Indiecast - Terrible Music Discourse Feat. The Super Bowl Halftime Show and Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, Plus: New Music From Big Thief, Barteees Strange, and Horsegirl

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

Steven and Ian begin this week by discussing their Valentine's Day plans and plotting a potential Love Is Blind-cast (0:00). Then Steven formally congratulates Ian on the Philadelphia Eagles' beatdown of the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl, and sort of makes amends for all of his Nick Sirianni slander (6:01). From there they break down the Super Bowl Halftime Show, and discuss the polarized reactions to Kendrick Lamar's performance (16:35). In the Fantasy Albums Draft update, they discuss new albums from Bartees Strange and Horsegirl (31:21). Finally, they wrap with an overview of the 2025 slate of Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame nominees (44:16).In Recommendation Corner, Ian shouts out the Australian Skeleten and Steven stumps for a benefit EP from Big Thief (55:01).New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 226 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 indie mixtape. Hello everyone and welcome to Indycast. On this show, we talk about the biggest indie news of the week. We review albums and we hash out trends. In this episode, we talk about terrible music discourse, about the Super Bowl halftime show and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as well as new albums by Bartiz Strange and Horse Girl. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host.

He got his wife Good Music Discourse for Valentine's. Day. Ian Cohen. Ian, how are you? And good music discourse for President's Day and Earth Day and Christmas and Hanukkah. That's just how we roll in the Cohen household, you know? That's right. The music discourse coming out of your ears there in San Diego. But I would say for Valentine's Day, it might shift momentarily because we do have plans to watch the new season of Love is Blind. And I'm just putting that out there because there's going to come a time this year, most likely July, right? there where we're going to need the mailbag refilled again. So if you're an indie cast head and you also watch Love is Blind, that is fair game for the mailbag. We're going to need it in late February. What are you talking about July? We're going to need it sooner than that.

I've never watched that show. Do you need to watch the previous seasons to know the mythology of Love is Blind or can I just go in Blind into Love is Blind? You can absolutely do that. And the same goes for married a first sight. I dabble in dating shows. I would say 90-day fiancé is one that there's a lot more lore because there's a lot of brand extensions of that show. There's like 90-day before.

And there's ones where they're like kind of like there's like an island sort of thing. So yeah, if you're just looking to dabble, I would say love is blind as the one. But also married to first sight, I would not go with that because every episode's like two and a half hours long. So are they blind on the show? Is it like a dating show for here, for eyesight impaired people? Is that why it's called love is blind? No, it's because they meet in these things called pods. So they have like conversations with the, there's like something like eight men, eight women.

And they talk to each other like in pods where they can't see each other. And they feel it's like, oh, like I have trauma. Like my parents got divorced when I was 22 years old. It's like, wait, you love, you love Leanne Rhymes? I do, this is so crazy. It's, it's a, I mean, that's like an entire, there's like an entire podcast ecosystem based in, breaking down every single episode. And we're not going to horn in on that too much.

But you know what? If you like Wild Pink and you like Love is Blind, hit us up. All right. Well, maybe I'll check it out. We'll see. I haven't watched a dating show in a while. I never got on the Bachelor train or, any of those other shows.

This one's better. It's a lot more combative. Okay. Yeah, the cool thing about, I think married at first sight in particular is that unlike the Bachelor, and really even to an extent like love is blind, married at first sight, the people look kind of normal, you know, for lack of a better term, like not all of them are just like super objectively attractive. Also, 90-day fiancé is interesting because there's this greater disparity sometimes with

the attractiveness of like one party or another. So it creates this new asymmetry and tension. See, I like hearing you break down dating shows. Like you're talking about email albums. This is great to hear. I was just thinking that the last dating show I watched regularly, and this is a long time ago, was Blind Date with Roger Lodge. Did you watch that show in the late 90s?

No, but Roger Lodge is bringing me back. Man, that's a remembering some guys. That was get back to your dorm room or your living off campus, smoke a bowl and watch blind date like at 1130 at night. That was a nightly ritual back in the 90s. Next was my favorite in the early 2000s. That was just the peak of the dating show, the dating show world. Missed that one. I got to catch up here.

See, in my household, we're going to do a family thing on front. Friday night with the kids going to have a special meal, making a Valentine's Day pie. So that'll be fun. And then on Saturday, the plan is my wife and I are going to go out for a little bit, maybe get some sushi. And for the first time, leave the kids on their own without like a babysitter. So like my son is 12 and a half. My daughter's eight.

So I think we're going to entrust the older. child to watch the younger child for the first time. And I've been pushing for this because I was raised by wolves as a young man. I had a single mom. So I was a latchkey kid. I was like home alone all the time when I was eight or nine, 10 years old. So when I see these kids today, you know, get the helicopter parents and all that. I'm like, no, got to have some resilience here, you know, some sort of be on your own,

care of things. So yeah, we're just going to, you know, we're going to start a fire in the kitchen and we're going to have some, you know, cans of bake beans that they have to cook over the fire. They're going to have to survive on their own for a few hours. And so that's going to be an exciting thing. We'll see how that works out. Maybe we'll do a kid cast next week or a love is blind cast. I have to do both of those. For now, we have to do sportscast quick because I have not formally congratulated you, Ian, on the Super Bowl win for the birds. We all know, we all saw the game. The birds destroyed the Chiefs. That was like an old school Super Bowl. That was like an 80s or 90s Super Bowl, like where the 49ers would blow out the Broncos 55 to 10. That was this kind of

Super Bowl. And before we just talk about the game briefly, I wanted to ask you, because I've been listening to my sports pods, and one thing I've heard a few times from people is just talking about Philadelphia and how the Eagles are so much more important than any other team, which surprised me a little bit because, you know, the Phillies have been successful historically. The Sixers haven't won a title in a while, but I mean, they have a big following. But do you agree with that? Are the Eagles head and shoulders above the other teams in Philly? Oh, absolutely. I would imagine in most cities. That's true of the football team, like with very, very few exceptions. But I mean, with Philadelphia, there's just the reputation of it as being like blue collar and gritty.

