Indiecast - The Best Album Of The Decade Contenders, Plus: Wednesday's 'Rat Saw God' and Boygenius Discourse

Episode Date: April 7, 2023

Because Indiecast is obligated to talk about the biggest indie news of the week — it's right there in the introduction — they were required to open this week's episode with an overview of the Boygenius discourse (:30). Which turned toxic over the weekend for all of the predictable reasons. However, is it possible to think that The Record is neither a masterpiece nor the worst thing ever but simply ... okay?One album Steve and Ian think is a lot better than okay is Rat Saw God, the latest from North Carolina band Wednesday. Steve and Ian both wrote about this album this week, and both came away impressed by Karly Hartzman's ability to evoke a real sense of place in her lyrics (8:23). Coupled with the band's heavy guitar sound, Wednesday brings to mind one of their biggest influences, Drive-By Truckers. Might the critical acclaim of Rat Saw God bring more people to the DBT fold? (20:22)Next they turn to the mailbag, and address an interesting listener question: What is the best album of the decade so far? (30:42) Which leads to other interesting questions: How did the pandemic mess with how we perceive early 2020s music? Has the album that will define this decade even been released yet? After that, they proceed to talk about the legacies of two very different acts: The Beastie Boys and Coheed & Cambria.Finally, in Recommendation Corner (55:13) Ian recommends the reissue of an emo classic by Braid, while Steve stumps for the patio and cookout friendly jams of Sluice.New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 133 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 Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Indycast is presented by Uprocks's Indy Mix tape. Hello everyone and welcome to Indycast on the show we talk about the biggest indie news of the week, review albums, and we hash out trends. In this episode, we discussed the new album by Wednesday, the best albums by Drive by Truckers, and the potential best album of the decade. Yes, we're getting ahead on that one. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. He survived the Boy Genius Discourse of 2023. Ian Cohen. Ian, how are you?

So because of the big military presence in San Diego, you'll see these TV ads. Like, if you were stationed at Camp Lejeune or Camp Pendleton from 1970 to 1990, you may be entitled to compensation. And I feel like in 20 years, there's going to be like a music writer Twitter version of mesothelioma where someone's just going to get like a $20 million settlement because their brain was just completely warped by the Boy Genius discourse.

Yeah, you know, we, I just said, we talk about the biggest indie news of the week on the show, and I feel like as much as we didn't want to, we have to touch on the boy genius discourse, because that is the biggest indie news of the week. It's petered out, I think, by now, but it was hot and heavy over the weekend. Yeah. Which, by the way, you know, summer's coming up here. we should have like a no fighting rule on weekends. There should be no discourse after 5 p.m. Eastern standard time on Friday afternoon. And then it can resume at like 8 a.m. Monday morning.

I think there's like a law like that in France where it's illegal to answer a work email after 7 o'clock or whatever. But I think this is just an argument to move release dates back to Tuesday. This is no way to spend a weekend. Exactly. It just spilled over it in the weekend You know, we every year I guess every half year We do our Indycaste the awards

And one of the categories Is Most Annoying Story And I feel like the Boy Genius Discourse Is the everything everywhere all at once Of this category Just an unstoppable juggernaut I don't know if anything's gonna Threaten it

I don't know what could happen We need like the Godfather part two Of annoying music stories To challenge the Boy Gene discourse. Let's just run through everything here because it got very reactionary. Very quickly. Yeah. I should say at the start that the Boy Genius record called the record. We talked about this last week. The meta score, do you know what the meta score is? Just take a guess. What do you think

the Metacritic score is for this Boy Genius record? I guess it's like 92. Okay. So it's actually a little bit lower than that. It's a 90. Okay, well, that's like a rare beast, you know, like, there's only like what, like nothing ever gets lower than a 70 and nothing ever gets higher than a 90. Well, I looked this up and none of the records that the boy genius people have put out individually, P.B. Bridgers, Lucy Dacis, and Julian Baker, none of them got a 90 except for Punisher. Punisher got a 90. Oh, I mean, that is the best of the bunch, though. It is. It's also, I think, a lot better than the... this boy genius record. I mean, not to re-litigate this,

but I, and I would say that the other albums that these artists have put on individually are better than this boy genius record.

That score seems incredibly inflated to me. So we have very hyperbolic praise of this record. Then you have very hyperbolic negativity about this record.

There was a viral blog post where the writer basically called it like the worst album of the year so far. Yeah. Which is not.

that's hyperbolic too although there did you read that post yeah it was like 400 words and you know like if it was this long track like dissecting the lyrics and talking about like you'll see this every now and again with like ted lasso or whatever where there's like a real considered nuance takedown of it and you know after what you were describing like look i'm not um endorsing this person's opinion or the blog itself but like sometimes you just got to see some like straight up hater shit. Yeah, it was uncut. Just to balance it out. Yeah, it's uncut haterism.

And there was some other things bubbling up online about it. Basically, there was this thing about how this Boy Genius record represents everything that's wrong with indie music, that if you like this record, you know, you're a boring person, essentially. You're like a normie person who is pretending to be progressive in some way. And then you have the reaction to that, which is, if you're, you're a normy person who is, if you're, you're, like, a normy person who is pretending to be progressive in some way. and then you have the reaction to that, which is if you don't like this record,

you are a sexist and or a homophobe. So the hyperbole is answered with more hyperbole. It's just going off the rails. One thing that I did think was funny, and I regret not noting this in my review, was the song Leonard Cohen on the Boy Genius record. There's a line in there where Lucy Dacus is, making fun of Leonard Cohen and something about him,

like writing horny poetry. It's kind of a clunky line. And that got, like, roasted. I think Vulture did an entire story about, like, how to properly reference Leonard Cohen in a song. They did, yeah. Because, like, Lina Del Rey did the same, she referenced the same Leonard Cohen song, like, on her record.

