Indiecast - The 2023 Indiecasties (Part 1)

Episode Date: December 15, 2023

As we near the end of 2023, the time has come for Steven and Ian to revive their most sacred annual tradition: The Indiecasties! Like the Oscars, the Indiecasties goes long every year, so we actually are splitting it up into two episodes. (Part two drops next week.) Before that, however, the guys do a quick Sportscast about a wild week in Wisconsin-based athletics, including a Packers loss to Tommy DeVito and Giannis losing his cool against the Indiana Pacers over a lost game ball. Steven and Ian also address the viral TikTok video by Bethany Cosentino about her disappointment over the reception to her 2023 solo debut album, Natural Disaster, and the long tail of Peak Indie disappointment (6:10).Then it's on to the Indiecasties (19:00)! There are five categories in this episode: Most Valuable Annoying Music Story (21:45), The Album Cycle Of The Year (28:33), The Feel-Good Story Of The Year (35:15), The Most 2023 Album Of 2023 (40:47), and the Most Hyped Album That Turned Out To Be Actually Good (47:48). Who won? And who "won" (since winning some of these categories doesn't feel like a victory)? Listen and find out!New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 168 and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [e-mail], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Indycast is presented by Uprox's Indy Mix tape. Hello everyone and welcome to Indycast on the show we talk about the biggest indie news of the week. We review albums and we hash out trends. In this episode, we hand out our first round of 2023 Indycasties. My name is Stephen Hayden and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. He is furious that the Indiana Pacer stole his game ball. Ian Cohen. Ian, how are you? You caught me kind of flat-footed with this one because I really,

I really wanted to find an indie rock equivalent to what this just absolutely hilarious form of beef is. I love how not just college football, but the NBA is starting to get kind of WWE with it. Like there's so many nondescript NBA franchises, like the Hornets or whatever, that are thinking about like how they can do. Like what they can do to like fuck up somebody's game like this. Well, okay, so we're going to do a quick sports cast here. at the top. Because I have to talk this, we're recording this on Thursday

morning like we normally do. And the night before, last night, Wednesday night, the Milwaukee Bucks, the team of my youth, they're playing the Indiana Pacers. Janice Ante Coupo has an incredible game. He scored 64 points,

franchise record. And at the end of the game, there's like this weird incident going on, like where Janus, he expected to get the game ball. because this is like the greatest game of his life. And the Pacers took the ball

and they gave it to like some rookie who scored his first point ever in an NBA game. A rookie from Kentucky. Shout out to Oscar. And Janus, mild-mannered Janus Ante Coupo goes apeshit. It's like this is the week for like mild-mannered athletes to go apes shit because he had Patrick Mahomes earlier this week going just crazy after

the Bills game that they lost. Now you have Yadis going crazy over this game ball. He runs into the tunnel to the Pacer's locker room and he's screaming at them, you know, give me the ball, give me the ball, they won't give him the ball. And I guess he eventually got the ball, although there was controversy over whether it was the ball or a ball.

Like it might have been some random ball that they gave to him. It's like, I don't know, Are players like this invested in a game ball? It seems like an incredible overreaction from a guy who does not overreact ever to anything. Yeah, I'm like very proud of the fact that like when we've had like many, many times where you've like mispronounced a very easy word. But Janice, you like nail that right off the wrap. Well, come on. I mean, this is like one of the greatest athletes in Wisconsin sports history.

So I've got to nail that one. I'm also glad you didn't try to like, you know, shoehorned draymond green in there to like mild-matter, mild-mannered athletes getting into some shit. Oh, man. Here's the thing. Like, I am, I'm not trying to, like, antagonize you, but I think this is, like, the funniest shit the Pacers can do to, like, establish themselves as a team with an identity. Because, like, they played no defense at all. Otherwise, during the game. And I don't know. Like, I mean, I mean, I'm not antagonize. I mean, I think it's funny that Yonis. got this upset about not getting the game ball. I mean, I feel like he's normally above this sort of thing. So just for him to go crazy about this, I think, is funny. Although there is a thing in Wisconsin right now,

there's been building resentment because when the Packers played on Thanksgiving and they beat the Lions, there was an expectation that Jordan Love would get a turkey leg. You know, because all the other MVP's for the games got a turkey leg, except Jordan Love. For whatever reason, they didn't have a turkey leg on hand to give to Jordan Love. So I think maybe, you know, Wisconsin nights, Wisconsin athletes, they have a chip on their shoulder right now because Jordan Love didn't get the turkey leg. Janis didn't get the game ball when he scored 64.

Some Brewers thing happened recently, too, but I can't remember what it was. Well, you know, the other crazy thing in Wisconsin sports this week is that the Packers lost to Tommy DeVos. Davido on Monday Night Football. Tommy Cutlets, baby. Tommy Cutlets, uh, the, uh, who, Tommy DeVito, uh,

I'm not even sure as like a real athlete. I, I, it feels like, he feels like an amalgam of like every New Jersey cliche ever. Like, yeah,

and his agent, you, I'm sure you saw as age. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, his, his life is like a low rent sopranos knockoff, you know,

like, If there was just a terrible Sopranos rip-up that was on stars or, you know, some other, you know, or on AMC or whatever, it would be Tommy DeVito. So, yeah, I don't know. I didn't even want to get into that. I mean, that was a terrible game. It's like, we came crashing to Earth. It's like, oh, my God, we might make the playoffs. We just have to, you know, beat these terrible teams that we have left on our schedule.

