Indiecast - The Explosion Of Chappell Roan + The Worst Song Ever Written

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

Steven and Ian open this week's episode with a quick Politics-cast about Tim Walz, the VP candidate whose life resembles a middle-aged man's version of a Hold Steady song (2:05). From there, they discuss a range of not-quite-indie topics — the retirement of Aerosmith from the road (15:30), the explosion of Chappell Roan (24:33), and whether John Mayer's "Daughters" is the worst song ever written (as suggested by St. Vincent) (34:37).In the mailbag, a reader asks for advice on which upcoming show he should see, and the guys instead end up talking about the ethics of selling a birthday present bought by your wife (48:25).In Recommendation Corner, Ian talks about the latest from Parannoul and Steven reps the new album by Oso Oso (54:53).New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 201 here and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [e-mail], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Indycast is presented by Uprocks's indie mixtape. Hello everyone and welcome to Indycast. On this show we talk about the biggest indie news of the week. Review albums and we hash out trends. In this episode, we talk about Aerosmith Retiring, Chaparone exploding in the worst song ever written. Not a lot of indie rock there, but that's okay. My name is Stephen Hayden and I'm joined by my friend and co-host.

He wishes he was a pudgy white guy from the Midwest, like me and Tim Walls, Ian Cohen, And Ian, how are you? Yeah, I mean, as excited as I am to get what appears to be a Seeger guy, a Springsteen guy this close to the button. I was just hoping that, you know, Josh Shapiro is a 51-year-old Jewish guy who grew up like 20 minutes from me. I was hoping we could like dig back through his old tweets and see whether he went through a Wu-Tang or a fish face. Because it's one or the other if you're in that demographic. Or maybe he's like also just like a like a huge G-lub.

and special sauce fan. Like that is, like, that's definitely within a dude like that's wheelhouse, which I say that derogatory. Well, you're acting like these are exclusive camps. I mean, isn't it possible or even likely that he is a Wu-Tang slash fish slash G-love person? Like, I feel like those are concentric circles for a certain kind of guy in the 90s. They are now, but back then, like, those were the real dividing lines. Like if you're in Jewish youth group, you have like the rap guys who would buy their girlfriends, like the French vanilla wear T-shirt.

Then you had like the fish guys. But eventually they all ended up at like Syracuse or Penn State and joined the same fraternity. But in high school, they were different. Okay. I'll take your word for it. This is your culture. I'm not going to impose my own beliefs on your culture. I respect it.

And I respect your knowledge of it. I have to say like with Tim Walls. It's crazy with this guy because what do we know about him? I know that he shops at Menards. I know that he buys records at Electric Fetus, which for those outside of the Twin Cities area, one of the great record stores in town. And I know he goes to Springsteen concerts at Exile Energy Center in St. Paul.

His life is like a hold steady song that I relate intensely to. This is like middle-aged guy hold steady. Eddie song material. That's like what Tim Walls' life is. So I don't have a lot of separation from him in terms of him just being someone that I feel out of kinship with. I don't want to do the creepy thing, which you're starting to see already on social media, like where people have that parisocial thing with a politician, like where you want to act like Tim Walls is your dad or Kamala Harris as your mom. You know, that gets a little weird. These are politicians. And as folksy as Tim Walls is, he's an ambitious guy.

You don't end up being a vice presidential candidate if you don't have some machinations going on in the background. But I do love that, like, when you look at the right this week, the worst they can say about him right now is that, oh, he looks like Chris Farley. Or, like, I saw a Ben Shapiro tweet where he, like, said he looked like Don Rickles. I'm like, oh, so he looks like beloved fat guys. is what you're saying. Like beloved fat guys that are no longer with us, sadly. But we all enjoy.

Like, who doesn't love Chris Farley? Who doesn't love Don Rickles? Yeah, like Don Rickles is doing. He's like doing the Don Rickles type roasting. He put a couch gag in to his introduction, which, you know, say what you will about that. But, I mean, the potential for, like, a J.D. Vance slash Tim Walt VP debate, debate, like I can't even like this is going to be like

the locks first dipset versus this is going to be a humiliation which we haven't seen and God knows how long I don't know if it will happen but you just see like just how terribly unfunny

a lot of the people of the right are they are just so fucking cooked right now yeah I mean look I've talked about this before on the show in our previous politics cast segments. I do think that people on the left,

we get a little too wrapped up in like dunking and the optics and like looking cool and like, oh, like our politician loves, I mean, we were doing that obviously with Kamala and Charlie XX and I was making fun of that. I have to say I'm kind of a hypocrite this week because I was loving the tweets that people were digging up by Tim Walls,

love and Warren Zvon, talking about Warren Zivon should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Like I was sucked into that, loving it. That is Kamala is brat for middle-aged white guys from the Midwest. So I have to cop to that. The thing I was making fun of with other people, I was falling for myself. So I'm trying not to get sucked into that. Even though, again, Tim Walls, the particulars of his life,

I mean, I've never been in the Coast Guard or anything like that. He was in the Coast Guard for like 24 years or whatever. But anyway, there's a lot of Midwest guy attributes to him that I can relate to. So is that going to translate electorally? I mean, is he going to add any votes to the Kamala Harris side? I don't know. Maybe not. You never know.

We'll find out. But crazy year. Crazy year for the politics. Yeah, three weeks ago, like this is all happened within the past three weeks. Like three weeks ago, like I was stoked about the Los Campesinos album and like the college football video game and thinking, well, you know, our democracy might end as we know it, but at least I got these things to get us by. So, yeah, what, like, I sometimes forget that Joe Biden is still president. Yeah, I mean, is he alive? He could be dead.