Yeah, like, that line's becoming kind of hallelujah level of, like, overused. So that part I get. I think Succession was a good way to use Leonard Cohen, though. Yeah, that was a funny. That was the famous blue raincoat, Connor Roy singing at karaoke. But yeah, it just became this thing, and this happens with anything that breaks big in culture

where it's no longer just a record, it's a way to write about people that you think are annoying or awful. And so if you like the record, that signifies something. If you don't like the record, that signifies something. And in reality, look, I mean, I think we're on the same page on this. If I was giving, like, this, a pitchfork score, this album, I would have given it like a 6.7. That's where I think it is.

I think there's some good songs on the record. I think there's some clunkers on the record. It's somewhere in the middle for me. You know, on the Rolling Stone scale, it would be like a little bit more than three stars out of five. Like, that to me is what this album is. Is that where you're at? I think it's in the middle. it's not a masterpiece,

which is what I think a lot of the reviews were saying. I think it's overstated. It's not the worst album of the year. It's not bad. It's somewhere in the middle, I think. Yeah, and I actually like the fact that there's like some of those clunky lines

because someone, I think, rightfully compared it to the 1975 in that it was a lyric that seems like it was written to be read rather than sung when you read it on the page. it doesn't quite work but it just kind of reminds me of how much fun it is

to have a band like the 1975 which is still pretty esteemed they make most year endless but you can make fun of them without worrying about ruining your weekend I think that they as long as they're around to just kind of represent that you can take

a free shot at them and there's some stakes but yeah I just I wish that we had more bands like that I don't think Black Country New Roads popular enough to qualify, but they're also that sort of band where you can just say, yeah, this shit's annoying, the people who like it are weird, I don't like this. And people like, yeah, I kind of get it, you know?

Yeah. Yeah, Boy Genius is not that band. I feel like if you're going to take a shot at Boy Genius, you got to be prepared to take some shots yourself, which is fine, you know. Look, I wrote a mixed review of that album. Some people didn't like it. That's fine. It's all conversation.

but I have to say, and this is a segue into our next topic, that there's an album out this week that I think to me it spotlights or reiterates some of the weaknesses of that Boy Genius record in terms of the lyrics, because this album, I think, has some of my favorite lyrics of the year, and what I like about it is that it really puts you in a specific place. There isn't a lot of music these days that I feel like, comes from like a place in the country where you feel like it's of that place.

I feel like this is just true. I wrote a review of this album. I should say what the album is. It's Wednesday. It's Mudhoney's Plastic Eternity. It's the new Wednesday album. It's called Ratsaw God. And in my review of this album that went up on Uprax this week, I should say that we both

wrote about this record. And I think our pieces went up the same day. You wrote a profile for the ringer. really good piece, lots of good details in that story. And I wrote a straight-up review because I knew that there was like a million profiles of this band that were going to be drawn. So I'm like, I don't know if I want to interview Carly Hartsman,

even though I like her a lot. I talked to her briefly when I interviewed M.J. Lenderman back in December when his record came out. Anyway, this record, to me, it reminds me of like the indie rock of the 80s and 90s in that back then it mattered if you were from Minneapolis or Seattle or Athens, Georgia. Like the music that came from particular towns had a flavor to it. And that's something that I feel like has been lost in the post-internet world where it seems like where you're from

doesn't really matter that much. I mean, there's a lot of bands from Philadelphia, for instance. And aside from like tweeting go birds every week during football season, I don't know of being from Philly is and says that you know informs their music you know I don't I don't really hear I mean there's some I mean like the wonder years I feel like there's some Philly specific stuff there but

yeah that's because they say go birds on like every other song like they have they are like go birds the album but you know this record it takes place in something that I like to call the gummo South and I like that phrase I refer to this there's a movie from 1997 called Gummo, directed by Harmony Corinne,

which I think takes place in Nashville. It might be Memphis, but I'm pretty sure it's Nashville. And it's basically, you know, a very episodic film, a lot of non-sequitur-type scenes, where the focus is on this, like, grotesque imagery that is so grotesque that, along with being disturbing, it becomes darkly comic. And this Wednesday record, I think,

has a similar vibe to it. You know, Carly Hartspin writes about burned down dairy queens and sex shops by the highway that have biblical names and houses that have cocaine and guns in the wall

and, like, bad sexual experiences that take place in cars. You know, like all this kind of stuff that is taken from life, and in life it feels mundane, but when she writes about it in the songs, it does that thing that art does where it elevates it,

and makes you really feel like you're part of this world. I mean, just like the title, like the title of the first song is, what is it? It's like hot, hot, hot, yeah, hot and grass smell. Hot, rot and grass smell, which I feel like just reading that fills my nostrils with the smell of like late July in the South, you know. Even like in the Midwest, like I know what she's writing about there. So just like the specificity of this record I really responded to. I mean, do you know what I mean?

Like, are you in the same page with that? Yeah, because, I mean, I, first off, I just have to give a shout to Carly Hartzman, Jewish excellence in the South. Like, once I read that, she went to, like, Jewish summer camp. We talked about that a lot. That didn't quite make the cut. There was just, it's like one of those, like, oh, my God, like, this is such a cool thing. I want to share this, but you can't find any place in the article for it to make sense.

So I got to cut it. But I think you're right in that. it is an album with a real sense of place. And having lived in numerous places in the South throughout my life, that really, that resonated with me as well. I think that you're absolutely correct in that, you know, you could be a band from Philly just by nature of your sound. Like, I'll hear a band.