You know, we beat the chiefs on Sunday night football, but then we can't beat the Giants on Monday night football. Yeah, I guess if we're going to, like, bring it back to our, you know, indie cast and TV cast thing, can we say like Tommy DeVito is the visiting day of quarterbacks? That's a good call. You know, I was actually thinking he reminds me of Meadow's boyfriend. Yeah. Jackie Jr. Jackie Jr., yeah, he has very strong Jackie Jr.

your vibes. Like just the biggest idiot, you know, dating Meadow and then he ends up getting whacked. Yeah. So, okay, that's the end of sportscast. We're done with sportscast. Before we get to the Indycastes, we should talk about this Bethany Cozantino story. For those who aren't online as much as Ian and I are, there was a story this week about Bethany Cozantino, who is best known from the band Best Coast.

I think Best Coast, are they broken up or on hiatus? I mean, she's got a solo career now. Yeah. And I think they're on hiatus. I remember a few years back they did like kind of a remake of Crazy for You, their first album where they changed the pronouns and the song, Boyfriend, to be more inclusive. But other than that, I don't know if they're still like actively recording. It's funny because when I saw like some post about this article, they, like, especially from like chorus. FM, they still included a picture of Best Coast with Bob in there.

Right. Well, chorus FM, there's, I mean, it's like a bit now with them. Any story they run, there is like a photo from 20 years ago on there. But anyway, Bethany Cosettino, she put on a solo record this summer is called Natural Weather. And, you know, it came and went. Flash forward several months later, she posts this thing on TikTok where she's expressing disappointment about how the album did. And voicing kind of general complaints about how you put an album out into the world now and it just feels like it disappears. And I mean, I have some theories about why she posted this video now, which I'll share

here in a minute, but you had a good tweet about this because this story blew up. You know, and there were people saying, like, we agree with you. the music industry is really really screwed up now. There were, of course, people that used this as an opportunity to dunk on Bethany Costantino and to say, well, if you had made a better record, people would have cared about it, which I think is totally unfair.

I'll just say that right now. I mean, look, great records get ignored all the time. And I'm not going to give an opinion on her record. I mean, I didn't really listen to it that much, so I couldn't give an informed opinion on it. But the quality of a record, I think, is irrelevant to how well it does in the marketplace. She could have made blood on the tracks, and it might still have not done as well if she had wanted it to do for a variety of reasons. But you had a good tweet about this that actually blew up a little bit where you were talking about the peak indie era, which I think we would say is maybe like from mid-2000s to like early 2010s and how the stars of that era have had to adjust to a new reality.

Do you want to talk about that? I mean, I thought that was an interesting point. People really seem to react to that in a variety of ways. Yeah, I got to kind of experience the life cycle of a semi-viral tweet with that where it's like, wow, this one's really resonating. And then, like, certain people chime in. I'm like, oh, fuck, this was a mistake. And hopefully it'll just, like, fade out before people start, like, digging in. But, yeah, I think we see this a lot.

this is going to come up in some of our categories. But, yeah, like the initial impulse was to dunk on Bethany Kosentino, you know, for specific reasons. She's kind of an interesting Twitter presence in that, you know, several things about her can be true at once. You know, like, was, she was indeed subject to some pretty heinous hipster runoff era misogyny. Like, that happened. And also, like, it wasn't necessarily inherently misogynistic to point out that, like, her songs had lazy, crazy, boyfriend, Varian, rhyming. But she was also like the beneficiary of like

Pete Pitchfork hype that kind of outstrip the hate. And I mean, all these things can be true. And if you're a music critic or you're a person who makes music or even someone just who enjoys music, you can, we all are impacted by the fact that, you know, music and the way we write about it and the way we listen to it, it comes and goes. And, you know, there's a good point to be made about it, but I think this is an example where it's difficult for people to, you know, separate the TikTok from the TikToker. Because, look, I had listened to the record, and it's kind of like a mid-Genny Lewis record in a year that Jenny Lewis made a mid-Genny Lewis record. So, but you know what I mean, though? Like, even if that record had been great, there's a very good chance that it would have performed the

same way. I mean, look, I'm not defending the record. I'm just saying that I don't think, like people that wanted to jump on her, like, oh, you made like a mediocre record or whatever, I think that's beside the point of like the larger issue. Because there's great records that get ignored all the time.

And there's mediocre records that do really well, you know? So you know, I think quality sometimes isn't necessarily the barometer here. I mean, what her broader point about the frustration of putting out a record into the world, a record that you worked on for a long time,

and then you feel like it's gone in a week. I mean, I think that's a relatable feeling that a lot of people have, and it's not just records, it's anyone I think that puts creative work out into the world. I mean, that happens with books, it happens with films, it happens with TV shows. I mean, this is just a very oversaturated entertainment market. I will say, like, my immediate thought when I saw this story was, about a story we talked about recently where that guy from Bandcamp, the editorial director, or the editor or whatever, like he went on Instagram and he complained about the Band Camp Union

while posting selfies where he's making like angry faces. And like the 7-Eleven next to like the Cabocha Isle or something. Yeah, and it just reinforced my belief that every person needs to cultivate a network of people that they can text or DM about their professional frustrations and disappointments. And, you know, the people that you could say, oh, doesn't it suck that more people don't like me? And then they're going to say, yeah, man, fuck them. You're the best. And they're going to pat you on the back and you're going to feel better.