He could be dead. He kind of seemed like he was dead already. He's like nowhere to be found. I saw that his approval rating actually has gone up. up since he dropped out, which is really funny. I mean, it does show that after you die, your approval raining always goes up. Like, people always like you more when you're dead. So I think that's happening with Joe Biden probably right now. You know, dead presidents get better promotion. We can talk on Indycast our end of the year,

like most memory hold politician. We'll see. We'll see what happens. Let's do a quick fantasy draft update here. And this may not actually be an update because I got a little too excited here. I was looking at Metacritic. And I think this was my number one pick. The Ryuchi Sakamoto posthumous album, which is called Opus. It's actually a soundtrack to a concert film directed by his son. That is out this week. The soundtrack is out as well.

I looked on Metacritic, and I saw 91 for Opus, and I got very excited. but then I realized, oh, it's the movie getting a 91. The soundtrack isn't actually up yet. I will say, and this might be our own sort of electoral shenanigans going on here, this might be me attempting to steal. Or this is my stop this. Because Trump was stopping the seal. That was his thing.

So this is my, but I'm actually going to maybe try to steal. Anyway, this is a concert film. It has a 91. It's basically just music. So, like, if the soundtrack doesn't get enough reviews on Metacritic, is it possible that I could use the film score? Because I didn't exactly specify that I was talking about the album, technically. I just said the latest release, the latest Sakamoto release.

I might be putting the horse before the cart here, because if this soundtrack is reviewed, I'm confident that it'll be, in the same ballpark as the film review. But I just, I want to have this 91. This would be huge for me if I can secure this. Yeah, I had to, what do we do? Do we have a Supreme Court? Do we have an intern?

Look, I think that one could be the tipping point because like Michelle Nadega Ocello, we talked about her album, a tribute to James Baldwin last week, and it's finally popping up with an 85. You know, solid. You know, I was expecting. Yeah, I was expecting like one of those things were like five people review it and they all like think of it.

Like like the number one album like on one guy from the New York Times at the end of the year or like the one NPR guy. I thought I had kind of outmaneuvered myself. But you know what? Riucii Sakamoto and Michelle and Dege Ocello, it just kind of goes to shows how competitive this shit is going to be this time around. You know, we've all learned a lot of really interesting lessons on how to finesse. Yeah. And again, I think that's the. sweet spot is picking an album that's only going to be reviewed by five people and you know that

they're all going to love it you know like the niche releases i think that is where maybe not your number one pick but i think if you're looking at like the three through five pick that is like that's like finding jack prescott in the fourth round you know that or or kirk cousins in the fourth round like they're not the best quarterbacks of all time but they're like good solid professional quarterbacks and you're getting a steal there. So you also have Clero, which is like 83 or something. Yeah, I feel like that album's got some legs. I mean, I think this will perform better on the year end list than it got reviewed. I listened to, I wasn't feeling it big time. I don't know. You're into it more than I am. I thought it was all right. I thought it was all right. I'll give it an

all right. What is that a Metacritic? Is that a 70? No, that's an 83. Nothing gets below a 75 these days So okay, like if you get in the 60s, That means you must have fucked up big time So yeah, you're like machine gun Kelly or something If you're gonna the new Glass Animals album Like that's that's a 62 The only thing that's gotten

I'm just scrolling through The only thing that's gotten lower than that Is the new M&M album which We're not gonna talk about that article Just because I'm gonna like Go off and say some things I can't take back Well, you know who was defending the Eminem record. Do we want to get into that whole thing?

The, uh, that, that bonkers spin article that was published over the, I don't know if that's still even up. Oh. I feel like that must have, that was like a, like a total like, oh, we're gonna. Oh, it's there. It is there. Okay. It's there. They got some venture capital guy or

some tech guy to like. He's, he's a crypto. He's a, he's a former music industry guy slash, I think he got into crypto now. So, um, I I know, I mean, he's definitely, he is. Okay, because he must hang out with Guccione Jr. I mean, that's the only way.

Oh, absolutely. Yes, absolutely. Because that article, he's basically going after all the critics by name who gave a negative review to the latest M&M record. Which, okay, even if you love Eminem in 2024 and you are actively excited for new M&M music. And look, there's a lot of people who that's true of. are you really going to get upset about reviews at this point? Are you like going to pitchfork thinking, oh boy, rubbing my hands together, this is going to be a 9.5 baby. They're going to love this record. Don't you know that like critics aren't going to like it?

So like, why care? Why are you invested in reviews of M&M records from 2024? Just listen to him, rap about, you know, millennials and their pronouns. And enjoy yourself. Why are you getting all stressed out about what, you know, the pitchfork person said about Eminem? And then you're going to write, like, you're going to write a rant about it and spin, and you're going to, like, look up their past reviews and be like, oh, you've ever given higher than a 7.5 to a record. It's like, you're going to, you're going to put the cape on for a 52-year-old Eminem? What is the deal there? What kind of brain poisoning do you have? And, like, you're rich probably. You're in the tax. industry. He is. What are you doing? What are you doing? Yeah. That makes no sense to me. Eminem taps

into something primal for me and my fellow Gen Xers the same way that raised against the machine and Oasis do. That is an actual line from this article. Like I will I will hold back on saying anything about this guy I can take back because I don't. It's so weird. Oh my God. That piece was insane. It was really fucking insane. I apparently he's got, There's like an entire cottage industry of stuff he writes about, like, as you might imagine, cancel culture and us embracing AI as a way to keep our, you know, favorite artists relevant. It is truly a bonkers article. And it just kind of goes to show, you know, when we talk about like people being like billionaires,

like Elon Musk and Bill Ackman, like rather than quietly enjoying their billions, they like post. a lot. It's like, we have to ask ourselves, like, if we had that much money, would we be on X? And I'm like, probably because all of my immediate needs would be taken care of and I can dedicate myself to what I truly love, which is posting. Yeah, I don't know. I feel like I'm on because I need to promote myself. I need to promote things I'm in so I can hopefully stay employed and keep doing what I do. I feel like if I was a J.K. Rowling, I wouldn't post because you don't need to promote yourself. You've got this great franchise. I don't know.