I'm like, okay, they're probably from Philly just because they have a certain set of sonic signifiers that have absolutely nothing to do with the city itself. But I don't think this band could be them. if they were for anywhere else in the country, which is, I think, one of the major draws of this band. And also, and this kind of carries off the Boy Genius discussion, a lot of the deliberation about that record was about, like, how important it should be to consider, like, their public performance of friendship and, like, how people might be drawn to that after the pandemic. and I think that's what really helped Wednesday elevate themselves beyond similar sounding bands. And I think that's true now. Like, beyond the fact that it's like a big record and a good record, I just think a lot of people want to interview Wednesday because it seemed like a fun band to talk to, which they totally are.

Like they lived up to everything I expected when I interviewed them. M.J. Lenderman or Jacob Lenderman, exactly what you would think talking to him. Carly, exactly what you think. The other two people are exactly, they give you exactly what you expect. respect and they just seem like they really, really like each other in a way that I think is unusual because A, they're a band and B, they're not like kind of removed from online stuff. So, you know, I just really appreciate the fact they made a really good record. I would not want that cognitive dissonance of like really liking this band, but like being kind

of mad on their music. Yeah, and we should fill in some of the background here for people who don't know Wednesdays. We've talked about them on the show, but they're a rising band. They're still finding an audience. And we both love them, and they're getting a lot of great press on this record. But this is a band from Asheville, North Carolina, centered around this singer-songwriter named Carly Hartzman. They really broke, I don't want to say big, but broke in like an indie big sense with their

20-21 record Twin Plagues. And that record really solidified this vibe that they have. It's been called Country Gaze, which is kind of a clunky phrase, but it's Alt Country with like heavy guitars that sound kind of like Shugays, kind of like grunge. Like in my review, I likened it to Southern Rock Opera, car wheels on a gravel road, and Siamese Dream, kind of being put together at one record.

Yeah. So it has that drive-by trucker's quality of storytelling lyrics about the South. with some of the alt-country stuff from Lucinda Williams, car wheels on a gravel road, and then again, like the grungy, alt-rock-type guitar sounds that you get on Siamese Dream. It was fascinating to me about this band

because you're right, they are a band, and I think each person makes important contributions, but Carly Hartsman is basically like, okay, MJ Lenderman, I know you're a great songwriter, but I'm good. I can take the reins of this.

This is my band. I don't need any songs from you. And she's totally justified. Like, she could carry this band on her own. It's just amazing to me that you have a songwriter like that good. And, you know, M.J. Lenderman, both songs. That was tied for my favorite album of last year. But he doesn't contribute any songs here.

This is Carly Hartsman's band. This is her vision. And she is a different songwriter than Lenderman is. Lenderman, I think, is a more overtly comic songwriter. I mean, there is certainly pathos in his songs, I think. but Hartsman, I think she also has funny aspects of her songwriting, but it is, again, this sort of observational surrealism going on in her lyrics. There's a lot of darkness going on.

And similar to the gummo comparison I made, some of the things that she writes about are so grotesque that they become funny because she just delivers them in this sort of dispassionate, deadpan way. And it's a really interesting perspective. and again, it creates a world that I think really jumps out. And you're right, there are other bands that are working in this vein, and we've talked about them on the show, this sort of country-ish type songwriting with heavier guitars on it.

But I think her lyrical perspective really sets Wednesday apart. And that, for me, is like what really puts this record over. I like the music a lot on the record. The things that they're drawing from, I think I said this in my review, It's like if you made a record in a lab to cater to people with like my kind of taste, like this record would come out. But the lyrics, her just her ability as a writer, I think, elevates it to something beyond just sort of catering to that kind of alt-country heavy guitar type thing.

Yeah. And for me, it brings up, like not just drive-by truckers in the lyrical sense, but I would also say Riloh-Kiley. And I say this because like those two hours, albums like decoration day and the execution of all things were just like massive for me when I was you know like 22 and most of my life evolved around like getting drunk and being stupid and like those lyrics like felt like they take place in a real part of the world which kind of separates it from a lot of not similar sounding music but like similarly written music that just seems like the lines

the like you could tell like which lines are supposed to be quotable but they're very like kind of Twitter quotey. And, you know, like Rilow Kiley, like drive-by truckers, like Wednesday's lyrics take place in a real world where it's actually like physical and visceral, which, you know, I could hear a lot of bands trying to do stuff like this and just having it fall flat or just having it sound too cater to the, to like Twitter quotes. Yeah, I think what sets Hartsman apart is that she's showing rather than telling. I think that there's a strain of songwriting right now in indie music where it is almost like tweet lyrics where you're explicitly saying I'm sad, I'm depressed.

And I don't feel like Hartsman does that as a writer. I think she's describing scenarios where you can ascertain how she feels, but it's not just laying it out for you in a direct kind of way. And I just prefer that kind of songwriting. I think, again, there is a sort of like, almost like a physical sense of her lyrics where you feel like you're seeing and tasting and hearing and smelling the things that she's describing. And it's a very sensory type of writing that I think is special, and I really respond to it. I have to shout out, too. I read a review on the alternative by Grace Robin Summer.

She used the phrase dirtbag hymns to describe this record. I like that phrase a lot. I think in the ringer one, that we went with teenage dirtbag hymnals. See, yeah, dirtbag hymn, get that in there. I think that that's really good. You know, one thing that you brought up to me this week because we were DMing about this record

is how is this record going to impact drive-by truckers? Because, you know, Carly Hartman has been very, vocal about drive-by truckers being an influence. And she even references drive-by truckers on this record. I think it's in the song Bath County, which is one of the best songs on the record. She's... Narcan.

Yeah, right. Yeah. Like hitting a guy with Narcan and listening to Drive-By Truckers, which is like a drive-by-trucker's lyric if, like, they said, Skinnerd. Right, exactly. And you were like, you know, is this going to bring a younger audience to drive-by truckers.