And then they're going to forget that you complain. That's what everybody needs because you don't want to turn your professional frustrations and disappointments into contact. You know, that is not ever a good move. Even if, again, I think in this instance, what she's saying is relatable. I've never put out a record, but I have put out books, you know, which so I know what it's like to spend a lot of time on something. And you put it out and you read the reviews and you're looking at your Amazon rankings and you're, you know, want to see how well this thing's going to do.

And, you know, I would say like for myself, like I've been pretty pleased with how my books have done commercially and with critics and all that. But if I want to feel bad about myself, there are writers I can look at and say, well, they're selling more books than me. They're getting more awards. And that's a natural human impulse. I mean, we have something in us that wants to feel like we're awful

and that we're unsuccessful and no one likes us. And you can do that now easier than ever because we're always having other people's lives shoved in our faces. You know, and you can look at other people if you want, and you can feel bad about yourself because you feel like you're not doing as well as them. And I think there's a reason why she posted this TikTok in December and not in July or whenever her album came out. And it's because this is the time of year endless. And she's probably looking at these year endless and looking for her own name and not seeing her name.

But maybe she's seeing Caroline Polichick's name everywhere. And it's like, hey, wait a second. She was also an indie rock band in the early 2010s. And now she's putting out a solo record. But she's getting all these raves. And I'm not getting the raves. And why her and not me? You know, like, why can't I get that kind of Caroline Polichick coverage?

I don't know if that's what happened, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's what happened. Like Caroline Polichick is the person that you would compare yourself to if you want to feel bad about yourself. if you were in a 2010s-era indie rock band now trying to have a solo career. My advice to Bethany Costantino would be compare yourself to less successful people. Like waves. I'm kind of joking there, but I'm kind of not.

Because if you Google Bethany Cozantino, natural weather, there are a lot of articles about that record. From well-known outlets, vulture, the cut, NME, pitch for it. which the pitchfork review wasn't that positive, and she complained about that when that review came out, but at least it got reviewed, which means that she's getting more coverage than like 99.9% of albums that came out this year. You know, so I would argue that she is successful.

In the grand scheme of musicians, like, yeah, you're not Caroline Polichick, but you're also not the 99.9% of people who aren't getting interviewed by Vulture and getting reviewed in pitchfork. I mean, you're still way ahead of most people. So compare yourself to less successful people. You will feel better about yourself. I would say that's good advice for anybody.

I mean, the best advice is don't compare yourself to anybody. Just live in your own life. But again, it's human nature to compare. So, yeah, just look at less successful people. Look behind you. Don't look ahead of you. You'll feel better about yourself. Yeah, or also just like move out of L.A.

I think this is, and I say this is someone who's lived in Los Angeles, you know, there's always that comparison that happens because for the most part, you're probably surrounded with people who are also making art and like maybe more successful or less successful. It's a comparison to the thief of joy. And yeah, I think that this story was also just another example of like how people kind of low-key miss 2010, which because like, you know, you. Yeah, there was like a path forward for, you know, artists of the ilk of Best Coast and also for, like, writers to feel like their writing mattered about it. I just, I really wish I could find this quote because I'm like 90% positive. It's real. But I remember, like, it was like the weekends booking agent saying that like a best new music could increase your booking fee by $25,000 or something like that. There's just no equivalent for it now.

Well, you're talking, but that's like a specific pitchfork thing. Like I, I mean, I, I was never in that world, so I never really thought of my writing, mattering in that kind of way. Like, I think writing now means different things. It matters in different ways, but like if you are a writer who feels like, I want my review to make or break this person, like, yeah, okay, you're not, you're probably going to be let down. But I also feel like that's, like I never wanted that kind of power personally. I never wanted to feel like my review was going to cripple somebody or make their career. That's just like too much power. Unless we're talking about like, what was that corn in the like the Wisconsin alt weekly.

Well, that was a daily newspaper and I knew that that review was not going to move the needle. All it did was make people hate me. It didn't make them feel any way about corn. But anyway, Bethany Cozantino, I relate to what you're saying. I think it's a very natural reaction to putting something out in the world. But also just text your friends about it. I just don't think, I mean, unless the idea is, I'm going to say this publicly so that other musicians who might feel the same way will feel validated in their feelings. I mean, that's maybe a justification for doing it.

But I just think on a personal level, you don't want to turn your professional frustrations into kind of. You don't want that to define you because that becomes a limiting narrative in your career. Yeah, and this is why we don't have the Indycast Patreon special edition. Yeah, well, yeah. But, you know, keep it in the DMs. That's what the DMs are for. It's good. It's a good system.

All right, let's get to the Indycastes. We should have like a real horn there. The horn player didn't show up. For those who don't know, every year, Ian and I, we get together and we present awards for indie cast excellence. And it really is about the show. It is about the people that gave us the best things to talk about this year. And we want to give thanks to them. We want to give them awards.

