Indiecast - Travis Scott's "Utopia" + The (Bad) New Country Song Co-Written By David Bowie

Episode Date: August 4, 2023

This week, indie-rock institution Wilco announced a new album. It's called Cousin, and Steven and Ian naturally wondered: Is this a deliberate reference to The Bear? After all, the hit FX show is known for multiple Wilco needle drops. Did Jeff Tweedy return the favor? The verdict is "probably not," but it's fun to speculate about regardless (:28).From there, they take a hard left to talk about Utopia, the new album by rapper Travis Scott. Utopia is the sort of big tent rap record that used to be common, but in 2023 the genre seems more insular than usual. Is this a temporary blip or a sign of things to come? And is Utopia — an album that includes more than a few signifiers that evoke Kanye West — a conscious attempt to make the kind of album that achieves critical and commercial acclaim? (9:45)Another hard left: Steven tells Ian about "Young Love And Saturday Nights," a (terrible) new country song by Chris Young that borrows the riff from David Bowie's "Rebel Rebel." It's part of a trend called "interpolation pop" where songwriters go to song publishers in advance to get permission to use the spare parts of classic tunes. After that, the guys talk about the recent controversy concerning Lizzo (38:50), and give the "yay or nay" treatment to the Semisonic reunion (45:16).In Recommendation Corner (51:24), Ian talks about the new George Clanton while Steven recommends the recent four-part Spector music documentary.New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 149 and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [e-mail], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Indycast is presented by Uprox's indie mixtape. Hello everyone and welcome to Indycast on this show we talk about the biggest indie news of the week. We review albums and we hash out trends. In this episode, we talk about Travis Scott, the state of mainstream hip-hop, and the David Bowie country song. Yes, that's a real thing. My name is Stephen Hayden and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. He wishes the new Wilco album was called Yes Chef, Ian Cohen, Ian Howare you? It's a very daring move by Wilco to reference.

the show that they are most closely associated with. I mean, is this the bump they need to really get into the 40-something Hulu watching demographic? I think it just might work out for them. I hope they actually make a B-Sides compilation called Behind. That could be, that could work out well for them too. So we should explain for those who aren't, who didn't hear the news. There was a new Wilco album announced this week. It's coming out at the end of September. It's called Cousin. and there was speculation online that perhaps the album title is a reference to the popular FX show The Bear, which of course uses a lot of Wilco songs on the soundtrack. There's also this thing where you've got Carmi and you have Richie, like the cousins who call each other cousin.

It's like a recurring thing on the show. So it just seemed like, oh wait, is this Jeff Tweedy tipping a cap to, to this TV show that has played a lot of the songs. And I just have to say, I did do a little bit of reporting on this. I reached out to someone in the Wilco camp, and I was like, is this a deliberate reference to the bear? And this person said, are you joking?

Do you really think Wilco would do that? Yes. Well, I mean, I don't actually think they did that. But at the same time, they did call an album Star Wars, and they put it like a cat on the cover and there's an album called Wilco the album they have some wacky album titles

especially like in the last seven, eight years so I don't know if they would be Jeff Tweedy I don't know if he would be that obvious but I don't know I actually think it is credible but this person made me feel stupid for just asking the question

so now I'm doubting myself So maybe it was like a fake out. Maybe this actually is, you know, it's like multi-dimensional chess here. Maybe this actually is a bare reference. And so I don't know. Yeah. In any rate, it's an accidental reference, you know, for sure. Yeah.

I mean, I think there is plausible deniability. I think it would be more plausible deniability if this was their first album since, you know, say 2019 or what have you. But like, I mean, they put one out last year. This seems like for a certain type of guy, the equivalent of Twitter saying, you know, if Gucci Man was still on his shit, he would make an album called Woppenheimer. And he actually went ahead and did that. I don't know if it's real, but I think he made the cover for that. So, you know, well, for a band like Wilco, I think you have to integrate some degree of fan service. So even if it's just like the possibility that they, you know, are referencing their omnipar.