Don't these people just have like text groups? I always feel like that is the solution to like a lot of problems. Just have a text chain with your friends who are also insane. You can just say the insane things to them and not put it out publicly. Whenever I see insane posts, I always think, why are you DMing this? Why aren't you just texting this to a friend? Yeah, even we do that and we don't have a million dollars. Exactly.

the things that we know are irrational but you're just annoyed by something you want to make fun of it like you don't need to put that out publicly you just DM it to a friend you text it that is a secret to mental health i think if you do that you will be happier rather than exposing yourself to all this hatred because you're airing your awfulest opinions publicly keep that to yourself keep it to your friends anyway yeah but more of our but our opinions matter so we're just going to continue to yeah but we have but we we have

shitty opinions though that we keep secret so absolutely but you gotta do you gotta do uh speaking of bad posts

um I got in trouble a little bit just a little bit last week because okay so there was an announcement from Aerosmith HQ

that they are canceling the rest of their farewell tour which has been perpetually delayed I think over multiple years they finally canceled it for good

and they said we're retiring from the road and it's basically because Stephen Tower's voice is shot and also because the rest of the band are like mummified zombies at this point they're just if you could crack them open

and it would just be like a thousand cigarette butts would fall out of the veins that are just you know sort of dried and decayed I made a joke about Aerosmith I said that I posted a photo and I said it looked like they died in 2013.

And most people laughed. But there was a sizable condition of people that got angry with me about that. And I just want to say, you know, the thing with Aerosmith, and this is part of my tribute to Aerosmith. We're doing a little tribute here as they retire. I like Aerosmith. I would say overall, I think that they were a legitimately great band in the mid-70s, 74 to 77

Toys in the Attic Rocks in particular, those two albums If you don't know those albums If you just know Aerosmith as like The band they've been for the last 35 years Listen to those records They're actually really great They're great American sleazy

Dirty Rock Records It's the missing link between the stones In appetite for destruction Absolutely essential I have a lot of nostalgic love For the MTV era of Aerosmith which begins with permanent vacation and extends, how far do we want to extend it?

Do we want to extend it to nine lives? Is that like the pink record? Yeah, but I don't. It's really get a grip. It's like permanentification to get a grip, and you have pump in the middle. And I just want to say, people call this the get a grip era

because I think those music videos are the most famous of that era, the ones with Alicia Silverstone, and then Liv Tyler shows up later. I'm going to put my foot down and say, it should be known as the Pump era because I think Pump is the best record of that time. Love at an elevator.

Actually, I like... Is that the one with dude looks like a lady? No, that's permification. Gotcha. You're the Aerosmith expert on this. I think we have to establish that. All the people getting mad at me about my little jockey tweet,

they should know that I am an Aerosmith scholar here. No, Pump has... Janie's got a gun and what it takes. and the other side and Love an Elevator and I think those are the big hits, but really solid sort of glam metal

era record. But the great thing about Aerosmith, I think, aside from the best music that they made, is that they were a band that you could make fun of. Like, that's what they were built for. Because they're a band that has no integrity at all, would do anything to stay popular

for the longest time. Even stop doing drugs. Being famous mattered so much to them. Yeah, and like, you know, they have no integrity. They do a lot of stupid things. Stephen Tyler is a buffoon. Joe Perry's facial hair went bonkers in the last 10 years. Like, just look at a picture of Joe Perry from the last 10 years.

His mustache is crazy. It's like totally shaven across like the top of his lips and it's just like the tips by the edges of his mouth. Very weird. Very weird facial hair. But anyway, they're very. Oh, this is like Johnny Depp like, but 25 years older. Johnny Depp really sucked something out of Joe Perry. He was like a vampire with Joe Perry, I think.

But anyway, I mean, there's, I mean, like now the chili peppers are going to take their spot as the band that's really popular that everyone knows that you can make fun of and it's not a big deal. Like even if you love Aerosmith, like really, like you can't make fun of Aerosmith. they're such a fun band to make fun of and they deserve it and you can still love them and it's not a big deal I mean now it's the chili peppers because ketus is like the closest thing to stephen Tyler that's not Stephen Tyler um but it's fun to have bands that you can make fun of and I think that's erosmith's greatest legacy they gave us some good tunes but they also are a band that gave us more laughs even than great tunes yeah because I mean with this story of Of course, I did not go back and listen to rocks or, you know, get a grip.

But I did look at the Wikipedia page for Revolution X, which is the Aerosmith video game or the arcade game. Because I know they had a pinball game. I also remember they had a arcade game called. It was like a, it was a shooting game. It was a shooting gallery type game. The lore on this is amazing. I would listen to an entire podcast. Maybe we need to make an entire podcast about it.

But all you need to know is that public enemy was supposed to be in the game, but they pulled out because of Mortal Kombat being too violent. And again, this is like, we thought, oh, yeah, public enemy. Oh, Aerosmith. Well, Aerosmith are certainly available. And so, yeah, this is like there was a video game that involved Aerosmith. And I forget how they integrate into the plot, but it is very, very poochy in terms of like, Like, where's Stephen Kramer? He's, uh...

Joey Kramer. It's Joey Kramer. That's Stephen Kramer. Come on. That's another guy. Just some respect. Just some respect to our recently retired Aerosmith. Ah, no, it's more fun to make fun of them.