Because I think, you know, Drive-by Truckers, they're a band. They've been around for a long time. I think, like, over 25 years. Yeah, forever. And, like, I love them and you love them. But they are hampered, I think, by two things. Number one is the band name, which even, you know, Patterson Hood himself, I have interviewed him many times, and he's often lamented that this name,

I think he said, you know, it sounded good at the Starboard. bar in Atlanta 30 years ago. Maybe not so much now. I mean, for people who are put off by the name, just imagine if like, Huba Stank was as good as radio head. You know? I think there's a similar thing there where it's a dumb name

for like a really smart band. So there's that thing. The other thing is that I think they're perceived as a band, especially if you're like 23 years old, they're perceived as a band that like your dad listened to. Like didn't you say that like that Lenderman told you he hated this band because his dad listened to them? Like he likes them now, but he hated them at first. Yeah, which is like such a great detail.

He said like, you know, my dad listened to them and like, you know, they heard us. And then what turned him around is when they, when he found out that Patterson Hood, like people wouldn't talk to him after he wrote the song Buttholeville, which again, we're talking about. a band called Drive-Bide Truckers who made a record called Gangsta Billy who made a song called Buttholeville and you would figure like this is on some wean shit but yeah I mean I think this is exactly the kind of band particularly in the South

that if you like this band and mind you I lived in Athens Georgia which was like their second home from 2003 to 2006 which is peak truckers if you're like a certain type of person from that region you really identify with this

band. I can just imagine MJ or Jake's dad playing Southern Rock Opera when he's like 12 years old and just wants to listen to like Blink 182 or whatever. I'm just I wonder like how old his dad is

because it's like I realize like oh I could have been his dad. Like I'm old enough now. If I'd had a kid in my early 20s, he could be MJ Linderman right now. So that's kind of like a mind fuck for me. If you are into this Wednesday record and you love the idea of like cinematic storytelling

lyrics married to like heavy guitars, I really think that drive by truckers are like the best at that formula. You know, there's a lot of bands I think that drive by truckers get lumped into, hold steady, mountain goats, you know, that generation of bands. I think drive by truckers is probably the best out of those bands. Wow. Don't you think? I would. I personally would. I feel like

maybe I'm in the minority on that one, but I think that they're the best out of that group. I mean, I do, but it's only because I'm not like a huge hold steady or mountain ghost fan and you are. Well, I'm not a mountain ghost fan, really, I have to say. But I am a hold steady fan. But I think just like the length of drive by trucker's career and like the different things that they've done just puts them over the top for me. You know, you mentioned like those early albums that they put out in the late 90s, Gangsta Billy, and there's an album called Pizza Deliverance. Yes, that's the other one. There's sort of like a jokiness, I think, to some of those early records.

And then they put out Southern Rock Opera. I think that was 2000 or 2001. I got that like in my last year of college at Virginia. And, you know, as somewhat like, even though I'm not from Alabama and I can't really relate to a lot of the growing up stuff that Patterson who talks about. As someone who kind of is fascinated and repelled by the South while living in it, I mean, that stuff was just so massively impactful on me. And, you know, going to, there's like nothing like seeing a drive-by trucker show

on a UGA football weekend in Athens, like some of the drunkenest times I've ever had in public. They play like four-hour shows and like I don't make it past the first. Yeah, they're passing around like a whiskey bottle on stage. I don't know if they still do that or not. They probably don't. But Southern Rock Opera is like really where they arrive as who they are. And that record is notable as you said that, you know, Patterson Hood becomes this philosopher of Southern Rock where in one respect they're the epitome of a Southern Rock band.

And then in another respect, they're critiquing Southern Rock and Southern culture and what it means. And Drive-Bitruckers moving forward becomes this band that. can be the band that plays in a college football town and play like a long drunken show, but they're also very thoughtful about social justice issues and addressing like the crappy parts of the South too and pushing things forward in a cultural kind of way. I mean, I think like that run in the early 2000s,

we'll call it the Ian Cohen college run of dirty South. of Southern Rock Opera Decoration Day and the Dirty South. That's probably the heart of their discography. And if you're going to get started with this band, that's where you want to go first. Absolutely. Because, you know, Decoration Day is my favorite. I think that's the one where, you know,

the Patterson Hood history lessons and the Mike Cooley character sketches and Jason Isbell's more personal kind of sad-sac stuff are really the most in an alignment. Dirty South is like just a tick below it. But yeah, like that's where you get like the three-headed monster right there. And once that balance got thrown off, I think, well, it's the 2006 one like a blessing and a curse. That was like a 10-song album or something like that. And I had moved from Georgia to California.

I sort of lost track. Brighter than Creation Dark, I remember liking a few songs off that, though. But, I mean, if you start, like, I don't think you can understand this band without listening to Southern Rock Opera. but I think Decoration Day, the next two are the best, like, end-to-end listening experiences. Yeah, those are the two, I think, big masterpieces of the catalog. I would go with the Dirty South,

barely over Decoration Day. And the reason why is because this three-headed monster you're talking about, you have Jason Isbell, who at this point is the most famous songwriter to be associated with this band. You have Patterson Hood, who's the most prolific. And is, again, I think the mastermind. of the band.

And then you have Mike Cooley, who isn't the most famous and he's not the most prolific, but he's my favorite songwriter in the band. Is he the Lucy Dakis of Drive-Vy Truckers? Well, I don't know if I would make that comparison, but he is the guy, you know, who has the highest batting average.

When he does write a song, it is more often than not a total banger. And he has the coolest sounding voice. Absolutely. Zip City. Yeah, Zip City. He looks the coolest on stage. He's the guy that you want to be when you see this band. He looks like the guys he sings about, which I think is important. Because I think that aspect of the whole setting, the mountain goats is what sort of keeps me at a distance.