What do you think about this year in terms of the indie cast? How do you feel about this group of nominees that we have? Do you feel like it's a strong year, a down year? I'm still processing my emotions about it because you, you chimed in first with, like, your ideas about certain categories. And I'm looking at these. I'm like, there's no fucking way this happened in 2023. This is, like, becoming more pronounced as we continue to do this show where, I mean, I know that these things happen in 2020. and like we might as well just consider like March to be a completely different era. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm like looking back past our old episodes and the descriptions in Spotify. And I'm looking at it's like there's no way we taught. Like, wow, we spent 15 minutes on that. And it felt so real at the time. But now I'm feeling a little bit like Bethany Costantino. Like we really worked hard to hash out these trends. and they just lost the digital dustbin of history.

Well, you know, because when I was figuring out the nominees, I was going through old episodes, and it really was a trip down memory lane because there were certain stories I'd forgotten about. And I was actually delighted to be reminded of them going through it. I kind of feel like the first half of the year had more ridiculousness going on than the second half. although there was ridiculousness all over the place.

And by the way, Bethany Cozantino, this is like the Siza of Indycast content. You release the Bangor album at the end of the year. Bethany Cozantino going off on TikTok, that you got right under the wire here for Indycastes. Thank you for not doing this, you know, a few days later or next week or right before Christmas. We would have missed it.

Let's just get into it here. This is going to be a two-part episode. We've got a bunch of categories that we're doing in this episode, and then we've got some more next week. I mean, we're like the Oscars. It goes on forever. But we're going to break it up for consumption here. They make it a little easier.

Let's get to our first category. And like the Oscars, it's good to begin with like a big category, like the best supporting actress, best supporting actor. You know, you want to reward people who have tuned in. So let's go with most valuable, annoying music story. And these are the stories I really tried to Because there were a lot of annoying music stories

Throughout the year But I tried to keep it To stories that we talked about on the show Because that's what made it valuable You know like we got a lot out of it It was fun to talk about So these are the nominees And this goes back far

This is kind of in chronological order Like throughout the year Harry Styles winning album of the year Over Beyonce Again No idea I cannot for the life of me, remember that happening in 2020.

That seems like five years ago, but it happened, I think it was in February or so of this year. And like, look, I mean, this is just like a perennial nominee. This is like a Merrill Streep of the Indycasties, you know, a boring, you know, musician winning over, usually Beyonce. I feel like Beyonce always loses here, or it might be Kendrick Lamar, you know, but, yeah, it's like Harry Styles, Adele, Beck, you know, they win. Macklemore. Macle... Did he win album of the year? I think he won rap album of the year over Kendrick Lamar. Like, this happened a few years ago, and that was a whole thing.

By the way, MacLamore, he released an album this year. Oh, man. How about that? Well, we'll get to Memory Hold album later. I don't think he was nominated. That might have been a snub for MacLamore. But yeah, like Mumford and Sons beat Frank Ocean one year for Album of the Year. So that's a perennial nominee. Speaking of Frank Ocean, our next nominee, Frank Ocean's

Coachella fail. Remember that story? Yes. Frank Ocean at Coachella. And the whole thing about like, oh, he was bad on purpose, that argument. That was a great thing. Taylor Swift and Maddie Healy dating for like five minutes. I'm also going to put Travis Kelsey in there too. Just like, it is weird that she dated Maddie Healy and Travis Kelsey this year. That's rage. It's rage. Yeah. She really did it all. all this year. Next time I'm going to be Steve Albini versus Jeff Rosenstock feud.

That was the whole thing about my shoulders are slumped already and like that one was so demoralizing. That was the one about merch cuts like Jeff Rosenstock was come he was tweeting about venues taking a percentage of artists their merch sales and for whatever reason Steve Albini decided to argue with him saying that like he's never had to do a merch cut because he insists done not doing a merch cut. And it has nothing to do with the fact that he produced in utero. And like, that's why people don't want to take his money. So that was the story.

And then finally, we already referenced this. The Band Camp guys meltdown on Instagram. A brilliant story. Let's just throw in Bethany Costantino in here too. I think that's a good, that's a late nominee. So these are the six nominees. What is your winner in this category? I'm just thinking about the way at the end of the year there's like you see these like brackets for the worst tweets of the year and they're all dependent on how much people understand the assignment because you'll see some like tweets that are like actually like really really funny but they're just like kind of morally wrong and those shouldn't count.

It has to be the ones like Zennie Jardin talking about like what's that you claiming or are you G checking them and for me this one has to be. a story that was annoying but like didn't bring me any joy at all. So I would say this kind of has to be the Steve Albini versus Jeff Rosenstock feud, A, because it was two artists who'd make a lot of music that I like. And it really bums me out when you see your two pals fighting. But it also just brought out like the absolute worst in DIY ideals, which, Like anytime people are talking about like DIY in 2023, you know you're going to get a bad discourse. And so, you know, fortunately they hashed it out.

But I had a blast with a lot of these stories. But like the Steve Albini, Jeff Rosenstock feud, I don't know. I'm stressing annoying more than valuable here. Maybe I'm the one who didn't understand the assignment. But I just like when I see it, like my soul just sinks in a way where. You know, Frank Ocean's Coachella fail was annoying because people were like talking about that as some sort of like historic event and then it was forgotten about like the next week. Okay. So I think it is really between Frank Ocean and Steve Albini versus Jeff Rosenstock.