And, you know, when the Flyers were super successful in the mid-70s, they had the Broad Street Bullies, you know, Bobby Clark, all the guys with like no teeth. I think the Eagles exemplify the city as it likes to see itself more so than other sports franchises, with the exception. maybe like the 93 Phillies with like Pete and Covellia and Darren Dalton and Kurt Schilling and just like a real like actual dirtbag squad. Are you, did you purposely not say Lenny Dexter? Are you just trying to memory hole?

Okay. I'm not. I'm not, but that's just how deep that roster goes with dirt bags. Like you have to like remember some other guys and you might forget Lenny Dykstra. I just feel like he's the Babe Ruth of Philly dirtbags. So I'm surprised you didn't mention him first. I thought maybe that was an intentional thing. We want to forget Lenny Dexter.

Not at all. I don't know if he's canceled in Philly or whatever. But no, congratulations to you. Great win. I mean, the team looked incredible. There's really nothing you could say. I was making jokes about Nick Siriani before the game. I had some Philly fans get up in my grill about it.

And look, you guys were vindicated. We can now say Super Bowl winning coach, Nick Siriani. He's probably going to go on the lecture circuit in the office. season. Maybe we'll see a book from Nick Sieriani, like the art of winning or some bullshit title like that. Like every coach writes when they win. But he, two Super Bowls in three years. He won this year, beat Andy Reed. He's a buffoon, but he's a genius buffoon. He's an idiot savant. So hats off to Nick Sariani. Yeah. Of course, I got a lot out of watching this team went in the way they did.

But I think this is like a win for the greater culture as a whole. Because I was thinking back to like, what was the last championship team in a major sports that was actually like likable, right? Because, you know, the Celtics just are kind of like mamba mindset, just bland. So boring. Yeah. The Dodgers, look, the Dodgers spend more money than every other team, which I applaud. I'm so tired of baseball teams being valued a billion dollars, not trying to be competitive. competitive. Ohio State is just buying up the best transfers and just kind of sleepwalking through

the season. But the stickers too. Don't forget the stickers. Very unlikable. But, you know, the Eagles, they do it on offense. They have a defensive line, like the biggest offensive line in NFL history and just an incredible pass rush, making Pat Mahomes life a living hell. It had to happen that way for me. because if it was like a shootout, like when the Eagles beat the Patriots and Pat Mahomes looked good. I mean, he even looked good when they lost the Buccaneers because he was doing an amazing plays. He just had no support. He looked like ass for most of the game. And it was so cathartic to watch that and to watch Travis Kelsey not even try to block pass rushers and them making dumb penalties.

Like all the stuff that would lose teams who played the Chiefs games. That all happened to the Chiefs. And it was just an end-to-end ass kicking. Harrison Buckker didn't score a point. I mean, it's just, I don't want to overstate the allegorical impact of this Super Bowl, but I think we just all needed this sense that bad people have bad things coming to them. Maybe we got like a sliver of hope because like the whole narrative about the Chiefs was that it was, A, inevitable, and B, they were going to win by the exact score of 27 to 24.

just the most joyless form of excellence. And that did not happen. It was an Eagles win. It was an Eagles ass kicking. It was, yeah, it was, I got to say, that one pass he threw to Xavier Worthy. That was like one of the most incredible passes I've seen in a long time. But Boholmes looked like ass. That offensive line looked like ass.

I'm going to push back a little bit on two things. Number one, I do wish the game was more entertaining. I mean, if you're not a Philly fan. I was about to say, I enjoyed the hell out of it. You enjoyed that. Yeah, if you're a Philly fan, you were in heaven, or if you just have a pathological hatred of the chiefs, you were in heaven. But like for the rest of us who just want to watch an entertaining game, the game was a dud

because the chiefs from the beginning just looked off. Like there was that weird pass interference call where that catch by the Eagles got called back. Yeah. Was that AJ Brown? That was AJ Brown. Yeah. And, you know, instantly people. are complaining about the refs.

Then there was like that makeup call that was even worse. I forget what the penalty was. Very iffy. It was like, I think it was like targeting or something like that. Yeah, it was like the most obvious makeup call ever. And, but it just,

you could just tell from the beginning that the Eagles, like defensive line was just going to kick that shit out of the chiefs. I mean, it just looked like that from the beginning. So there was really no drama at all. I mean, I guess you kind of felt like, oh,

maybe they'll have the second greatest comeback in Super Bowl history, but then they come out after the halftime show and just go three and out. And it's like, okay, the game's over. And then Jaywin Hertz pretty soon after that throws that pass that you're talking about where they went up 31 to nothing or whatever it was. Yeah, that was the one to DeBonte Smith. I'm talking about the Pat Mahomes Garbage Time touchdown. That was like 65 yards like in a bucket to Xavier Worthy when the game was out of hand. I had the game turned up. I turned it up. when it was 34 to 6 because I did not because I'm like I don't know man like 24 nothing at halftime I'm like I still don't like I am not able to breathe yet I stress ate my way through

our dinner of chicken fingers and fries which distracted me during the halftime show which we're going to talk about once it was 31 to nothing I'm like okay it's a five score game four scores Yeah, I can't breathe just yet, but I watched it until the end just to see like Pat Mahomes get sacked, throw interceptions, the Eagles exciting White's defensive backfield of Reed Blankenship and Cooper DeGine. Oh, man. Yeah, they have T-shirts for that now, man. Yeah, the white cornerback with like the whitest name possible. From Iowa. And who just looks sick and had that awesome pick six.

The other thing I'm going to push back on is this being a likable team. because just for me personally, I still hate the Eagles. And I'm doubling down on that now. And look, again, I'll reiterate, the reason I hate the Eagles is because they're historic Packer killers. Like, during my lifetime, the Eagles have just killed the Packers in the playoffs. There was that one year when we won the Super Bowl, we beat the Eagles in Philadelphia. That was a great moment.