He's the worst member, too. If you had to... Really? He's like the Lars Orick of the band? Well, I mean, you know, if you listen to the scuttle butt, it seems like Joey Kramer was not a... There was no picnic to be in the same band with. definitely feels like Bradley Whitford

the other guitar player is it Bradley Whitford because he's also there's an actor who has a very similar name but I think you're right I think that's so funny you know Bradley Whitford's the actor

right I'm looking at this up Brad Whitford Brad Whitford is the there's no Lee on it it's just Brad Whitford but his real name is Bradley Whitford but he was first

He claimed, he could have claimed Bradley Whitford originally because he came before the actor. So, I don't know. He just wanted to be more casual with it. I'm just Brad. Not Bradley. It's like, yeah, my parents called me Bradley, but you can call me Brad. It's like one of those type of situations. He seems like the best hang.

Yeah, look at his Wikipedia photo. This is as good as the one we saw for like the Bodine's. It's just an incredible outfit. Wow, yeah, he's got a great jacket on. He's got a blue flannel, and he has a t-shirt under that. Dog tags, like... Dog tags. Is he, like, playing, like, on the moon?

Like, it looks like it's really cold, wherever he is. But he looks good. From what I've heard, he's a nice guy. It seems like the most relatively normal member of Aerosmith. Tom Hamilton, I would say, would be the second best hang. and then it gets kind of dicey after that, I think, with that band. But anyway, look,

I meant no disrespect to Aerosmith. I guess maybe like a little disrespect to them. But, look, it's Aerosmith. Someone actually accused me of punching down. And I'm like, I'm punching down to Aerosmith? What? This band, this old, you know, I'm not punching down to Aerosmith.

Aerosmith is on the mountain of American rock bands. They're going to be okay. We can make jokes about them. But enjoy your retirement. I still think there's a chance that they could come back with, like, Miles Kennedy as the singer or some other dude. You know Miles Kennedy? He's in that slash band.

I feel like he's like the go-to. You need a singer. He's like the Sammy Hagar of his generation. Maybe they could Sammy Hagar be the singer. These guys got, they got way too many lawsuits probably happening to really retire. So, I do not have a bullish outlook on the permissible. vacation for Aerosmith. Oh, I like how you brought that back.

So would you say you're pumped for a comeback, or should I just get a grip? Fuck, man. I know that, well, let's just push play and move forward to the next dot subject. Well, this fan has nine lives. They have nine lives, as they say. We're cooking right now. Let's get back to the Midwest here. Let's get back.

Let's pivot to another person from the Midwest. who's killing it right now, and that's Chapel Rhone. I feel like we're overdue to talk about Chapel Rhone, because she's indie adjacent in a weird way, even though she's like a huge pop star and getting huger all the time. But I wanted to bring her up because she was at Lollapalooza last weekend, and there was a photo of her audience that went viral. And for those who don't know, Lollapalooza takes place,

Chicago in Grant Park downtown and I haven't been there in many years but I think it's still set up the same way like where you have big stages set up at either side of the park so a lot of times there's two shows going on at once toward the end of the night they're you know like when it gets to the headliner there's usually just one stage going and chapel roan I think was later afternoon like she wasn't a headliner I think she was like 5 p.m. So there would have been someone else performing, but they showed the crowd for her, and it was enormous. It looked like she was headlining the festival. It's just like a sea of people, like a Woodstock 69-sized crowd for Chapel Rhone.

And it really drove home how she feels like one of the big breakout stars of 2024. If we're looking at like the next crop of big pop stars, She's really kind of come up from the middle of the pack to, I think, at the front of the pack. It's crazy. Her record, I think, came out at the end of last year, or maybe it was re-released at the end of last year. Like, I saw some pop-oriented critics put that album, which is called The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, by the way. I saw it come up on some year-end list, but it was definitely toward the end. end of the year. And then this year, she's just exploded. And I was looking at her Spotify numbers.

She has 37 million monthly listeners on Spotify. Her latest song, Good Luck Babe, which is not on the record. It's a standalone single. It's her biggest song to date. It has about 440 million spins, which is obviously a lot. Although not as much as like other big pop people. Like I think that's Sabrina Carpenter song, Espresso. I saw that recently went over a billion streams. So it just has a point in comparison. But I don't know. I feel like this doesn't quite demonstrate how popular Chaparone is now.

I think it goes beyond just like the streaming numbers. Just to give a random example, I was at my daughter's music lesson last week. It's Bach to Rock is the name of the place. And they teach kids how to play instruments. My daughter, who seven, is learning. the ukulele and she's ripping ass on it she's killing it anyway i was waiting for her teacher to come out and the woman at the front counter was a total chapel rhone clone like totally dressed like like she's probably about 21 22 years old clearly modeling her look on chapel rome it reminded

this is an old reference but it reminded me of like when madonna came out in the in the mid 80s and you would see we remember at my school we called them the madonna girls and this was like little kids like they would dress like Madonna with the sunglasses and like the black shirt and the skirt and all that so Chapel Roan's already doing that

I think that record is actually pretty good I'm into that in the pop space she's my favorite artist I think right now and I don't know if you've listened to that record I actually think it's a well done record it's not breaking the mold

in terms of what's big in pop music right now, it is very much like an 80s pop-inspired record. I think where she deviates a little bit is she has more of a sort of outsider transgressive side to her personality. It's a little more rebellious than, you know, like a Taylor Swift, for instance. I mean, I feel like everything now is sort of judged in relation to Taylor Swift and in the pop space. And she does feel like more of an upstart.

like if you're kind of sick of the Taylor Swift thing and you're looking for an alternative, it feels like Chaparone is giving that to people, even though there is like an obvious Lady Gaga influence with her too, like Lady Gaga after 15 years ago. But I don't know, I like that record. And I think it's, I think the songs are good. I like what she's doing. Have you dug into that record at all?

I mean, I exist in 2024, so I've heard some of these songs in the wild. But in terms of how, big she is. I usually use my work environment as a good measure for it. And like the sort of people who would be non-fucking stop about Taylor Swift, not like six months ago, Chaparone is all people talk about. It's like it's it's insane how big she's gotten without like I can't name like a viral hit or like an espresso. So, but like, it just seemed to me like there was one week where people were tweeting about Chaparone, like she was like the biggest pop star and then it happened or vice versa.