I think those are the two strongest candidates. And I'm going to go with Frank Ocean. And I was going to say this anyway, but since you went with Steve Albini, it just makes me want to go with Frank Ocean. I think they should both be recognized. And I am going with Frank Ocean because it was the most enjoyable, stupid thing to talk about this year. Just a classic case of music critic brain all over this story in all different kinds of directions. But the argument about him, like, quiet quitting at Coachella, that whole thing was so dumb. I just loved it.

I ate it up. And it was just like, oh, yes, give me. more of this. And like all the details too about what was going to go into this performance like the hockey players who were learning how to be like dancers on the ice. Yes.

And all of the other stuff. Just all the crazy elaborate things that were going to go into this performance. It was just beautiful. It had all the elements. When I was going, I'd forgotten that this happened because it was in March and it,

that feels like again five years ago. But to be reminded of it, it's like I fell in love. all over again with this story. So yeah, Frank Ocean, Coachella Fail. Uh, yeah, that's my most valuable, annoying music story. Uh, I can't wait until we do the one year anniversary story of Frank Ocean's Coachella. Oh my God. We just need to like update this one every single year. This is going to keep giving. That should be like Christmas and March, I think, or April. Yeah, with the ice skaters, that was kind of what he was going to. Exactly. Yeah, it should,

that should be something that we just revisit every year. We can revisit all the tweets and all the think pieces and we can reenact people's reactions to it. I think it would be a really fun annual tradition. Do you want to present our next category? Yeah, this one goes to the album cycle of the year. I think we have to stress that it's the album cycle, not the actual album. Yeah, and again, this is like album cycles that give us a lot to talk about, whether it's because there's interviews or there's funny, crazy tweets about it, or whatever the case may be.

That's what makes it the album's upcycle of the year for us. All right. So we got Boy Genius with the record. Smokey Robinson with Gasm. I think that's strong contending. Gasms. Let's put Bethany Kosentino's natural wonder in here as well. Is that what it's, I forgot the name of the album.

I think it's natural weather. That's what I said earlier. Natural weather. Natural weather. So yes, Bethany Kosentino gave us like reviewed discourse and post-album discourse. It gave us a lot and asked for so little. The dare, we're going to put there,

more of an EP cycle. I think it counts. Hold on a second. The Bethany album is called Natural Disaster. So we have proved her right by getting this album title wrong several times in a row. Sorry, it's called Natural Disaster.

Okay, continue. All right, and then we got Mac DeMarco with his little data dump, which was fun to discuss. I think it was like nine hours of recording. And now we have Oliver Anthony. Yes. I love the fact that this guy got on here despite not releasing an album.

Yeah, okay, yeah. He didn't put out an album, but like it felt like an album cycle. He had one song that just like took over the world for about three days. So, yeah, I put him in there. And also that came out in August, which is kind of a dead zone. So, you know, for the show, it was great to have Oliver and Anthony singing about fudge rounds in mid-August. Okay, so out of all these nominees, very worthy nominees,

I'm going to cancel out Smokey Robinson Gasm's. It's the album title of the year, but we didn't talk about it on the show. So I feel like it wasn't important for us here in the Indycast universe. For me, this is obvious. I'm going with the dare. The dare, if you don't remember and you probably don't, because nobody cared. But this was an EP called The Sex EP,

about 15 minutes of music from a New York-based musician, very horny synth rock. And it was attached to this totally fraudulent trend called Indies, that a writer, I think for New York Magazine just like made up or they're trying to like actualize this into existence. But this record, which is of no consequence

like nobody, no real people actually care about this record but there were so many people that just lined up to rip this record write pans of this record like it was a major event and it was treated like a major event for again for about three days

and then everyone forgot about it so I just feel like the amount of content that was created off of that record and the ratio of that to the actual music on the record and like how little actual, like actually actual music this person has made, the cost-benefit is just incredible. It's off the charts.

The value content-wise from this music, you weren't going to get a better rate of exchange this year. So, yeah, for me, it's the dare. Album cycle of the year. Yeah, I put Gasm's on there as like maybe the 2020s answer to honking on Bobo. Like, we're just going to refer to the album title going forward with nobody actually remember.

remembering the record. But yeah, I kind of have to agree. Like, I did want to think about, like, Oliver Anthony being in there because he gave us so much content for one song. That's true. You know, the argument I made for The Dare is actually more true of Oliver Anthony. But I'm still going to go with the Dare, but, like, Oliver Anthony is a strong candidate. Yeah, and I'm going to go with The Dare, too, because Oliver Anthony's discourse got,