But, you know, even this year, we got beat by the Eagles in the playoffs. Packers actually looked relatively good. Compared to the Chiefs, I have to say. The Packers and Rams both played you guys pretty well. And if Jordan Love wasn't having his worst game of the season, basically, we might have had a better shot in that game. Jalen Hertz hadn't become like... It's like Jalen Hertz in the Super Bowl.

He just has to play like he's in the Super Bowl every week, and he would be the greatest quarterback in the league. He just kills it in Super Bowls. But yeah, like Philadelphia, enjoy this win. but like this whole like underdog thing that Philly fans like to have, that's over now. Okay, you just beat the shit out of the two-time defending champs. Like you're now the bullies of the league. You're now like the big boys that everyone's going to be aiming at.

So like this underdog thing that Philly likes to have, you're the big boys now and enjoy it. I mean, in the NFC, I would still give you guys, like I would give you guys the favorites going into the next season. I mean, your defensive line is incredible and they're super young. Yeah, we're going to lose a couple guys in free agency. You have the best GM in the league by far. I mean, you guys are going to be set. You're always good. I mean, three Super Bowls in eight years, you guys are going to be good.

So I'm doubling down on my hate for you guys because you're the team to beat. But it's a hatred rooted in deep respect because you're a great team. Yeah, that's the best kind of hatred. Even your buffoonish head coach. He's an idiot savant. You can't take anything away from Siriani. He's like, what is he like 48 and 20? I think I saw his record.

Yeah, something like that. He doesn't even like call the plays. Like Vic Fangio. Like crusty ass Vic Fangio and like Kellyn Moore. Like he's like kind of just like a CEO figure. He is. And he didn't even hire the coordinators. Like that was that was Roseman because they were going to fire him last year.

And they're like, okay, the coordinators you pick sucked. last year. So we're going to pick the coordinators. We're going to pay him a ton of money. You're going to lose Kevin Moore. Yeah. But I don't know. Just find some guy that.

Yeah, hand the ball to Sequin Barclay. Or no, just find some guy that, okay, we'll just do the tush push over and over again. And we're going to be, you know, 13 and 4 or whatever next year. Let's transition here to some horrible music discourse. And we're going to have a double shot of it here. You know, February. historically is the worst month for music discourse. And it's usually because, well, one, there's not a lot going on.

So people are desperate to talk about something. And two, you have the Grammys in February. And the Grammys have been a reliable generator of terrible music discourse over the years, usually over the album of the year award. You know, people want to complain about the winner of the album of the year award. But Beyonce won it this year. Yep. And the effect of that was that everyone instantly forgot about the Grammys as soon as that happened. It's like, oh, we gave it to Cowboy Carter. Okay, white from the memory banks. No one's going to talk about that anymore.

So in comes the Super Bowl halftime show with Kendrick Lamar, the most watched halftime show of all time, 133 million people. A number I doubt a little bit, just because they're saying it bested Michael Jackson in 1993. I mean, there are more people alive now than there are more than, I guess. I mean, I'm a little skeptical of that just because, like, Michael Jackson in 93, like, it did better than that. I mean, in the way that they tabulate the numbers now, like, where they include bars, you know, people watching outside of their home, which seems. Like streaming numbers in, like, billboard or whatever. Stuff that, but, you know, the numbers back in the day weren't precise either. So, you know, who knows?

A lot of people watched it. You probably watched it at home. Everyone that you know probably watched it. And there have been a lot of opinions about it. And Ian, I'm going to try to give the correct opinion here. You could tell me if it's the correct opinion because you got a lot of people out there saying this is the best halftime show ever. And you got other people saying this is the worst halftime show ever. And it seems like everyone has an agenda there.

I'm going to try to give an agenda-free take on the Super Bowl halftime show. You could tell me if this is correct. I thought the show was fine. I couldn't agree more, yeah. I mean, that's what I got. It was cool. It was cool. It's not the best I've ever seen.

It's not the worst I've ever seen. Like a lot of things related to Kendrick Lamar, I think there's a lot of things that are admirable about it, especially if you think about it in the theoretical sense or on paper. You know, the fact that he did a lot of news songs, for instance, or that there was, you know, an undercurrent of political commentary. to it. Those were all admirable things.

It also wasn't totally satisfying in sort of like just a red meat gut level type satisfying. I do think that him not doing his most famous songs all right or bitch don't kill my vibe some other songs from like his mid-2010s era that did

that did feel a little self-defeating to me. I mean, I will say that I think the show was a little boring at times. It felt like it was a lot of preamble to the Just Like Us section, which is all anyone talked about really the next day. And there were like, you know, eight, nine minutes before that. And I actually DM'd you during the show. Like you were busy doing other things. But like when Sam Jackson popped up, I immediately DM'd you.

It's funny that we talk over DM and not text. We only talked over Twitter DM. But I was like, is this a corny show? Because the Sam Jackson stuff, I thought was pretty corny. And it seemed, again, very Kendrick. Kendrick always seems to have to have some spoken word element to what he's doing. Just to underline the themes that we have to have Sam Jackson in an Uncle Sam outfit. Like, I don't know.

