. Let's strike that as a bargain here or as a deal with the artist community. And I have been negatively reviewed on the internet, which pretty much all my employers have seen. And perhaps like, you know, patients who look me up online. So, yeah, I know that feeling and how it feels like bring that into other careers. And it's like, oh, my God, this person I'm like working with.

with in this completely different capacity knows what internet people think of me. Well, and you realize when you've been reviewed that the way other people see you is not how you see yourself and that you feel like the way you see yourself is the right way. But maybe it's not, you know, and that's a very uncomfortable position to be in, but it's something, that's a risk you take when you put your work out there. We're now reached the part of our 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 this record from a band called Blerey Eye called Easy Came Out last week.

And our pal, Eileenis from Endless Scroll, described this as like, he's been like in the tank for like the entire year. He'd call it like one of the best shoegays albums of the decade. And, you know, I respect him like greatly as a critic, but I also feel like that statement might be damning with fate praise because, you know, we've talked a lot about how Shoegays has just exploded in visibility and stature over the past decade, but it's hard to tell like where, what the classics are, you know?

Like the ones that break containment and get a more, like a more kind of consensus critical appeal like, you know, like Home Like No Place is there or never hung over again, did Forimo. That being said, I really like this album. Do I think it's like one of the greatest accomplishments of the decade? I don't know.

Maybe I'll get there. But I think that this album does a lot of Shugay's things. really really well as opposed to what I hear a lot in this genre is band doing like one thing whether it's like you know the new hum death tones type thing or like kind of trip hoppy breakbeat stuff this album it's it's I would call it like comfort food but like elevated comfort food if you like any of the variance of shoegays that I mentioned or just shoegays in general this Dan does a lot of good thing a lot of this stuff really really well it's a diverse listen it flows really well I'm

looking forward to digging more into it. And it's probably an album going to come back to a lot more than ones that feel like more intimidating but are, you know, more kind of inaccessible or difficult. So I want to talk about an album that came out last week, although I've had this album for a long time. I would have talked about this last week if the Ryan Davis album wasn't coming out July 25th. July 25th was just like a loaded release date, a lot of good records. But another album I really like that came out on the 25th is I love Pete. people by an artist named Corey Hansen. You might know Corey Hansen from the band WAND, which is a really excellent psych rock band, long running, been putting out records for over a decade now.

And his work with WAND is definitely more on sort of the artier end of the spectrum. I still think that album, I feel like their albums are still pretty accessible, but definitely more experimental, I think, than what he's been doing on his solo records, which I like maybe even more than his work with WAND. He put out a record in 2023 called Western Come, which I feel like that album title turned a lot of people off. Like, I would talk about this record and people would give me a weird look when I would recommend it.

But it's just like an incredibly fun and invigorating record. It's like a guided trip through like FM radio rock. It sounds like the first Boston album like refracted like with a punk rock sensibility. Just like a really fun record. and his latest, I Love People, revisits that era, but it's coming at it from like the other end of the radio dial. This is like the soft rock side of 70s music. This record is really reminiscent of like Todd Rungren something anything, which is one of my favorite records of all time. Or bands like Bread or America or Early Steely Dan, like can't buy a thrill.

Countdown to Ecstasy, like those early Steely Dan albums. a lot of pianos and jangly guitars. And it's just a really beautiful record. And it spotlights the tunesmith side of what Hansen does. I think with WAND, you get melodies. But again, they're subverting that a lot with more sort of experimental flourishes in that band. And I think on his solo records, he really lets out the guy who's just listened to like a million records in his life. and he can plug into that specific vein of like just melodic singer-songwriter pop from the 70s.

He's really good at it, and I Love People, I think, is a record that really complements Western Come very well. Like, if you haven't heard that record, I Love People, Western Come, they pair together as like two sides of the same coin. So again, great record, an album title that I don't feel embarrassed to say, so that's good too. It's called I Love People, the artist is Corey Hansen. Really good record. That about does it for this episode of Indycast. We'll be back with more news, reviews, and hashing out trends next week. And if you're looking for more music recommendations,

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