I mean, it seemed like way more meaningful. I do think that his sort of like political heel turn toward the left, like he kind of had a reverse milkshake duck thing going was a neat little story. But the dare, I mean, and for an album that like really was a kind of big nothing, it plays into so many other categories that we have here because, yeah, like dime square, indie sleeves, this is all New York media. invention. And it is kind of like a throwback to peak blog, peak indie era where, you know, if this were 2012, we would be like talking about the dare for at least six episodes. But I think it just kind of shows how siloed and atomized the conversation is because, I mean, I was hearing rumors about the advance this project got from the record label. It was like astronomical and at the end of the day like I don't remember a thing about it I think the fact I really wish they would have chosen like a different EP name because like the 1975 had an EP called sex and but like I just also love the fact that the dare was a project called Turtleneck from like Portland in 2017 it just kind of goes to show just how both strong and also

ultimately futile the New York-centered media is at the moment? Well, you know, this reminds me of like a tweet I saw recently where it was some person, I think they were 26 years old, and they were saying, I would have loved to have been 26 in 2013 in Brooklyn, like treating 2013 Brooklyn as like some sort of like Halcyon period. I mean, this just goes to show that New Yorkers will, be nostalgic about the New Yorker of like 10 to 15 years ago like forever and it doesn't even matter like what the reality is actually like

I get romanticizing the late 70s New York but we're romanticizing early 2010's Brooklyn like are you joking come on here this this sounds like the words of someone who never saw perfect pussy play Kent 285 if you know you know all right well let's let's be a little positive here we've been dunking here on our first two categories so let's get to a feel-good story. This is the feel-good story of the year award. And these are the nominees.

The Rise of Wednesday and the Wednesday-adjacent cinematic universe. And I'm speaking there of like all of these sort of like southern bands that are kind of like all country bands, but they have heavier guitars. Like that was like a big movement this year. And it seems like something that really like was like one of the big trends in music. And it's something I'm a big fan of. So I feel good about that. MJ Lenderman, of course, a person who I say, I say his name in every episode of this show, I think. He's also part of that as well. Next nominee, Rat Boys getting their long overdue props.

Shout out to Rat Boys, one of the most likable, lovable bands. In indie rock, good for them. American Football buys the American Football House. That was a great story this year. Ed Drosty of Grizzly Bear, becoming a therapist. Good for him. Hey, possibly a path forward for Bethany Cozantino. That last Beatles song that came out now and then.

And the terrible but likable video that Peter Jackson made, just an incredible work of art that looks like it cost $20 million, but still has like a public access TV quality to it. And this is obviously you, Emo Revival, 10-year anniversary tours and retrospect. I guess we're talking about the hotel year and foxing and there was also give up. Balance and composure. We also have the Wonder Years doing a big greatest generation tour.

I mean, we can go on and on about that. So what was your feel good story of the year? Yeah, I mean, I obviously want to say like the Emo Revival 10-year anniversary pieces because, you know, much like Bethany Cozantino, So, you know, like a lot of the stuff I write, and we've talked about how, like, some of our stuff doesn't get cycled through the music writer, Twitter, ringer where it's like, oh, this is, they really got into that piece. Like, this is what music writing is supposed to do. And sometimes I can feel like, I don't know, like, the stuff I was writing in 2013 is probably the most impactful stuff that I have done as a writer. and 10 years later, I'm like, does anyone give a shit about this stuff?

And it was cool to see that in some of the 10 year anniversary pieces, like they mentioned some of the reviews I wrote as actually being important. So that felt good, but I think the feel good story of the year for real has to be Ed Dross becoming Ed from Grizzly Bear. I don't know how to pronounce his last name,

becoming a therapist. Because, I mean, this was like really someone kind of owning their shit. Because like the, the in 2012 like vulture published that article about grizzly bear where they were like hey we're not as rich as you might think we are and um you know they got clowned a lot for that and rather than trying to you know bully his way into some sort of like career where like you try to round up two

out of the three members and just try to do like these kind of sad anniversary tours or be like uh you know just like making crappy like solo albums like he seemed like he seems like like legit happy. And that's what feels good to me because like, I think this kind of speaks to how when people saw that like Lockett from Deer Hunter does like coding or something like that, I think it just showed people be more accepting of indie rock artists having other jobs, which you know, is obviously relevant for me because like my day job is not in music writing at all. And so on the one hand, I would love for them to be able to live strictly. off their music, but I also think it's feel good because it shows a greater amount of acceptance

from people about like the plight of the indie musician. So I'm going to go with the rise of Wednesday and Wednesday adjacent rock being my feel good story of the year. Yeah, we've talked about this on the show. I feel like we've been in a rut of like singer-songwriter music for the past several years, very quiet, hushed sounding records. and this just heralded a new sound that I love where it's louder, there's lots of pedal steel guitar, it's influenced by drive-by truckers, there's storytelling lyrics going on,

you've got Jason Molina influence, I mean, so many things that are up my alley, and I feel like, okay, we're going to get a lot of bands that sound like this probably next year and the year after that. And at some point, I'm going to hate it and be sick of it, but right now I'm really excited for it. This is a trend that I think could have legs, and it's already produced a lot of records I love. So that was a trend that I really love this year.

I loved hashing it out. We actually do have our favorite trends that we love to hash out later on in the show. That's a category. But yeah, this was my feel-good story of the year. They're also, you know, we've talked about this. You read stories about Wednesday. They're a good hang. You know, they seem like cool people.