Is this really working? So I think that's the correct opinion. Now, the problem with stating that is that online, you're in between a wrong. rock in a hard place stating that opinion, which I think is fairly nuanced. Because on one side, you have the worst people in the world who are calling this the worst show of all time and would say that about any rap related show, just like the most obnoxious reactionary people. And then on the other side, you have people who are just knee-jerk, Kendrick Lamar

defenders who will say that, oh, you don't get it or that you're like racist or that you're, you know, just missing the point of it. And it's like, you're sort of damned if you do, damned if you don't there. So I don't know. That's my take on the show. I thought it was fine. I thought it was a little disappointing because I thought it could potentially be like one of the best shows ever. If he had maybe made it a little broader and a little more sort of like appropriate for the format, which I think is a broad music format. It is a format more for like good time party music, you know. I guess that's my view of the halftime show. I don't know if that's retrograde,

but I feel like historically that's what it's supposed to be. And this show, it felt a little flat at times to me. I don't know. Like, do you, does any of that resonate with you? Well, I mentioned before, like, how I was a bit distracted by my own anxiety about the game and also, and also, like, watching Kendrick with those flared jeans. Like, how is he not going to trip on himself?

because all he's doing is like walking and moving the entire time. Right. Yeah, visually I thought it was pretty cool. But if we're talking more about like the discourse, you asked if like you needed to see previous seasons of Love is Blind to understand the new one. I think that show has reached a point that I describe as the reality show singularity. It's like when it becomes very clear that a reality show's contestants are entirely operating off having seen past episodes and past seasons. So it's almost like people playing out like a script,

like chat GPT. That's how the discourse felt to me because like even like before like before one second of this elapsed, I already could predict how it was going to be treated. There was going to be the Kendrick Lamar does anything. And so therefore it is politically subversive. Like people who see the Samuel Jackson bit and it's like, oh, this is really trying to say something. There also going to be people who have pre-written like 80% of their article about how Drake's the real loser of the Super Bowl. And then you have on the other side, of course, like, yo, Kendrick Lamar, DEI hire for the Super Bowl. And this is exactly how it all played out. Like, it doesn't matter what he actually did. The worst discourse of all time is just the next one. You know, the way,

I think I was let down by two specific things, first of which is just how much attention is being given to Drake, you know? If it just feels like the the beef was boring to me last year. I mean, it's still kind of boring because, look, we like, if you think like, oh, like how must Drake be feeling? Like he dealt with this all year. Like it's not like they dropped this out of nowhere. And I just think like not like us is kind of disappointing because it reminds me of

how Ether Nah is more or less just spent 80% of that song calling JZ gay and that's kind of like what not like us is like as far as the political impact of it the Samuel Jackson bit just made me think of this is America where it points to a lot of things without saying

very much like it would have been subversive if he did all right and like kept the and we hate Po Poe line also related this is America was in a commercial for a GLP1. So I think that just kind of goes to show you just how pliable and like meaningless This is America is. It's just like it's it's fodder for content.

And also I have to think about the fact like what it, what must it be like to be, I don't know, 12 or 13 years old watching this as opposed to, you know, being 44 and just having been through round after round of discourse. Yeah, I mean. Yeah, I mean, is that mind-blowing, or do you even care about it if you're 12 or 13? I don't know. I mean, it's, uh, I was, I actually went back and I watched the Super Bowl halftime show

from like three or four years ago with Dre Snoop, Eminem, and 50 Cent. Right. And I was trying to remember, like, we're the right-wing people coming out against rap when that show was on. I mean, I assume they probably were. I mean, my memory of it is that there wasn't as much of a backlash against that because those guys are so famous. Yeah, that's like classic.

It's classic rock at that point, you know? Well, and that's the point I was going to make. I mean, you know, people like to make jokes about how the Super Bowl halftime show used to be all of these classic rock people, Tom Petty, Springsteen the Who, the Stones. And we've transitioned out. Teddy Pendergrass. And, but the thing is, is that like, that's what the halftime show is. It is songs, I think, that people are familiar with that, because it's a communal event. It's the one show that everyone wants.

watches. And it makes sense to me that it would be either classic rock or like the classic rock version of other genres. So, you know, like if Jay-Z did the halftime show next year, I think it would kill. I think if you had like Jay-Z doing 13 minutes or whatever it is 15 minutes of his hits, it would kill because people know those songs. Like he comes out to public service announcement, then goes into 99 problems, then like H to the Izzo, then whatever, you know. people, it would go crazy. And I think even like right wingers, like they went to college once. They heard those songs.

Like it would be a different experience. I think with Kendra Clomar, his songs are so lyrically dense. And there aren't a lot of like obvious musical hooks that if you aren't familiar with his music, you can be lost. Like I think there's a lot of people that watch that show that had no idea that he was talking about Drake. You know, like if you don't know that song, you'd have no idea that he was dissing Drake. And so that's what makes me push back a little bit against the like Drake lost the war or he got he lost a Super Bowl. It's like, well, yeah, if you are already invested in this conflict and you already thought Drake lost. Yeah, then Drake lost again.

But like how many of those 133 million people are even aware of that or even care about that? Like Drake is still like if you go on Spotify, he's still like way more listened to than Kendrick. Like Drake could do the show next year probably. Yeah. He's got a new album or like a collaborative album coming out like today, I think. Like he's another person where if he just did like a 13 minute medley of hits, like he could do that and it would murder on the halftime show. I will push back on that because I did see him at Coachella.

And mind you, this was like 2015. Last year I went to Coachella. It was a phenomenally boring. It was a phenomenally boring show. I don't know. I don't think he, I don't know if he has like the performer type. Jews that Kendrick has. But, you know, what I was hoping, like, the only thing that I think would have surprised me

or would have been, like, newsworthy is if, uh, instead of doing not like us, he, him and, uh, him and Drake do poetic justice on like, you know, like Mortal Kombat where you do the friendship finishing move where like the person staggering, you pull out flowers, that would have been cool. But instead, uh, we got what we got. And, uh, next year, I mean, I don't know. Like, Jay-Z is just, I think, so. far removed from being a performer that I don't know how it would work. I mean, maybe like Elon Musk will

like force the Super Bowl to have Kanye perform. Well, I would be shocked if Kanye, if the NFL would want to touch Kanye. I don't think that would happen. I mean, my assumption is that Jay-Z has already been asked at some point. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah, you do Beach share with cold play, you know, do all the hits. But I mean, you know, people just, get wrapped up in this thing of like, I love Kendrick Lamar, and that made him a great Super Bowl halftime show. And my argument to that would be, like, I love Radiohead more than the Foo Fighters, but I think the Foo Fighters are a better halftime show band than Radiohead would be. You know, like Radiohead, they don't belong at the Super Bowl halftime show. Like, they would never play it