I can't tell. But it's funny that you mention her as being India adjacent because I kind of agree with that. Like that, when that picture of Lalapalooza came out, like one of my wife's friends asked if this was her at Pitchfork Festival. And, you know, I guess it's kind of believable. like if that was 2023, I'm sure they could have gotten her to be there in the same way that I saw Kendrick Lamar at the small blue stage in 2012 a few months before Good Kid Mad City dropped. I would have joked, oh, no, that's the Black Puma set.

But yeah, it was looking like Glastonbury, you know, had that sort of sea of people thing. And, you know, I think about like Chaparone, of course, and Sabrina Carpenter and the way people talk about them, they've kind of like overshadowed Taylor Swift and Beyonce. I say this even though like Taylor Swift apparently got like 15 VMA awards, which by the way, like we're not going to... We're nominations, right? Yeah, the nominations. But I mean, they are going to, I mean, that show,

I'm amazed that show exists. I've said this for like the last five, six years. I say it every year, but it's true. The BMA's existing, I don't know. It's like Jimmy Carter still being alive. Like, how is this possible? It's unbelievable. Like what are they feeding the VMAs to keep going?

Have you seen the rock nominees? No. Oh my God. Like you want to talk about like this shit that makes the Grammys look washed. Okay, I'm just going to read this off. Best, okay, best rock. Bon Jovi, cold play. Kings of Leon.

Now that's, shout to the VMAs. They didn't memory hole that album. There you go. Love it. Lenny Kravitz. And this is the best. one yet. You two Atomic City. Do you remember this? Do you remember the artwork? I remember that that song was released the day that they started their residency at the

sphere. And I think they played it at the sphere. The show I saw, I don't know if they played it again. Like that song existed on September 29th, 2023, and then was gone immediately. That's weird that they would be, that's not the direction. I thought they were going to be going in. I thought it was going to be, you know, Yonogia Rodriguez or whatever. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Which would make sense for their audience.

Like, what? Bon Jovi? What? Yeah. For the BMAs? Yeah, and alternative includes, get this, hosier, imagine dragons, and Lincoln Park. Also, Benson Boone, bleachers, and Teddy Swims.

So Lincoln Park put out new music? I mean, friendly fire. I mean, all the kids are talking about it. Wow. God, man, the VMA is just brutal. That's brutal, man. But yeah, I mean, Chapel Roan, she reminds me a bit of Noah Khan just in terms of her popularity and exploding.

I think she's like the pop analog to whatever. I mean, Noah Khan is a pop artist too, but he's in more of like that Mumford and Sons singer-songwriter thing. and Chaparona is in the pop space, but I think both of them, they just became these artists that, for a certain kind of listener, you maybe felt like,

oh, I discovered this on Spotify. This is like my little secret. And then all of a sudden, there's like 37 million people like that. You know, I don't know. It feels kind of organic, but at the same time, I think the algorithms are like really doing those people

a lot of favors. Not to say that the songs aren't good I mean Noah Khan Even he who I think is largely boring But he has a couple songs that I think are pretty good Like his most popular songs are his best songs And then Chaparone again I think that record I like that record

Definitely I like that single Good luck babe I think she's I think she's good I don't know She definitely feels like The biggest artist in the pop world right now I couldn't agree anymore And it just feels like maybe the media or

I mean she's getting a lot of hype in the media but I feel like the streaming numbers even don't even quite convey that yet but she's getting there all right well before we get to the mailbag I did want to bring up one other thing that I saw this week

and I think you saw this too St. Vincent indie cast favorite who let's face it her album cycles haven't been as exciting since Daddy's home so we haven't had a chance to talk to her talk to her, talk about her, I guess, as much.

But she didn't interview with Kerrang magazine, which, by the way, like, Kerrang, don't they normally interview, like, Mastodon and Ghosts and, like, Bruce Dickinson, if he has, like, a solo record? Like, aren't they, like, a metal magazine? Yeah, but she has her own guitar. She does, and I think a big part of, like, why she's not a big part, but an important part of her. enduring fame is that she appeals to the sort of people who would say like you know pop music ain't shit but annie clark she can shred man right okay i can see that so like the guitar world wing of the

kering audience absolutely want to read the annie clark interview uh she did an interview where they were asking her about songs that have been impactful on her life and one of the uh songs that was was they asked her like what is the worst song ever written which is a great question I wish they would ask this to every artist I love to hear people's opinions on this topic and the answer by the way is hey Leonardo by Blessed Union of Souls I think we've talked about this on the show before but that's my answer for the worst song ever written but that's we'll set that aside for now St. Vincent in her opinion the worst song ever written did you see this do you have a guess what she would say is the worst song ever written?

I wouldn't guess, but like when she said it, it made a lot of sense to me. I'm like, that would be the sort of thing that St. Vincent would say is the worst song ever. And it's a good choice. I don't think it's the worst song ever written, but it's a good choice. It's Daughters by John Mayer. And this is what she said about it. She said, it's just so hideously sexist, but it pretends to be a love song. But it's really, really retrograde and really sexist.

sexist, and I hate it. It's so deeply misogynistic, which would be fine if you own that, but it pretends like it's sweet. So really, really retrograde, really sexist and deeply misogynistic. I think that's overstating it a little bit with this song. I would say that it's paternalistic, more than misogynistic. It has a very condescending attitude toward women, which I think would fall under the sexist umbrella, but like misogyny is like, like sexist is like, you know, you're sort of like, you're biased against women or you see them as lesser than. I think misogyny to me is like actively hating women. I don't think the song hates women, but I think it does look down upon women. Let's stick into the lyrics

here. I know a girl. She puts the color inside of my world. She puts the color inside of my world. No problem so far. It's just poetry right now. She's just like a maze where all of the walls all continually change. And I've done all I can to stand on her steps with my heart in my hands. Now I'm starting to see maybe it's got nothing to do with me. And then it goes into the chorus, fathers be good to your daughters.