So I was very happy to see it this year. and I hope that it continues and continues to roll on as we enter the mid-2020s. Next category, do you want to present this one, Ian? Yeah, absolutely. So again, I almost feel like this should be at the end of the show because it's like my personal favorite, and it kind of gets to what we talk about, when we talk about what we talk about. So this is the most 2023 album of 2023, which is,

To define it not as like the best album of 2023 or the one we talked about the most, but the one that makes us remember what it was like to talk about music in 2023. So the nominees here are once again Boy Genius. We have Caroline Polichick making the first of what will be several appearances. The Andre 3000 flute album, I believe it's called New Blue Sun. Blond shell self-title. And I made sure this one's on here. I'm not sure if you've heard this one, but it's an album by.

a pop artist named Baby Queen, and it's called Quarter Life Crisis. And I will elaborate on this one if you haven't heard it yet. But have you heard of this one? No, I didn't. And you posted a link to the Pitchfork Review, and the subhead on the review is,

like Olivia Rodriguez, if she was raised on pink. So, yeah, I can buy that as a nominee here. So, you know, there's a lot of good nominees here. When I think about the most 20-23 album of 2023, I think, like, what is the album that people are going to bring up in the future to signify this year? Like, you can just say this album, and it's instantly going to evoke 2023. And, man, there's a lot of good choices here. I'm tempted to go with Boy Genius because I just think that record, along with being very popular, it seems to represent a lot of things that have been going on in music for the last, again, several years.

It feels like a culmination, really, of that singer-songwriter movement that's been so central in the conversation about indie rock, you know, going back to like the late 2010s. But I'm going to go with the Andre 3000 flute album. not necessarily because it like sounds like trendy sounds of this year. It clearly does not. But it's such a unique record. And I feel like it's a record that when people make jokes about 2023, that this is going to be a good reference point.

And it's not going to be referencing the album title. It's going to be referencing the Andre 3000 flute album, because that is the real title of this record. Just like they don't call it. the album the Beatles, they call it the white album, you know, they call it the self-titled Weasor, they call it the blue album. This is the Andre 3000 flute album. So that's my pick for the most 23 album of 2023. All right. So when I'm going to like make a slight deviation in the TV cast right now to explain my choice. Oh wow. Wow. Yeah, because I mean when you look at like

the top 10 TV shows at stuff like Succession or B for, you know, the, And like, I don't think that these shows really will let someone in the future know what it was like to actually live in 2023. For me, that's going to be the fall of the House of Usher, which is a show I finished and like it aggravated me so much to do so. Because this was a show about like a family, like fighting over their business empire. So it like had that succession core kind of thing. It also had the, you know, knives out, glass onion, who done it sort of format. I had a stand-in for the Sackler family, which you either need to have that on a TV show or a stand-in for Elon Musk. And it's one of these modern comedies where there are no actual jokes.

Like the jokes are just like some 25-year-old giving like a one-minute monologue about some social justice issue. That's like just pulled directly from Twitter. And so when I look at that kind of show, it is so on trend for 2023 that it feels immediately dated in a way that's uncanny. and when we when I think about that with music it absolutely has to be blonde show um this is this brings so many even more so than I think than boy genius like threads about trying to make it in this year like it's got the nepo baby discourse but it's not like this person is I don't know the daughter of a the guy who played like bass and switch foot it's just like hey she's the daughter of like a really rich guy um and this is an artist who tried to do I think like kind of a

of a more of an indie pop sort of thing a few years back and completely changed their name and did more of an alt-rock sort of thing in 2023. All of their articles are like, your new Jewish queer princess and all their like interviews and lyrics are about like therapy. And so this is like instantaneous remember some guys. Now, this is made quite a few year endless and I'm sure that the people who like this do so in good faith. But if we're going to talk about what? what 2023 was, not like the cream of the crop, but like what it felt like to be online each day, seeing bands trying to make it.

I think you kind of have to go with Blancho. Like maybe this is the best coast of like 2023. Like maybe, because she is an L.A. artist. Maybe Bethany and Cozantino saw this. It's like, damn, if I were younger, this could have been me this year. Yeah, it is one of those records that on paper is set up to be one of the year's best albums, like the way it's described.

and you just articulated some of the headlines that were written about this record. It just seems like, oh, of course, this is going to be one of the year's best albums because it's designed in a way that is similar to other records that have done really well in the last five years. And maybe, you know,

getting back to my feel good story of the year, this might be overly wishful thinking, but I'm kind of ready for this era to be done, and I want something else to come along. And I'm hoping that maybe it is like these loud guitar bands from the South who write storytelling lyrics and about drugs and drive-by trucker songs. And if that becomes a thing that I become sick of in five years, but for now I just absolutely love. Like I guess I hope that this is the next thing.

I mean, in reality, there's always going to be a lane for, you know, singer-songwriters that connect with people between the ages of 16 and 22. like that's sort of an evergreen genre, but we are sort of like in the candlebox era of that, I think, a little bit, and it's ready to move on. And that's an ancient reference, you know, for people out there, but you can Google that.

Let's get to the final award of this episode. And this is the Phoebe Bridgers Award. This is an annual award, and this is an award reserved for a very hyped album that actually turned out to be good. So, you know, we've talked about hype before, and hype can really turn people off, can turn us off.

Even professional critics like ourselves are susceptible to a hype backlash. But sometimes a record gets hyped a lot and maybe you're ready to not like it, but then you listen to it and you're like, actually, this is really good. It deserves the hype. So do you want to read these nominees, Ian?