because they know that. But just, they're not broad enough. Like, you need something broad that you just throw in there and it's like, oh, we all know what's. this is, it makes sense. That's just what the forum is. And I think to bend it into something that it's not, I think you're going to have some problems there. I guess the question, the question this brings up to me is, and I think you're almost trying to manifest this, do you think Imagine Dragons would put on a good NFL Super Bowl

halftime show? I don't think it would just be them. I think it would probably, I can't imagine them being a solo headliner. You know, I have to say that one of the great Kendrick Lamar, like, TV show live performances was when he was on the Grammys. I think this was like 2012, 2013, probably a little bit later than that. Probably, it would probably have been like 2014 or something. He was on with Imagine Dragons. Yes.

At the Grammys. And it was like really good. And then Kendrick was like more sort of Because he's had these TV show appearances where he's like more fiery And he's kind of like getting really energetic And like attacking the microphone and like I love him in that mode Like he was kind of laid back at the Super Bowl Like I thought there would be

Because my memory of the Grammys thing with Imagine Dragons Is that there were like flames in the background Yes there was and he was like And he was like spit in fire and it was like Wow Kendrick Lamar is making Imagine Dragons look badass here. So maybe that's the secret sauce. Maybe you got to have some Imagine Dragons mixing with the...

Oh man, I can't believe I'm saying. Someone's going to clip that and post it online, and I'm going to get roasted for that take. I'm standing by it, though. I will stand by it. Yeah, exactly. I'll die on that cross. The Imagine Dragons, Kendrick Lamar Cross. Well, before we get to the other terrible discourse we're going to talk about today regarding the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,

Let's do a quick update on the fantasy album draft. It looks like my albums from last week slipped a little bit. Sharon Vanetten is now at an 83 and Squid is at 85. Well, yours went up. Mine went down. Oh, they went up? They went up? Yeah, I think Van Nat was at an 82.

Squid was at like an 87. So Squid went down a little bit. Yeah. Squid went down to. So Squid dropped two. Sharon Venetton went up one. Yeah, the American reviews for Squid started to roll in, so you know that's, you know, yeah, I needed a 90 before that happened. But I'll take it. I'll take 83 and 85 for sure. And I have two albums out today. And I wonder if this is my whole team at this point. I'm going to look this up quick.

Because I feel like, let's see, let's see, I have the weather station horse girl sharing. Yeah, this is going to be my whole team. is now going to be done after this week. Actually, you had squid. I thought I had squid. Yeah, I thought I was going to be about hearing that correctly. Yeah, I'm sorry. Okay, so you have squid. I mean, yeah, you can take it if you want to trade me, Bartiz.

No, no. Well, I think Bartiz is going to end up about where squid is, maybe a little bit less. But so you have FKA Twigs, Ethel Cane, Squid, Benjamin Booker, and the murder capital. I have Weather Station, Horse Girl, Sharon Benetton, Body, Body, Print, Billy and Barty Strange. So my last two went today, I guess the murder capital, is that still waiting for you? Yeah, I believe that's the 28th. Okay, so we're going to know by the end of the month, I guess, who won this quarter's fantasy draft.

My two albums today, it's Horse Girl, their album Phonetics on and On is out today. That has an 80 currently on Metacritic. hopefully it holds at 80 doesn't go below that and then Barty's Strange his album's out today that's called horror and that has an 88 right now on Metacritic from the British critics that's really high

I expect that to go down I would assume that will land at about an 85 maybe 84 but very pleased by that turnout so far yeah I think Bartiz very genius pick. I've done an extensive profile on him. You've done an extensive profile on him. Like everyone has done an expensive interview with Bartis Strange.

And I think that like endears him to people. I feel like he's one of these guys who's going to have, there's just going to be one guy at every publication who really, really likes that album. Whenever he puts one out, it probably gets an 85 and it doesn't make the year end list, which is that's how you win fantasy drafts. Well, I mean, the only reason it wouldn't is because it's coming out in February. That might, you know, people might forget about it by the end of the year. I actually quite like this record.

I mean, I'm a fan of Barty Strange in general. It definitely follows up on what he was doing on his previous record, Farm to Table, which was this very eclectic record drawing from indie rock, hip-hop, R&B, all over the map and he's doing that again on this record. I think another reason why this album is getting a little bit of a push is that it's produced by Jack Antonoff and that's automatically going to give the record a higher profile. I believe Bartiz performed on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon this week. So that's a big deal for him.

And I would say that this record, it isn't so much a reinvention of what he was doing on Farmer Table as it is a refinement of it. It sounds, I mean, the record sounds incredible. I would recommend listening to it on headphones. Like the production is really good. I mean, Bartiz himself is a producer. And I remember when I profiled him, he was playing me some songs that he was already working on at that time. That was a couple years ago.

I don't remember what songs he played or if that ended up on the record. But the best thing I'll say about Jack Antonoff, and I guess this is backhanded praise, is that you don't necessarily realize that he's producing the record. As far as I know, he didn't co-write any of the songs. If he did, it doesn't sound like the stock Jack Antonoff type record that you might expect. I guess the one thing you would say that links it with other Antonoff productions is that it has that 80s sheen to it. It's a very velvety type sound. And there are, I think, certain callbacks to like the pop rock of the 80s, which is certainly.

in Antonoff's wheelhouse. So, but yeah, it's a, it's a good record. I've been enjoying it, listening to it these past few weeks. And yeah, I think it's going to continue what he's doing. Lucy Dacus is on this record, too. I mean, he's in with that crew. I think he's going to touring a little bit with Lucy later this year. Is there a cosign, is there a cosines too on this one?