Yeah. Like, Mike Cooley looks like he might stab some guy. Exactly. Yeah, because Patterson Hood is this gregarious, very kind man. You feel like he would never hurt a fly. I don't think Mike Cooley is actually like a violent person or anything, but he just looks like a tough guy. He looks like if you put him in a corner in like a dive bar, he might break a beer bottle and go after your neck with like the broken bottle.

But I just love his songs on the Dirty South. I think his, you know, like where the devil don't stay and cotton seed, which, man, look up the song Cotton Seed. That is like a Cormack McCarthy novel. Just an amazing song. talking about this like hitman. It's incredible. Of the post-Isabelle records,

I actually am a big fan of Brighter Than Creation's Dark from 2008. To me, I would put that with the classic Isbell Records. It's a little long. I think it's 19 songs. Yeah, it's long as fuck. But I still think there's some of my all-time favorite Drive-Bit Trucker songs are on that record. And I'll also say, like, from the last, say, six, seven years,

American band is a really great record and it is, it shows like the turn that they've taken in recent years in a more sort of explicitly political direction. And again, being this progressive band in like a southern rock milieu, it's a very interesting thing. And I feel like that in a way is also influential on a band like Wednesday. I think Carly Hartzman has even said that she became a fan of this band because they could be a Southern Rock band, but also have that progressive bent to it. And that's become more pronounced in recent years. So definitely check out those early 2000s records if you don't know this band.

And throw in Brighter than Creation's Dark and American Band in there too. But if you don't know this band, you're in for a treat. I think they have a great catalog. All right, well, let's get to our mailbag segment. And we're just going to answer some listener emails here for the rest of the episode. Because we've gotten a lot of emails lately. We actually have some really good questions. to ponder here. So thank you all for writing in. It's always great to hear from you. You can hit us up at

Indycast Mailbag at gmail.com. Ian, you want to read this first letter? Yeah, sure. So we got Jake from Austin, who's a big fan of the show, and Jake wants to know about album of the decade contenders, saying we are three years into the 2020s, and I was wondering if any album of the decade contenders have dropped yet. For example, at this point in the 2010s, we already had Good Kid Mad City, channel orange and visions. If it was the 2000s, we'd have Is This It, Kid A, and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Do you think that any releases

from the last three years compared to those albums and do we have any releases that have a chance of topping a best of list seven years from now? It's a great question, Jake. I want to say Jake from State Farm here. When you said Jake from Austin, I was thinking Jake from State Farm.

Okay, so my short answer to that is no, we haven't in the last three years. Had records compared. Nothing but trash. Nothing but trash so far. We haven't had a kidd error. Is this it? I don't think.

I want to run this by you because this is an interesting question to me because the obvious difference with this decade versus those other decades that he was referencing is that this decade began with a global pandemic. That grounded culture and everything. else for two years or so. So that affected how many albums were released, how many albums were made, and just how we engaged with albums. And also, I think just our perception of time. Like, I know for myself, the early 2020s are a blur because we were all just doing the same thing every day.

You know, it wasn't, we weren't engaging with the world in any kind of normal way. So I don't think you can really compare this decade to other decades in that respect. There are albums that I think you could mention as being important and influential. But if I were to bet on whether the album that will be considered the best of the decade or the albums that will be considered the best of the decade, if I had to bet on whether those albums have already come out, or if they're going to be coming out in the future, I would bet on the future.

I just think that the pandemic threw off everything. And, you know, the other thing I would say here is, or I'm curious to find out, is are people going to want to even revisit albums that they associate with the pandemic? Yeah, because there are, because, and I don't know what you have in mind here. I mean, I think there's some obvious choices. We could say like Phoebe Bridger's Punisher, for instance.

or Fiona Apples Fetch the Bolt Cutters, you know, very critically lauded records. But are people, are they just going to associate those records with the time that they were locked inside and are they going to want to revisit those albums for that reason? Or will those albums be able to transcend their moment in time? I mean, I don't know the answer to that. I feel like that's going to affect maybe how those albums are perceived, though,

like five years from now. So, yeah, I don't know. I just feel like those albums, you know, those classics, the kid A's and my beautiful dark twisted fantasy and good kid mad city. I just don't know if those have come out yet. Yeah, I mean, this gets into a couple of considerations. First of which is that, you know, do we consider this topic that we've talked about many a time, like whether a decade begins in 20, like, the zero year or the one year,

because, you know, Fetch the Bolt Cutters is the album that has the critical acclaim of the aforementioned. But I don't see it as like, I see it being like a very, self-contained phenomenon and that hasn't really affected things in the same way that Kid A or Good Kid Mad City have. And, you know, I don't think it was expected to either. As I talked about on the last episode, I think we are in the Punisher era of music and we won't move on to the next thing until, I don't know, the Punisher follow-up happens. I do, I think a lot of those albums, you know, are, because maybe they're like individual, ones, like they don't feel quite as momentous.

Again, you might want to talk to a 25-year-old. Maybe they have a different perspective than I do. I, you know, glow on by turnstile is one of the most acclaimed albums of the past three years and also, like, super important. But I don't think that's going to have the same sort of, you know, presence. You know, it might be like the number 35 or whatever. And I'm just interested to where, like, Renaissance happens. But the thing I like about Jake's question is that it implies that music publications are still going to be making best of lists in 2029 or whatever. They will be.

I know. Come on. Come on. Come on. They'll be doing it or they'll be doing it on YouTube or something or on TikTok. I mean, on a personal level. I mean, I love the big thief record, you know, Dragon New War Mountain, I believe in you. I had to like look at my notes to, I mean, I love that record.

but I haven't said that title in a while to get the proper sequence of words there, correct. That feels like a big record to me personally. I don't know on a cultural level. Like if I were to make my own list of favorite albums like that, I'd be at the top. Obviously, The War on Drugs, I don't live here anymore, is probably my most listened to album of the last three years.