Yeah, yeah. So the nominees here, we have Wednesday. 100 gecks Lorraine One of my Real rainmakers in our fantasy draft Caroline Polichick And Billy Woods

Kenny Siegel's album Maps Yes Yeah so again You know I mean I've been hyping Wednesday Throughout this episode So obviously they They deserve to be here 100 gecks

Were they actually hyped a little less this year? Yes I think that's the case. Yeah, but that record was great. I mean, they've been hyped a lot, but that record was great. I'm going to go with Lorraine in this category as being my winner of a hyped album. That was really good. And, you know, we talked about this last week about how when you look at this year-end list, there are a lot of records that seem like they're designed to make a year-end list and then never be talked about again. You know, and we talked about some of the categories of those records. You have like the crossover jazz record.

You have like the death metal record that has like some sort of progressive edge to it. You have like rap records with unpronounceable names. And I think Lorraine in a way you, if you looked at this superficially, you might feel like, oh, this falls under that category, this experimental music from New York that combines all these different genres in a very sort of intellectual way. But I think the record really works. I described it as Prague rock in my blurb on the year-end list, and I really think it is.

It reminds me in a lot of ways of like Peter Gabriel records, you know, like where there is a, you have elements of rock and R&B and electronic music and more sort of esoteric things, but it ends out, it ends up coming out, you know, sounding like pop music in a weird way, like at least artie pop music. and I'm always susceptible to that kind of thing and the record is called I killed your dog by the way which triggers me a little bit

because my dog died this year I don't like to think about dogs dying but we'll set that aside but yeah I love the record I think it's really good and it deserved the hype in my opinion so that would be my winner in this category how about you Ian what is your winner here

so I was tempted to say Wednesday because you can kind of get a sense that people were trying, like, it was that like real half-ass backlash, uh, to this record, like people may be talking about like how the sequencing wasn't good or like, oh, I would produce it differently. And these things, it's just like so granular that, none of this never caught on. I think, um, I think the, uh, Wednesday backlash or the attempt that it really exhausted itself, like actually last year. So by the time, time they put out a record, everyone was willing to celebrate it. But you mentioned 100 Gex as an example of

like, was this really hyped? It seemed like it was a bit dying down. And this is, I'm going to go with Caroline Polichick as the winner for kind of a similar thing. Because the singles were like beloved in a way. You know, Bunny was a writer, I think was like 2021 pitchfork song of the year or 2022. But, you know, on the version of the album coming out, like I got the sense that maybe some, you know, maybe some of the subsequent singles weren't hitting. And when we talk, on our next episode, we're going to talk about, like, albums that were, like, overrated. I think there were a lot of, like, pop or, like, big ticket records that, like, were on,

like, were high on your end list, but, like, weren't actually that good. And this album is actually, like, when you compare it to other pop records or other, you know, big indie records, it really is that creative. It really is that unique. And, you know, it does have kind of a, it feels like art. in a way that a lot of similar stuff of this year, like, didn't. And, yeah, I mean, it came out on Valentine's Day, you know, very appropriate. And I listen to him, like, yeah, I can't front.

This is, like, this is really fucking good. And a lot of the singles that I didn't feel so strongly about, like, as singles, like, worked a lot better in album context. So, um, yeah, I, it's sort of like, it's not going to be nominating the album. I was surprised I like, but nonetheless, I think this is an album that's like really as good as people say it is. And, you know, we touched on this earlier, but I mean, there is something inspiring about an artist who got her start in, you know, early 2010s, like chairlift. Did they start in the aughts?

Yeah, I think it was late aughts or like kind of bridging the, bridging the gap between the late odds early 2000s. And we, you know, we've given all these examples of like peak indie and like how artists had their moment at that time and then maybe they have a difficult time later on. And it's just been great to see her be able to move on to a solo career and really be at the center of like what indie music is right now. And it seems like she's connected with an audience that would have been like in grade school like when chairlift was making music. Like she's got like a pretty young audience. So great for her that she was able to do that. That's a very difficult thing to do. And I think it

does speak to what you were just saying about how just just like a lot of craft. that record. I mean, she knows what she's doing. She knows how to make really good records. And there's also the personal element there as well that people have connected with. So yeah, bully for her. Hats off. Really good record. I think we're going to pause right now for the Indy Cassies. We're going to give you all a chance to stretch your legs, reflect on the awards that have already happened. Maybe you can go online and register your complaints, you know, say like, well, this should have been album of the year, or should have been album cycle of the year.

You know, what about Al Over Anthony? Yeah, give them the Indicast Mailbag address. Yeah, Indicast Mailbag at gmail.com. We're not going to read your letter because we're recording next week's episode right after this one. But, you know, in the new year, we'll read it because we're going to need content. January is a wasteland. So probably do multiple mailbag episodes then. But we don't have to worry about that right now.

We are an indie cast-y season. So, yeah, we're taking a break. We'll be back with more Indie Cassie's next week, as well as more reviews and news and hashing out trends. So thank you for listening. We'll see you next week. And if you're looking for more music recommendations, sign up for the Indie Mix Taped newsletter. You can go to uprocks.com backslash indie, and I recommend five albums per week, and we'll send it directly to your email box.