I just got to call out that song right there. it's uh i i can't listen to that song i mean i don't know i what do you mean in terms of like just like like that kind of like yeah like where he just like kind of shouts out like all of his friends or whatever there's just something about that song that rubbed me the wrong way um and i get what he was coming from i think there was a better way to do it but it's like it kind of puts my teeth on edge but you know what like i what i love about bartee strange as a person is that he's like very open about his desire to make it to be careers. Like he got into this industry as like a 32 year old after working on Capitol Hill or

whatever. And so hold on one second. Like he doesn't have the same hangups about certain things that other artists do. I just thought like cosines was just like I've, I'd like never heard a song like that on an indie rock record. Yeah. I mean, I think I think the charitable way to look at that is that he's a guy who, was put into this context of modern indie rock where he was formerly a fan and now he's actually

inside of it and he's still in some way functioning as a fan. And I think that would be the charitable way to look at a song like that just to be like, wow, I'm in this group of people. I used to just be fans of them and now they're my colleagues. I agree with you. I mean, it's not the coolest move to put a song like that on your record. But, you know, there is an earnestness to him, I think, that is part of what makes him endearing

and why he's been such a media darling, I think, the last few years. So I think that speaks to it. And then the Horse Girl record, again, that's a band from Chicago, all-female band. They operate in the post-punk lane, as you might expect, for a young band from Chicago. I like this record. I've been really enjoying it.

It is interesting. You made a point in the outline, Maybe I'll let you make it or elaborate on it. That this feels like a record that would have been just critical catnip 10 years ago. And maybe not as much now just because tastes have shifted. I think it's a really good record. Again, these are young women writing these songs. Really melodic songs, really kind of, if you're into that sort of classicist post-punk sound,

you know, a record that sounds like it could have come out between 1978 and 1981. this record will be for you. That's not exactly the where critics are at at this point. I mean, which, I mean, they're still critically acclaimed. They have an 80.

I guess I'm a little worried that might drop to 78. Hopefully we can stay above the fantasy draft Mendoza line, which is 80. Yeah. Even if they aren't quite at the fever pitch, they might have been in 2014, let's say, because, yeah,

This is like a classic like 8.8 from Pitchfork play like the 5 p.m. slot. You know, it's like, and these are like young. In 2014. Yeah. Like in 2014 for sure. Yeah. They're like, and I think two of them are like students at NYU currently. They come from Chicago.

They're influenced by Velvet Underground and wire and Sonic Youth. I mean, like it checks all the boxes to have, you know, and I say this with all love because I'm in this demographic, like the 45-year. old dude writer making like a the kids are all right a pun in their review of the record you know what I'm saying I like this record it's a bit dry at points um but you know overall it's like this is very well done in what it does and you know I know that we say post punk a lot here but I think this does it in a way that's very it's like interesting it there's a lot of craft there's a Kate LeBond I believe produced it in the same like unlike jack Antonin

and Bartis Strange, you definitely know it's her behind the boards. It has that very dry, textural sound to it. I feel like this is a band that's going to be in it for the long haul, even if they never reach that kind of buzz band Zenith that was available for more straightforward rock bands 10 years ago. You know, I feel like this is a band we're going to probably be talking about when we do this pod in 2027. Yeah, there is a song. seem like a band that could potentially have like seven records that are just really good. Yeah. And maybe they don't ever make an era-defining masterpiece.

But after 10 years, you look back, you're like, wow, like, they just, I could pick any record from their catalog and it's going to be good. Like, they have that look to them. So hopefully they can, they can make that happen. I'm just wondering, like, does anyone at NYU just become like a dentist or like an architect? It just seems like it's all music critics and radio DJs and like DIY venue operators and, you know, whatever. Maybe that's just our world, I guess, that we operate in. I think that's what it is.

I think that's what it is now. Like, I remember when I was in high school, like people who applied NYU, like did want to be, like, lawyers. You know, there was like people who like, maybe I say this. I say this with all love. I'm not trying to be a snob. I got rejected from every Ivy League school I applied to. But it was like if you didn't feel like you had the grades to get into like, say, Penn or Columbia, you would do NYU. And you would go on to law school or meds schools.

Or you would go to UW O'Clair, which is where I went to University of Wisconsin-Oclair. But yeah, I do see a lot of like at music publications or just elsewhere like interns, like people who graduated from NYU. It's like, God, that is not a cheap school to go to. Yeah, you know, I don't want to get too sidetracked on this. But, like, one thing that's changed a lot from when I got started in the media in 2000 to now is that in, like, the music press, there's a lot of people that went to, like, expensive elite schools. Yeah. And I just want to say, like, if you're a young person listening to this and you want to be a music critic, don't pay to go to these schools. Give your money to me. I will mentor you.

and you know save a lot of money and look I've been in the business a long time and I've been I make a living as a music writer I live in a house I'm sitting in a house right now paid with music writing money feed my family with it you don't have to spend 50 grand a semester or whatever it is you can kick me a couple grand and I will mentor you save you a ton of money that's all I'm going to say it's a little infomercial for my music critic school that I'm starting up right now, extemporaneously. Shout to Jeremy Larson. I think he was like a UW University Wisconsin

Whitewater grad. How about that? Look at that. That's two music professionals going to the U.S. Madison, not the big one, the other schools. I mean, my school was not very good.

I'm sorry to say. Any blue golds out there? Not great, but it was a great school paper and a great town, and I met a lot of great people there. Are you on the Wikipedia page for Udub all? I am.

I am, baby. I'm on there, baby. Represent. Okay, let's talk about the other terrible discourse here quick from this week, which is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Nominees are out this week. And I'm going to read the nominees here in a minute. And I'll just say, like, I don't think there's been terrible discourse about these

nominees, really. I just feel like every time this comes up, it's like the same conversations over and over again. Why are there non-rock artists in the Hall of Fame? Why aren't there more non-rock artists in the Hall of Fame? Why isn't Artist X in the Hall of Fame? Yada, yada, yada. We have these same things over and over again.