Daughters will love you like you do. girls become lovers who turn into mothers so mothers be good to your daughters too and then later in the song John Mayer sings boys you can break you'll find out how much they can take boys will be strong and boy soldier on but boys would be gone without warmth

from a woman's good good heart on behalf of every man looking out for every girl you are the guide and the weight of her world So again, the idea is, hey, dad's out there. Be nice to your daughters. Because at some point, John Mayer is going to want to hook up with them.

And he doesn't want to hook up with some crazy, not nice woman. He wants her to be a good, you know, girlfriend. So please be nice so that 20 years down the road, John can have a good experience. I mean, that's my reading of this song, which again, I don't think that's, that's like hating women, but I do think it's very condescending to women. Yeah. Am I, am I, like, making a distinction where there isn't a distinction? Because I do think people use sexist and misogynist interchangeably, and I do think

that there is like a slight difference. I guess one is more of like a benign form of, uh, discrimination and the other is like actively hurtful. Yeah. Does that make sense? It's like the difference between manslaughter and premeditated murder, I think. You know what I mean? Right, yeah, exactly.

Exactly. Intent. Degrees of murder. Degrees of murder. Yeah. Intent is really... It's all bad. Yeah.

It's all bad. We're not defending any level of this. We're just saying, you know, yeah, there's... Yeah, there's, like, did you map it out? Did you buy the weapon? Did you wait for the right time? Or was it just, you know, an accident? Yeah.

That kind of thing. I bet there, I bet there really is it. Like, yeah, I don't like this song. I would not want to voluntarily hear it. And I also don't have a daughter. so, you know, I don't really have to, you know, seek out parenting advice from John Mayer. But I bet that we can find an interview with John Mayer where he basically admits to what St. Vincent wants him to, which is that if you, you could think of this as kind of a truly cynical Randy Newman-esque sort of thing where he's,

it's exactly what you say it is. It's like, hey, I'm John Mayer. I'm looking to fuck something. and I would rather not have this person have daddy issues. So, like, John Mayer has a long history of saying the dumbest, like, self-snitching shit in interviews. I bet that's there. Also, though... Wait, wait, wait, wait. You bring up the Randy Newman thing. Are you suggesting that John Mayer is writing from the perspective of a character in this song, that, like, he's not writing as himself?

Because, like, the Randy Newman thing would suggest that... Because, like, Randy Newman will write a song... We'll write a song from the perspective of a racist, but it's not a racist song. It's about this racist character. So are you saying John Mayer was adopting the voice of a dushy guy that would have these sorts of thoughts? So he's like satirizing that? Because I think that's given him too much credit. I don't think he was doing that.

Yeah, I think you're right. It's maybe in character, but it just so happens that character is extremely similar to what John Mayer is actually. like. It's sort of like how you read a lot of a lot of novels that are in at the front rack of Barnes and Nobles nowadays and they got the cover that makes it look like a package of beef jerky or whatever. It's like the story is like a very, very, very slightly fictionalized version of the author.

Maybe that's what's happening here. But I mean, it's a really bad song or it's a pernicious song. It's like a socially retrograde song. and yet it still feels kind of like punching down in a way because, I mean, like, who doesn't know that this song is retro gray massagin? It's like sort of saying like, oh, I bet you haven't thought about Wild World by Kat Stevens. That's a little problematic or baby it's cold outside.

Like I was I was hoping like St. Vincent would like kind of punch her weight in this particular one. Like talk about like appear. But then again, like John Mayer, like she does appeal to the same sort. sort of guitar world reader that John Mayer does. So maybe they just need to work it out on the remix. Well, you know who doesn't think this is a bad song? The Grammy people.

This song won Song of the Year at the 2005 Grammy Awards. No fucking way. Oh, it did. It did, baby. Daughters, John Mayer, beat out songs by Hubistank. The reason by Who Mistake was nominated for Song of the Year that year. Tim McGraw song, Jesus Walks by Kanye West, was nominated. And if I ain't got you by Alicia Keys.

The Grammy voters listen to daughters, and then they listen to Hubistank, and they're like, we're going to go with daughters for the song of the year trophy, handed to John Mayer. The thing with this song is that John Mayer wasn't a dad when he wrote this song, and I think that that adds a layer of skeeziness to it. that maybe pushes it over the line. Because normally when people write this kind of song, it's because they have a daughter themselves.

And by the way, that's like maybe the cringiest subgenre of song ever, like a dad singing to his young daughter type song. Do you remember that song, Butterfly Kisses by Barca? Yes, I've been to a wedding in the past 25 years, so yes. That's like the citizen cane of this genre. Just, whew.

That is a horrible That is a creepy song Have you heard the new Post Malone song? I've not. I don't know if this has actually been released. It was on TikTok, and I saw it pop up in one of my social media feeds.

It's called Yours, and it's a song where he's singing to his young daughter. And, man, John Mayer, you may not hold the crown much longer for a worse song of all time. Let me read some of these lyrics from this Post Malone song. And just to set it up, he's singing to the person in the future who's going to marry his daughter. So it's a similar conceit to the John Mayer song, only John Mayer didn't have a daughter.

He's like, it's like Post Malone could be singing to John Mayer in this song. Like the daughter in the daughter's song by John Mayer, it's like Post Malone is the dad that John Mayer is singing to. and now Post Malone is singing back to John Mayer. Like, I'm going to say that that exists now. If all time is a flat circle, yours and daughters are sister songs. So this is the Post Malone. I'll just read some of these lyrics.