And I could make a case, as we have in previous episodes, that the War on Drugs in general are like a very influential, influential band. Not necessarily because of that record, but I think that record is a great refinement of what they do. But yeah, again, I don't know, other than Punisher, I think Punisher would, I agree with you. I think that's like the default choice at this point. But again, I think the pandemic is such a wild card in this decade.

And I feel like as we get further away from it, I wonder how that's going to affect the art that came out of it. Because I feel like with 9-11, for instance, there were like 9-11 albums and 9-11 films in the immediate aftermath of it. But then once we got away from it, I feel like that stuff didn't age particularly well because 9-11 isn't really something people feel like revisiting.

Well, I think that is this it? And, you know, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot are sort of seen as adjacent to that. Yeah, right. You're right. Although they don't directly address it in the way that some other things did. Yeah, the pandemic was like addressed pretty directly. Yeah, and like, do you really want to be reminded of like this claustrophobic, like, era of your life?

I mean, I know I don't. I mean, if I see like a film or a TV show where people are wearing masks, I'm like, I get depressed, you know? I just think, I think most people are in that same boat. You know, we don't want to go back to that. So I don't know how that's going to affect the art. I think Punisher is so influential that it could transcend that. You know, and her audience is young enough too where, you know, I think that record could potentially move on,

maybe easier than like the Fiona Apple record. Is the Fiona Apple record, does that matter more to like people our age than teenagers and teen? I don't know. I don't have a sense of her reach in like the general. NZ world. You know, she is a Gen X icon. I love Fiona Apple.

But yeah, I just wonder if she translates to that Phoebe Bridger's audience. I also wonder some of the albums you brought up like big thief and war on drugs. And also I think you could put like St. Cloud. That's like the top, like the big three of 2020 Punisher, Bull Cutters and St. Cloud. It's like... St. Cloud is like the dark horse there. Because I feel like that's a record that it... It's an album that is critically adored, but it never reached critical mass.

It still feels like a record that you can feel like is yours. The conversation about it isn't like oppressive in any way. So that's like a dark horse candidate, I think, in this conversation. Yeah, I think that that will hold up really well. And also, I just, you know, with like Big Thief and War on Drugs and Waxahatchee, I just, I'm not sure like those have like the critical mass around them. the same way that a kidday or Yankee hotel does or if anything does. I mean, my guess is that, you know, by the end of the decade, I don't know, Rolling Stone will maybe put like folklore

at the top or, you know, if we're talking like weirdo, like I think the weirdo message board sites like rate your music or album of the year will continue in that case, you know, ants from up there. It's a, it's there's to lose. Yeah, Beyonce and Taylor Swift are interesting because they're still obviously huge, but like are they 20-20 artists or are they, like 2000s artists who are making albums still at this point. You know what I mean? Like these other albums that we're talking about, you know, I just feel like like they're at different points in their career.

It's like, wow, like Beyonce and Taylor Swift, they're still making albums that are generationally defining at this point. I mean, it's kind of amazing, like how long they've been able to hang around. I guess that's like the equivalent of Bob Dylan putting out love and theft and like that topping a list, you know? So it seems like they've really. reach that kind of level. Let's get to our next letter.

This comes from Mitch in Niagara Falls. I love that as an indie cast listener. Mitch from Niagara Falls. That's a great indie cast name there. That's a hold steady song. I love it. Hi, Stephen Ian. I have long been a fan of the Beastie Boys.

Growing up in a small town in Canada and seeing the So What You Want video for the first time was like a signal from a cooler world that was beyond my grasp at age 12. The clothes, the music, the whole aesthetic, really was aspirational. I still love the Beastie Boys, but I'm curious what you think of their legacy. I'm now a 41-year-old married man with two kids. Wow, Mitch. Let me tell you about a band called Drive-by Truckers. And where I can see their influence most profoundly is in children's music.

Seriously, every time I hear some cartoon rapping about a Bronosaurus or something, it sounds like the Beastie Boys. He's got a point there. I never made that connection, but I think he's right. It seems like their broader influence on contemporary music is absent. Thoughts? That's from Mitch. The Beastie Boys, where do they stand right now in culture, you think?

I get what Mitch is saying in that if we're looking at tangible impact in 2023, like despite the fact that I don't know if they have like any actual impact on like hip hop as it exist. You could still make like a Twitter joke in the intergalactic cadence. And, you know, you can get off some laughs about that. Like, people know exactly what you're talking about with the, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, like people seem to know that. And they're a pretty obvious influence on pop star, never stop, never stopping, which, you know, that, a movie seen by like 25 people all who think it's the best movie, like the best comedy of the 21st century. But, you know, I think that what Mitch is describing is a pretty common.

experience for people our age. The sabotage video, if you see that when you're a teen, it's the coolest thing you could ever possibly imagine. The Spike Jones video, like they're a rap group, but they're making punk music. And I like a few of the songs. I like Intergalactic. I like this fat boy slim body moving remix. But if I never hear Get It Together again in my life, I'll be a happy man.

But I just remember, you know, like any MTV a day. teen. I would buy the albums and you know, I'd like the singles, but I guess I wasn't in a position to appreciate you know, this is back when they were making like funk instrumentals and songs about Buddhism and you know, Mitch

brings it up that the clothes of the music was really aspirational. You know, the whole grand, royal extended universe, which kind of adjacent to maybe the pulp fiction world of there's lionizing certain forms of

kitch. As I got to like know the Beastie Boys and like get into their whole meanings, I really kind of rejected that part of them. Like they just seemed emblematic of this New York centric idea of cool that I found to be, I just found it really unseemly. And also just the idea like I, this is a personal problem. I know. But anytime art is presented to me as this will make you a better person, I just instantaneously want to reject it. That said, I do wish they were around. their career arc happened now so that people could complain about how they got woke

after licensed to ill. You'll see Ben Shapiro complaining about Paul's boutique. Well, I mean, when did they get woke? That would have been, was it Paul's boutique or would it be like, check your head?