It's always terrible. I'll read the nominees for this year. I haven't voted yet. I'm a voter for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I haven't voted yet. I think I'm going to vote after this show, after we get done recording, because you can do it online for the first time ever.

They had paper ballots until last year. You can finally vote online. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, they have a Wi-Fi now, apparently, at the headquarters. Now we can do it on the internet. It's incredible. Here are the nominees. Bad Company, The Black Crows, Mariah Carey, Chubby Checker, Joe Cocker, Billy Idol, Joy Division slash New Order. That's one nominee.

Cindy Lopper, Manna, Mania? Mana, yeah. Mana. I'm probably pronouncing it wrong. This is like a, they're a, I think like just kind of like a Latin rock band that I would, I just remember like every music professor I had would tell me how much they were awesome. So that's what I know about them. I know nothing about them. I heard them described as the Mexican Bon Jovi.

I don't know if that's true. That sounds pretty fucking awesome, actually. I don't know if that's true. That's just what I've been told. I haven't fact checked that yet. Oasis, outcast, fish, and the white stripes. Those are the nominees. Very 90s-focused slated nominees.

This is probably the most 90s-oriented, because you have basically half the bands that got started in the 90s. The White Stripes are more of a 2000s band, but they did get started in the 90s. Can I just say, too, very Steve Hyden-Coded. There's at least three people here that I have to vote for. Like, I have to vote for fish. I have to vote for Oasis.

And I got to vote for the Black Crows. And shout out to my good friend Steve Gorman, founding drummer of the Black Crows, who I wrote a book with about the Black Crows. Congratulations to him I'm being nominated, even though he's not in the band currently. And let's just say, does not have a good relationship with the Robinson brothers at the moment. But congratulations to him. So I have to vote for those three. What about Soundgarden?

They're nominated too. Yeah, they weren't on this list. Yeah, they're... I just copied this from like Billboard or something. Soundgarden is also nominated. So another 90s band. They got started in the 80s, but definitely achieved mass popularity in the 90s.

So it's interesting. I mean, this has been a hobby horse of mine with the rock and roll hall of fame for a long time. You know, we've focused on different types of representation, which are important. Getting more women in the Hall of Fame, more people of color. in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, more hip-hop acts, more sort of acts that aren't boomer rock acts,

essentially. There's been a big push for that. One thing I've talked about is that there's not a lot of 90s rock bands in the Hall of Fame, nor there are a lot of 80s sort of alternative in indie rock bands. Like all of the, our band could be your life bands. Like none of them are in the Hall of Fame. Replacements, Sonic Youth, Minutemen, Black Flag, all the way down the line. So I'm personally pretty pleased with this slate of nominees.

I don't know. Do you have any thoughts? Do you care at all? I know you probably don't care. But do you have any thoughts on this at all? Yeah, I mean, look, every 90s band, like, I think that the Black Crows, that's like, I know you look, I think that's kind of punching above their weight when you think about, like, who they're up against here.

It's a deep cut. I was surprised. That was not something I expected to see. I will make a case for them. being, I think, more important than they're given credit for. In terms of when you look at Americana bands from the South, Southern-oriented rock or southern-oriented, you know, sort of country rock, I think the Black Crowes are actually a pretty big influence on a lot of those artists,

and it's just not really remarked upon. I mean, like the original guitar player for the Black Crowes, Jeff Seas, has been playing with Eric Church for a long time. You know, like, Jason Isbell is a big Black Crow's fan. You know, like a lot of those artists like play, she talks, go to any southern bar. There's going to be some dude with a beard playing. She talks to angels.

You know, like they're, I think, more influential than us, maybe in the indie music press would give them credit. I mean, not me, but like other people. Hey, look, the Southern Harmony Musical Companion was one of the first albums I bought on CD. I bought that in Dossack's Dead Serious on the same day. But I think it's so interesting that you're basically giving the Black Crowes. was like a replacements or Sonic Youth style pitch, you know? It's like they didn't sell a ton of records, but.

Well, they did, well, their first record sold $5 billion. Yeah. So they do have, but that's the thing. I mean, the rock and roll hall of fame is a, they genuflect at the altar of commercial success. So that's why a lot of those great 80s bands are not in the Hall of Fame. That's why the replacements aren't in, Sonic Youth, Husker Do, any great 80s in.

band you want to mention they're not in there. And all the great 90s indie, like pavement has never been nominated all the way down the line. And that I think is bullshit, but that's just how they operate. And I mean, looking at it from Rock and Roll Hall of Fame logic, I mean, Black Crow's are a band that did sell records in the 90s. And they do, I think, probably fit the definition of like what a music industry professional looks at as an important band. Now, I think they're an important band too. but the conversations here with the Rock Hall, they always kind of fall back on this.

Well, how can you nominate this person when this person's not in? And you can do that all day. And I don't disagree with those people, but you have to look at, okay, these are the nominees. Like, this is who's being offered this year. You can't vote. If I could write in the replacements, I would. I would write in Warren Zvon if I could,

but they don't allow that. So you have to just look at what they're actually put in front of you. So in that regard, I'm kind of pleased that they, I mean, they nominated Lenny Kravitz last year. Oh. And he's like in the same bucket. I don't think he, I'm trying to remember if he got voted in. I feel like he was more popular though than like the black.