presence in the bear. It's fun for the fans. Now, you know, hopefully there will be a interview where, like, Jeff Tweedy says exactly what you have, which is like, are you joking? And that'll be the end of it. But, I mean, I'm excited for this. I mean, do you think that, like, the association with the bear has, I don't know, given Wilco a little bit of a bump in terms of, like, them being perhaps seen as like a major player in the narrative or is it just like I don't know like painting over like it like the the bare fan base and the Wilco fan base is like a circle rather than a then diagram yeah I mean the thing I admire about Wilco and I've said this before that when I think about like my own career I model my career after Wilco I look at them as a role model not only because

because they're from the Midwest, but because they seem to be in this bubble where they just do what they do and occasionally they bubble up and they become a topic of conversation, then they fade away, and then five years later they bubble up again. But they're always chugging along.

They always have an audience and it doesn't really matter what else is going on in the world. And I just think that's such a great way to have your career. This just seems like another instance of them bubbling up, you know, like with the bear.

It's giving them some buzz. This new album, is produced by Kate LeBahn, which is a departure. Usually they're working in-house with their records, and now they're bringing in another well-known indie artist to produce them as sort of like their version of like St. Vincent producing Slater Kinney.

This is the dad rock equivalent of that. And they'll be interesting to see how people talk about this record in light of that. I saw some conversation online where people were saying like, oh, this sound, the song sounds different, like the single that came out this week. Sounds different.

I can tell what Kate LaBan is doing. I don't know if it was that discernible to me, especially coming off the last couple records. Cruel Country, actually, I think, was a real strong record. It's like my favorite record that they had done probably since the whole love, so like in about a decade. Not to dismiss the records they did in the 2010s.

I like those records too, but there's a little bit of a misnosed with Cruel Country that I think people talked about it being like an alt country record like they're going back to being there and it's not really that there are you know there's maybe more pedal steel on that album than there had been on a Wilco record

in a while but it's not really a country record despite the title and I don't know what I've heard of the new record is it feels like an extension of what they've been doing on the last couple album yeah I mean I think that that makes me excited because

you know, like cruel country was Wilco being Wilco. And I think even just like the presence of Caleb Bond like makes me, I don't know, maybe like makes it view it just the slightest bit differently. But, you know, when you brought up like Wilco being a model for, you know, one's career, I'm thinking about an interview I did today with Chris Faron. He mentioned Matt and Kim being his model for a good career for the very same reasons. and murder by death, which is that, you know, they were, like, part of the narrative. They were part of the zeit guys for a little bit, but they just kind of keep chugging along and

doing their thing. And I think that's really all we can hope for. You know, Wilco is very aspirational in that regard. You know, it's like not like I see Wilco on stage and think, damn, man, I want to be, I want to be just like Jeff Tweedy or, like, the other guys in the band whose names escape me because I'm not sure if they're in them anymore. It's just like, yeah. It's not been the same lineup, really, like, for, like,

20 years. Yeah, they've been very, this is Nils Klein, yeah. He's still in there? Michael Jorgensen, Pat Sandsone. I mean, obviously, John Staird's been in there, you know, forever. Right. Yeah, I mean, this Wilco, I mean, that period, like, where they were like a different band with every record pretty much ended

after a ghost is born. Like, the band that plays on kicking television is the band that has been Wilco for, you know, since 2005. Well, that's aspiration. too. At that age, you want your core group of like four friends that you're going to ride it out with. Like, you're probably not, you know, you don't want to go like, I don't know, join a kickball league or some bullshit to, you know, start meeting new people.

So, Wilco, very aspirational. Shout to them. Keep doing your thing. There's nothing, too. There was this period where Wilco was the band where if you didn't like indie rock, you would make fun of Wilco. Like, there's always, like, one band like that where, for a while was MacDamarko. The National. Who would it be? The National is that band? Would you say it's Big Thief? It's probably Big Thief. Yeah.