I think check your head, definitely ill communication. Like, Paul's boutique is like when they changed a lot sonically. Right, right. You know, they were still making like dumb shit songs. I mean, and I say that.

Like, Like Eggman, yeah. Yeah, hey ladies is on there and is on Paul's boutique. Yeah, Eggman and whatnot. I love this scenario like where Ben Shapiro is doing a show about the Beastie Boys getting woke. That's so funny. I recently revisited License the Ill like when I wrote my best debut albums of all time piece. And I really love that record.

And it's probably the Beastie Boys record I'm most interested in listening to now. maybe because it's the farthest removed from like anything that could happen now type album. You know, like just this unabashedly bro type record that has like Led Zeppelin samples and like Black Sabbath samples and is really dumb but like in a smart way. I just think that's like a really enjoyable record. And I feel like that record has aged better than some of the 90s stuff. And maybe this is, I don't know. It's so tough in hip hop because it moves so fast. And legacy artists tend to get left behind in kind of like a cruel way.

Like, you know, like they're not allowed to hang around in the way that like old rock bands are. Like you can have an old rock band that hasn't put out like a great album in 20 years, but people still want to see them and they'll still talk about how much they love them. that doesn't happen in hip hop really so that's affected their reputation i don't know i i i just feel like in the 90s like in the moment they were like were they the most beloved band i feel like they might have been i feel like yeah they were the ones that were looked at as the hippist best taste you know they kind of cut across all these different genres and i don't i don't hear them talked about at all anymore yeah i think that you know gosh if we're talking about like the drive-by truckers is a band

that your dad likes. And, you know, to the point of, like, we're licensed to ill kind of oddly holds up, maybe not like better. It's, it, I hear that because it's so distinct. It is almost like a motley crew record in the sense,

like maybe its politics aren't great. And, and yet it's just such its own thing that it almost transcends time. It's like dated in a good way. Whereas, you know, a lot, we talk about this with De La Sol last time,

around where like stuff like that and public enemy and um you know that kind of late 80s early 90s hip hop is if you're of a certain age it's like the epitome of cool the epitome of you know music that was um you know very sample based and so it's like comfort music i think if you're a gen xer like that there's so many there's so many restaurants you can go to nowadays where like they'll play 90s hit like they'll play like wu tang or whatever and you know that's like totally normal. It's like the Motown of the 90s really. It's so comforting to listen to that stuff.

And it's funny to phrase it that way because at the time it was maybe perceived as dangerous in some ways or edgy. And it's not anymore to the point where I'm sure there's younger people that maybe

even think that stuff is corny now. I mean I think there's an aspect of the Beastie Boys now that I could see scanning as corny. to someone who's a teenager or 20s, like these white guys rapping and then doing like hardcore punk instrumentals at the same time.

Well, they were corny to me a little bit in my teen years as well because, you know, when I was listening to like No Limit or like Nas or Wu Tang, I'm like, why do I need to like listen to these guys doing these like 1985 flows? Like, you know, but the videos are cool. So, yeah, I'm with Mitch though.

Like the So What You Want video. I remember seeing that. That was awesome. Yeah, and turning that up really loud, just being like, this is like the coolest music ever. So I don't know. See, this is another instance.

Maybe we've got to bring the endless scroll people on here and just be like, sit by grandpa's rocking chair and tell, I'm just going to throw out bad names and you tell me if young people care about this. And then grandpa's going to take like a three-hour nap. All right, what? we have time for one more letter, and this is a short letter. Do you want to read this one?

Yeah, this comes from John from Oakland, and when you say it's short, it's Coheeding Cambria, yay or nay. So, I mean, get to the point. I love it, John from Oakland. We've had this format before, the yay or nay format. Who was that about? Incubis. It was fun.

It's incubus. By the way, this guy, Incubis touring with Action Bronson. like at the Hollywood Bowl I almost want to go just to see what that experience is like for fucking action Bronson. I don't know, this might become a segment on our show, yeah or nay.

Someone just throws out a band. Just like we're throwing out bands to the endless scroll people. So we can find out if 24-year-olds like the band, people can ask us about Incubis and Coheed and Cambria. Do we need to explain

who Coheed and Cambria are? Can we assume that our audience knows, like, who the hell that is? I get the feeling that our audience, in addition to buying Decoration Day, might have bought that Coheed and Cambria album from 2003 with a Favor House Atlantic in Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth.

Well, okay. Three. See, I barely know what you're talking about when you say that. So maybe we should just give, like, a little bit of background in this band. Bine. Are they, like, what's the way to describe them,

like a Prague Emo band? Yeah. totally so um back when i DJed a emo night LA like there was a time where I did that um I would get like I remember someone came up and asked if I would play a coheeding Cambria song and I'm like no I'm playing like late you know little did I know that uh I was in the minority there so they definitely they definitely emerged in an era where if you like coheed and cambra you probably like you know my chemical romance or fallout boy but the actual music itself is way way way Prague. You know, it's like

straight up Dungeons and Dragons shit. And I say that lovingly. They have like multi-part suites. They have like characters who occur throughout multiple albums. They have like several album arcs and so yeah, I think that like

to a certain degree they're like emo kind of flavored but really just a straight up Prague band. I just want to read some of these album titles to get people an idea of like how Praguegy this band is. So we have Good Apollo

I'm Burning Star 4, Volume 1 from Fear through The Eyes of Madness. That came out in 2005. That's one album title? That's one album title. 2007, Good Apollo I'm Burning Star 4, Volume 2. No World for Tomorrow. It's like they're throwing in, okay, because it says

I'm Burning Star 4. The 4 is written in Roman numerals. So you think, okay, that's part of the suite, but no. they're dropping the volume 1 and 2 after that. Then they have the Afterman albums, Afterman Ascension. Then the Afterman Descension. That's in 2012 and 2013. And then we have Vaxus Act 1, The Unheavenly Creatures,

and Vaxus Act 2, A Window of the Waking Mind. So, yeah, I mean, just ridiculously convoluted albums. And album titles. Like, it's very gettyly. Very gettyly. So to get back to the question, I'm going to say philosophically yay. I like the idea of this band. I like that they're out there doing this.