I, by the way, as far as selling records, I did buy three snakes and one charm. I am one of those people. So, so Lenny didn't make it. He was nominated last year, but he didn't make it. I mean, Lenny had, I would say, like a longer, like he would have a song. that'd be really popular and he had like he had uh what's that song it ain't over till it's over yeah get away uh get away and then are you gonna go my way yeah get away one of the dumbest songs ever written but i mean i wrote a column once where i said lenny cravitz has three amazing

songs and 80 terrible songs and i stand by that yeah and i'm like but his songs his his great songs are so good that like you forgive lenny cravitz for all this to even his even his his great songs are kind of terrible, but like, they, they just rock and they sound amazing on the radio. So, you know. Let's get into some Chubby Checker casting, though. Like, that's the person I feel the most invested in. Because, like, it just, like, if he's not in now, like, I know, like, sometimes you'll see,

like, in the baseball Hall of Fame, like, you know, smoking Joe Brown, like, get voted in, like, a hundred years after he passed away, like, from tuberculosis. And, like, but Chubby Checker's still a lot. And just the fact that he's still there as like an actual nominee as opposed to like someone they just posthumously induct. I'm just highly invested in that now. Well, I mean, speaking of someone who has like one song that everyone knows. O contrar. Oh, wait.

You go deeper than the twist with Chubby Checker? I go deeper with the twist because I go, I get down with let's twist again. With the fat boys. No, that's an original joint. I guess that's technically a different song. Okay. And limbo rock. Mashed potato love.

I'm just looking at his top songs on Apple Music. I've definitely heard the huckle buck. I've definitely heard the twist. Let's twist again. Limbo rock. Mashed potato love. That's going in the queue as soon as we're done. So, yeah, let's twist again.

The Beach Boys are on that too. That was truly, it was Chevy Checker. He's probably recorded this song like, a hundred times. Do you think, I mean, because he's in his 80s now, he's probably, you know, he's probably not chubby anymore. He's got to be slimming down if you're in your 80s. You got to watch, you know, got to take care of your heart and potential diabetes issues.

You look at him. He wasn't even that chubby in the 50s, man. That's true. Yeah. I thought the same thing, actually. I was looking at photos of him, and I'm like, man, there was some serious fat shaming in the 50s and 60s because he looks like, you know, weight-appropriate checker. That's what I would have called him.

Yeah, he's like, he's got kind of a linebacker build. Yeah, weight evenly distributed throughout his body, checker. That's what he should have been called. I guess that's not as catchy as chubby checker. But, yeah, you know, the old timers, you always kind of hope they get in because you want them to have this honor while they're still with us. But I don't know, man, Chubby Checker, that feels like the biggest stretch to me out of these. But, you know, we'll see. I want to hear from the Chubby Checker heads out there who, no limbo rock. And they're like, no, man,

limbo rock is a seminal song of the pre-Beatles era in rock music. We've now reached a part of our episode that we call Recommendation Corner where Ian and I talk about something we're into this week. Ian, why don't you go first? All right. So in Recommendation, corner, we're on Trend Watch. There are two albums that came out last week, the first of which is the OK Lou album, Choke again, and the one I want to talk about today by an artist called Skeleton. That's All E's. It's spelled with an E at the end, not a no, and his album mentalized.

So both of these albums have both in their artist name, their album title, and like the album cover, very like cherry tree or elementary records. new metal vibe to them. So I'm sort of surprised that I checked either of them out. And the sound itself is this post-James Blake indie R&B that was really popping in 2013, but it's sort of making a comeback. I liked a lot of that stuff. But with this album, Skeleton, Mentalized, he's Australian.

I think that maybe leads into this being a little more far-reaching and festival-friendly than some of the other artists in this realm. I am going to try to sell it to Steve right here by describing it as something like if Westerman made something closer to eusexia. It's got those kind of drowsy male vocals and club beats. Several songs are about raves. Just a really cool, kind of like late night driving music. Okay. Yeah. So maybe you'll like it. Maybe you'll like this as much as you like, like Bondol Park and how to dress well. It's definitely not in that realm, but it's kind of like, oh, I could see this getting a pitchfork rising in 2013 and me writing it and having nothing

to say, so I just do it right through. So Westerman, I was associate him like with the easygoing or easy listening singer-songwriters of the 90s that I have a soft spot for like Sting. I think I like it his last record to Sting. So is this like Sting collaborating with Seal? Well, so I know that Seal and, well, I know Seal definitely did this. of those guys if they tried to make kind of an electronica pivot

in 97 and 98 it's kind of in that it's in that vicinity I and by the way like I know this is me selling you on it is not prerogatory no no no you're speaking my language you definitely know

what buttons the push to get me interested so definitely going to check that out I want to talk about a record that came out actually last week that I didn't get a chance to talk about it's called passional relations. And it's by a band you may have heard of called Big Thief.

This is an EP that they put out to benefit victims of the LA fires. So very good cause. And this is a very good EP. And most of the songs, there's five in all, but four of the songs come from the New Warm Dragon I Believe in You sessions. And if you love that record as much as I do, you are aware that there's 20 songs on the record and there's 25 some songs that still haven't come out. Well, here's four of them from that time.

And surprise, surprise, they're all pretty fantastic. The fifth song comes from 2018, so that goes back even further. That's a really cool song too. But more Big Thief music. We haven't had a new album from them since New Warmed Dragon, which came out in 2022. So it's been a little while here. I'm curious to see if there's a full-length album coming out later this year. there's been solo work from

Adrian Linker and Buck Meek and I've enjoyed those solo projects but just listening to this EP it just reminds me like God this is such a good band like when they work together it just it takes it to a different place as much as I like the solo stuff I think

them working together is where the real magic is so it's a great album and also it benefits a good cause you get to help people that have really had a hard time lately I believe it's available only on the band's website may also be available on band camp.

It's not streaming anywhere. You do have to pay for it if you want to hear it. But again, it's a good cause and it's great music. And again, it's called Passional Relations. Very Big Thief title, by the way. I've never heard that word before. I imagine they were all hugging each other when they came up with that album title.

But great band, again, I feel like everything they put out, you've got to listen to it. They're that kind of group. So check it out, good cause from Big. thief. 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, sign up for the indie mixtape newsletter. You can go to uprocks.com backslash indie, and I recommend five albums per week, and we'll send it directly to your email box.