If you don't like Indie Rock, you throw up a photo of Big Thief and you make some jokes about hats and, you know, half-naked people kissing and hugging each other. Like that kind of thing. Exploring each other's bodies and whatnot. Yes, exactly. And Wilco was that band for a while. But, you know, again, they just do what they do. And they move through that period. And now I feel like for 25-year-olds who like classic rock,

Wilco was like The Grateful Dead, basically, at this point. Like, just like a long-running band. They have a great history. They seem unimpeachable. Like, they haven't really done anything that you would be embarrassed by. You know, maybe you like some records better than others. But, you know, Jeff Tweedy is a pretty admirable person. And they also have that very, till-me,

mulchuous period early on in their career that maybe lends them some romance. And in a way, like, that Wilco ended? So you have, like, the romantic Wilco, and then you have, like, the long-running they can be, like, a couple different bands at the same time. It's a very interesting phenomenon with them. We love Wilco here. Yeah, yeah. We do it.

We fucking love Wilco. Big surprise. Let's make a hard left here, away from Wilco, to talk about Travis Scott. His fourth record, Utopia, came out last week. It's been the album that I would say, certainly it's the most popular album in America right now. I think that's fair to say. Definitely the one that people are talking about the most. And it's interesting.

I want to talk about this album with you, but there's also a sort of a tangential conversation going on. Or not tangential, like a parallel conversation with the conversation about the record. there's also like a larger conversation about the state of hip hop right now. And it's interesting because, you know, you and I in the era that we came up in as music critics, it was just always a given that there would be at least a couple big tent event rap records every year. You know, whether it was by Jay-Z or by Outcast or by Kanye West or by Lil Wayne or, you know, just go down the line, you know, the odd future people, uh, how the creator, there was always an album that

seemed to capture the zeitgeist both of the commercial world and the critical world. And it seems like lately those kind of rap records are hard to come by. And I just want to say right away, I'm not going to be making I'm not just asking questions

about the popularity of rap or if rap is fading at any way. Because there's plenty of evidence to suggest that a lot of people are listening to hip-hop in in 2023. But like these kind of event albums, you know, like like the kinds of Drake was delivering and, you know, like in the last several years, all that.

I mean, is it fair to say that like a record like Utopia, it seems like kind of a rarity right now? Yeah. And I think that's probably why we're talking about it right now to begin with. I mean, it probably will be the number one album in the country. But I think you're alluding to this existence. dread that I see kind of hovering off the rap discussion right now that like rap is falling off as a cultural force because I don't think it's produced a number one song in the past year and

you know you look at the charts at like Morgan Wallen and Jason Haldine are dominating and so it's so funny to me because for as long as I've been alive and like following the rap narrative you know much more so as a younger person than I am now there was never a it was always a concerns, like, is rap too popular? It's like, you know, we're getting away from the roots and the roots, you know, the actual group or like, you know, the roots of hip hop itself. There was a lot of hand-wringing about, like, whether rap was too popular and now it's like, yo, it's not popular enough. And I think there's maybe some, there's some credence to that. A lot, like, there are very, very popular rap records. And, you know, there are a lot of bigger artists that are

just coming up, you know, like Ice Spice, if she ever puts out, like an album album, I'm sure that'll be a big deal. But as far as like for us as critics, we've mentioned this on the pod before, but like how just to be part of the discussion, there would be albums like, you know, a Drake album or a Kanye album or even to a certain extent, a future album or, you know, Kendrick, obviously. But Utopia, that is, it's very popular. And I don't, I always thought like his critical acclaim was like very, very tenuous. let's just say. I think that with the previous album Astro World, most people would say like, yeah, okay, he's like not really saying anything, but it's just so enmeshed in the culture. You kind of

have to acknowledge it. And what I've seen so far from Utopia is it's a phenomenon similar to like chance the rappers the big day. I'm not saying this album's going to flop in the same way, but it hasn't gotten the same reception. And like every single criticism that I've seen of Utopia would like very true of Astro World as well. It's just that like the culture has shifted. This person hasn't. And, you know, I actually listened to Utopia. I gave it a shot. And it's like one of those things where I don't mind blustery rap blockbusters. I fucking love them.