I love any band that cuts against the grain of, like, what's fashionable, and is following their hearts and catering to, like, a rabid, devoted cult. I always think that's cool when bands do that. But in terms of music, I actually want to listen. to, I have to say nay. This is not for me. Again, I love the idea of it. I bless their hearts. I endorse what they do

philosophically, but I'm not putting on a Coheaton-Cambia record for myself. Yeah, I put, I blurbed a favor house Atlantic when Vulture did the best emo out, best emo songs of all time lists. And I think a lot of modern, I guess, modern emo or whatever you

want to call it from a similar point where like you were listening you could listen to the strokes and this band at the same time and so a lot of bands probably are influenced by both of them but yeah they i like the fact they exist largely because like whenever there's a band of this ilk that gets that popular for that long they can take newer bands on tour i think they took foxing on tour once and you know they kind of opened up a lane for circus survive and all those bands that i'm also not very into and you know my i would probably be able to have a lot more bylines and so forth if i like if i could pretend to like this band um similar to incubus but yeah i think it's a fun band to kind of front like you like online um rather than to actually listen to but yeah favorite house atlantic

blood red summer those are bangers can't say i've ever listened to anything else although i did try to sample the intro from uh that 2003 album when i was like playing around an epic PC because it sounds like pretty fucking awesome. So that 2003 album is called In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth, colon three. It's the name of that album. Came out in October of 2003. That means that you have about six months to get into that record so you can write the

stereo gum 20th anniversary. Make a cool 200 bucks. I think you should do it, Ian. You got plenty of time. Yeah, me and Claudia. Maybe I just interview Claudia Sanchez. you know, I'm down to chop it up with him. We've now reached the part of the episode that we call Recommendation Corner where Ian and I

talk about something that we're into this week. Ian, why don't you go first? So, you know, like most Fridays, I'll probably recommend listening to Braids, Midwest Emo Masterpiece Frame and Canvas. But this week I'm going to do so because it's actually being reissued and remastered. It's a special 25th edition out on polyvinyl. this is basically the album that, you know, launched polyvinyl to a national level. So, again, I know it's, like, kind of corny to recommend remasters or reissues

because usually, like, they just throw in a bunch of B-sides or they just make it louder than it was in 1998. But I think this one is, this one actually makes a difference, not just in the fact that it's louder, it is, but it's a much different production aesthetic. like there's more separation. The base is, you can actually hear the base now. And this gets into like kind of hot take territory because Jay Robbins is a guy who is super, you know, super influential and revered in the emo slash post hardcore world. He produced jawbox, dismemberment plan, Texas is the reason, promise ring.

And some of those albums like actually don't sound that great. So I'm happy he gets a second crack at him. And so this one just sounds like it could be made in 2023. I think Braid is the kind of band that doesn't get a little, not underrated, but underappreciated compared to like, say, Sunday Day Real Estate or American Football or even the promise ring because they just are so, they're just a great band. There's not much more to say about it. But now when you listen to this album, you get to see like how all four of them playing together is just this incredible beast of, it's like these are songs that are impossible to replicate on an acoustic guitar and I think that's important um so yeah this is basically like everything that Midwest emo is capable of doing

this is the album so uh give that one another spin this weekend so in my part of the of the world uh we're finally getting 60 degree days this weekend so I am already picking out my patio soundtrack, my cookout soundtrack. I got big plans. I'm going to make beer brats this weekend. I think on Easter Sunday. I'm pumped to be outside listening to music. So that's definitely informing my choice this week for Recommendation Corner.

I want to talk about an album that came out last month that I will be playing. I'm sure at some point on the patio. It's called Radio Gate. It's by a band called Sluis. I think I'm pronouncing that correctly. S. L-L-U. It's Sluis? I believe it's S-L-L-U-S-L-U-S-U-S-U-E.

S-L-U-I-C-E. It's a project of a North Carolina singer-songwriter named Justin Morris. And look, I'm going to do a very hacky thing here, and I'm just going to lift a line from the press release for this record because it really says it all, more than I could if I was just going to rattle off a bunch of adjectives describing the music. We're at the top of the press release.

It says, recommend it if you like. M.J. Lenderman, songs Ohio, Will Oldham. I can't do anything better than that. Are these hymnals for dirt bags? These are hymnals for dirt bags. This is patio music through and through. This is music that literally will put a beer in your hand

and a brought in the other hand. I can't wait to play this on the patio. I'm so excited. I'm going to be firing off tweets all weekend, just taking pictures of tapes, taking screenshots and just saying, hell yeah, over songs as I sit in the sun and have a great time.

It's going to be fabulous. So check out this record, especially if you're going to be near a patio this weekend. Radio Gate by Sluis. I think what you're doing is putting into the ether, the idea of us doing a visual YouTube component of Indycast where you're like doing the kind of like self-cam

and like raising the beer. I think people might want to see that. Well, we'll see. Yeah, there's just another thing we're trying to manifest in the world. It's going to just be hell yeah or no hell yeah. That's going to be the only critical application going on in that context. No other words are necessary when you're on the patio. Thank you all for listening to this episode of Indycast.

We'll be back with more news and reviews and hashing out trends next week. And if you're looking for more music recommendations, sign up for the Indie Mixape newsletter. You can go to uprocks.com backslash. Indy and I recommend five albums per week and we'll send it directly to your email box.