I don't know where you are. One day I'm going to. And it's going to break my heart when she gives hers to you. So the daughter giving, his baby daughter giving her heart to this person. And it won't be tomorrow, but it's going to be too soon. When I walk her down the aisle and do what daddies have to do. That's the first verse.

Then we go into the chorus. And she might be wearing white, but her first dress, it was pink. She might be your better half. Yeah, but she's my everything. We'll both love her forever, but I loved her long before. And one day I know I'll give her away. Buddy, that don't mean she's yours. And I really don't like this songwriting thing.

where you're a dad writing about your daughter, and you're, like, in competition with her imaginary future husband. Like, he's kind of like saying, like, hey, buddy, she was mine first. And I know you're getting married to her. But, oh, Posty here. Posty has dibs on this woman. Very creepy. Very creepy, Post Malone.

And I know this song, when it gets released, it's going to be an enormous hit. So I'm just preparing everybody. you're going to be hearing this horrible Post Malone song at weddings well into the future decades from now this is going to be the new butterfly kisses I bet yeah you're going to play this song and not white Iverson I just want to like me like when when when that person when when post Malone's daughter eventually does get married I really hope that someone talks to this person also like this assumes that the person might be straight or you know I just know that because buddy, I mean, it doesn't really gender things, but, but buddy sounds like more of a thing you say to guys.

That's true. The buddy thing, I guess, does tip them. That's where I'm getting it from. Because otherwise, there's no pronouns here for the imaginary partner. Smart. That is smart songwriting. So buddy, yeah, but the buddy does tip it. So, yeah.

So posti, you never know. Could be a woman, could be a man. Who knows? Could be a non-binary person. You know. Yeah. And you never know. This person doesn't use pronouns, which will anger the author of the M&M article from Spin.

I imagine he thinks this song is too woke. What if Post Malone's daughter's like, I'm not getting married? I'm going to follow societal trends and not get married. Because younger people getting married less, procreating less. So, hey, man, Post Malone, you're counting your chickens here, my friend. Counting your chickens little early with this son. Let's get to our mailbag segment. It's always great to hear from our listeners.

If you want to hit us up, we're at Indycastmailbag at gmail.com. Do you want to read this week's email, Ian? I do, because this one is like a straight up Steve question. So it's more like he's asking you directly. So this comes from Adam from Crystal Lake, Illinois. Probably not the one memorialized on the Great Granddaddy song. but hello Stephen Ian I love the show in exactly the target demographic

mid-40s with nobody in my immediate circle understands indie rock I have urgent need of advice my wife got me for my early birthday actual birthday in December tickets to see Pearl Jam at Wrigley Field at the end of August awesome right but I haven't really listened to Pearl Jam in years and haven't clicked with their last couple of albums here's the conundrum Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson play the following week

and I can only go to one. I'm not deep into the Dylan or Willie catalogs either, but I was thinking it would be amazing to catch what could very well be their last tour. Stephen, I feel like this is more your wheelhouse, we'd love to get feedback from both of you. What should I do? Keep the Pearl Jam tickets or sell them

and go see Dylan slash Willie Nelson. Is a Pearl Jam show in 2024 still a life-changing experience, or would Dylan be more impactful? Have a good one. Adam from Crystal Lake. All right, so this is more me, I guess, in terms of the artists involved,

but I think that you and I can both address this as people who are married. Because I feel like the issue here is not really about the artist. It's the fact that your wife got you these tickets as an early birthday present. And I don't know, like, how she feels about you pondering whether you're going to sell these tickets. But I know that Pearl Jam tickets aren't necessarily easy to get. Probably took her a little bit of effort to do that. And I just wonder, are you going to be, in the doghouse a little bit.

If you take these tickets that your wife generously got for you and sell them, and you go to another concert where, by your own admission, you're not that big into Dylan or Willie Nelson. You want to go because you feel like, well, these guys are getting up there in years, and I may not be able to see them in the future,

which is an understandable impulse. But again, I feel like, setting aside the music issue, you got the marriage issue here. And I just feel like it was a good chance if you present to the wife, hey,

didn't really dig the last couple Pearl Jam records. Not sure I want to go to this show. I think I'm going to go on Stubhub, sell these, but then go to this other show. What do you think? She may very well say,

oh yeah, that's great. Don't worry about it, honey. But I think you might possibly be sowing seeds of discord. that could grow into trees of problems later on. You know, maybe you're going to be in the kitchen and you're doing the dishes. And you ask your wife for a towel and she goes, oh, now you want me to give you something.

Oh, now you want something from me. Well, you didn't want those tickets I got for you, for your birthday. And then your night is ruined all of a sudden. So I don't know. I feel like you got to stick with the tickets that your wife got you. And I would just say that like, yeah, Willie Nelson's 91 and Bob Dylan is 83. You're really betting on whether these guys are going to pass away or not, because I don't think they're going to retire. The only way this would be the last tour is if they were to die.

And I hate putting it that way, but that is, I think, the calculus that you have to go through with this sort of thing. I think you're going to probably have another chance to see those guys. I really do. I'm putting my stock in those guys just rocking down the road, at least for the near foreseeable future. So, I don't know, keep the wife happy, show appreciation for the gift she got you, go to the Pearl Jam concert. That would be my answer to that.

Yeah, I actually feel bad that we use. I mean, he put his full name in there. and so there's a good chance he's going to be like listening to this podcast and maybe his wife is listening. So he's maybe already fucked by just thinking about changing it up. Well, it's a pretty specific scenario. I don't know if the name would make a difference. But I mean, we could cut the name out. Yeah, let's do that.

We'll cut the last name out. There you go. This Adam. Yeah, I would say that you're like, I thought about this too. Like, well, Pearl Jam, you can definitely see them again. They're probably going to play Wrigley Field in like two years. Dylan and Willie, who the heck knows. But yeah, ultimately this is a question of like, yo, if your wife gets you these tickets,

like, I think the only conceivable way of like returning or exchanging a gift your wife got you is if it straight up doesn't fit. Like if it's a piece of clothing. But, you know, if your mom got you these tickets or a friend or an uncle or an in-law, then yeah, by all means. Nah, this is someone who went out of their way To get you Pearl Jam tickets at Wrigley Field for your early birthday And yeah, for what I don't think Bob Dylan You can catch them You might have to drive like two or three hours like Steve, I know you did

Recently you saw them in like kind of an unusual place right Well, I haven't seen Dylan and Willie yet they're playing in my area Bob Dylan though like he was playing in like some interesting places Well, I saw him in Milwaukee last year. So he'll probably be in Chicago again. You know, you're in the Chicago area. I would imagine you'll have other chances. I mean, you don't have chances to see, like you said, Pearl Jam again.

But I just think the etiquette with the wife has to be your main concern here. Exactly. And so go see Pearl Jam. Enjoy it. It'll be awesome. And it's not like, oh, this is like my favorite band. Like, you know, Kings of Leon are playing. Chicago and I'm assuming that you know if you're the target demographic you're the

certain person who loves can we have some fun or whatever that album was called yeah dude stick like like that like that sentence joke stick with your wife we've now reached the part of our episode that we call Recommendation Corner where Ian and I talk about something that we're into this week Ian once you go first so this past weekend one of my recommendation corner favorites Paranul the anonymous Korean Shugays artist dropped a entirely new album. He tends to drop like singles or demos, but this is a straight up new album called Sky Hundred. It is the follow-up to what was my co-album of the year from 2023 after the magic.

And it is very, if you like that album, you like the one before that, you're going to like this one as well. It gets back a little bit more to the guitary side of what this artist does. I mean, a lot of his guitar stuff is all like MIDI instruments. Very blown out and beautiful. Even in an oversaturated world of shoegays right now, this one still stands out. There's like some early M83 in there. Some of the melodies kind of have a K-pop sound to it, very eerie and uncanny. And it's just cool to see this artist who I found on band camp or on this album of the year

kind of come out of nowhere and make one of the most impressive. bodies of work over the past half decade. Already becoming like super influential for artists who make shoegaze and use computers. If you like the last two, this album will hit the spot. If you haven't heard after the magic or to see the next part of the dream, I feel like those are albums that could really score pretty high on eventual 2020s decade lists.

So just the gift dropping from the heavens, paranormal, sky hundred. So I was going to talk about the new album by King Gizzard in the Lizard Wizard, which is called Flight B741. Actually reviewed this record. You can read about it today on Up Rocks. It's a, I mean, they always do different genres on their records. This is them doing like an early 70s country rock, Southern rock type album.

And I actually think it's like one of their better records, even though I have some of my usual caveats like with, songwriting. I think there's so much quantity that they're putting out that I think sometimes songwriting-wise it falls like a little short. But this is a really fun record and it's very well-timed for the type of year. This is a very good August-type record. But I noticed that you didn't talk about a very Ian Cohen type record and it intersects with my own interests. Life Till Bones, the latest record from Oso Oso. So I feel like I need to talk about that in Recommendation corner. And look, we've talked about Osa Osu on the show. Ian, you've written quite a bit about

this band. I've written a bit about this band as well. They've really become in the 2020s, like one of the more beloved bands in the emo space. I think it's fair to say that. Although, I have to say that I'm always a little confused sometimes by the differentiation between, like, emo and what I would call just like down the middle very catchy guitar pop. I think sometimes it's really a matter of like who the band is associated with, what label they're on, who they're touring with and that ends up putting them under the emo umbrella. Because like this band, I feel like if they were around in the 90s, they would be signed to a major label and they would be touring with like better than Ezra and gin blossoms.

And bands like that. And by the way, I mean that as a compliment, because those bands specialized in writing very good songs that you could listen to over and over again, very catchy, that go down extremely easy. I think this record is about a half hour long. It definitely seems like that's part of the Osso-O-O-So experience. And it's a band that you listen to,

and it's like they're not going to bowl you over like with gimmicks or like ambition or any sort of novelty thing. It really just comes down to the songs. And we've talked about this on previous episodes, how there's bands like this that sometimes fall through the cracks because they don't speak to the moment or they don't seem relevant to current trends. They just write songs that sound kind of timeless and really good.

And I think Oso Oso falls into that camp. And this is a good record. I don't think it's their best record, but I think it's a record that shows how consistent they are in their catalog. You know when there's a new Oso Oso Oso record coming out that's going to be good songwriting is going to be on point you're going to enjoy listening to it it's going to be a good time so i think you're reviewing this record for somebody yeah yeah i was actually uh writing working on that this morning before we started recording and yeah you're

absolutely correct in that uh they are emo because of the world from which they sprung jade the front person played guitar in the hotel year for a minute uh if you watch their pitchfork festival performance in 2016 you'll see him up all on stage. And yeah, I mean, it's not my favorite of theirs, but it's like really good. And, you know, like, yeah, maybe in the 90s they would have been on, on like, DreamWorks and touring with better than Ezra. But, you know, if they had come not from the emo world, they'd be on like, you know, mom and pop records and, you know, showing up on festivals, you know, on the third line or something like that. So it's, we always talk about like, oh, if they weren't emo, they'd be bigger. But I think

that, you know, just when I know about. Jade. He likes to do his own thing. Not really interested in the hype. This is a self-released record. But yeah, similar to Parano. If you like the last bunch, you're going to like this one too. And it's also very good. Good stuff.

So thank you all for listening to this episode of Indycast. We'll be back with more news, reviews, and hashing out trends next week.