But, you know, I think there's like a difference between, you know, like I'm the best rapper alive or like, you know, or like I am like, you know, like we're like the godfather or whatever. But like what I think about with Travis Scott and ASAP Rocky and similar people, like the whole. narrative around it's like, yo man, this is like boundless musical scope. They're changing the culture, man. Like this is, this is like totally like a paradigm shifting thing. Like that's what they bring to the table. And you listen to it and it's like, okay, this person likes the most popular Afro beat songs and like Tame and Paula or whatever. It's more or less just like the top line of like Coachella put on a rap record. And again, maybe for like someone who was like reading Complex magazine at 16 rather than pitchfork, like this is their equivalent.

of like the last big thief album. It seems to be, because there's been like, you know, some negative reaction to that review or just the fading critical, you know, the fading critical fortunes. Well, you know,

you mentioned, you know, the top line of Coachella being a reference point for Utopia. It's also, like another reference point are like Big Ten rap records of the past. Like, I don't know if you saw this,

but there's a, the music blog, no bells. They had a tweet. Shout to them. where they were breaking down a bunch of songs from Utopia, and they were tracing the origins of the songs. And I guess this wasn't like 100% authenticated,

but apparently whoever did the reporting on this has been in touch with leekers in his camp, and they were able to trace where some of the music originally came from on that record. And a lot of those tracks are based on music that was supposed to be on Kanye West Records, like going back to Yeez-Sys, apparently. But like a lot of stuff that, you know, was maybe in consideration for Donda or God's country, like those records. But it's interesting, you know, because I've seen Yeezus brought up as a comparison for this record.

And it seems like there are, there's literally music on the record that, like, could have been on Yeezus, you know. And Jesus, of course, being an example of a record that just totally dominated culture when it came out. in a way that you're not seeing rap records due to the same degree right now. And it made me think about, I'm going to run this by you, you could tell me if I'm totally off base. But I wrote a column for Grantland about a decade ago. Hell yeah. I was writing about Macedon, I think. And I was talking about...

I thought you were about say Yisus or something, which we could have done in 2013. Oh, I wrote about Yisus for sure. Everyone wrote about Yus in 2013. But I was talking about metal and hard rock And how those two genres do not exist Really in any meaningful way as like mainstream music They didn't really in 2013 And I think that's doubly true now 10 years later

And that seems a little strange If you're a person like me who came up in the 80s and 90s When really like the biggest bands in the world Were metal, hard rock Or like adjacent to those scenes Guns and Roses, Metallica, Def Leopard, ACDC,

Motley Crew, all of the grunge stuff, up through new metal. If you wanted to be a big band, you really had to have some sort of hard rocker metal aspect to what you were doing. And what happened in that genre

is that you look at metal bands now, like they're still popular metal bands, but they are catering to a metal audience. They're not trying to cross over. They're not doing like the Def Leopard thing where you hire Mutt Lang and you produce, a song like pour some sugar on me that people who have no idea

who Iron Maiden is, like they're going to love that song. It doesn't matter. Because it's a metal song, but it's also a pop song. And at some point, like, the best metal bands stopped trying to do that. Because it was like we live in a different world. You're better off talking to your bass

rather than trying to be broad. And I just wonder, do you think there's something like that happening in hip-hop? Because I'm not going to claim to be a hip-hop expert at all. Like, I have not Follow the genre, really at all, for at least like five or six years. And, you know, part of that is getting older. Part of that is I just don't have the time to commit to following the genre that seems

increasingly insular and Byzantine. And like if you aren't enmeshed in the world, it seems like it's harder to comprehend what's going on. I'm still a person who, if there's a big hip-hop record that is crossing over, that people are talking about that breaks through, like, I'm going to check that out, but I'm not someone who's going to burrow deep down into the scene at this point. And it just seems like, you know, this might be another example of a genre progressing to the point where you're speaking to the base and it's less interested in speaking to a pop audience.

Does that make any sense at all to you? It makes sense whether or not, like, it's, like, actually the case. like I think, you know, a younger person might need to talk about. But I do, I do, like, look, we're, we're in a spot right now where neither of us are going to be able to write about a rap album. And that's, you know, that's been true for a while. But, you know, even people I know who like rap, you know, or much in it, they talk about, like, how the best albums or the best artists of the past year are, like, kind of super regional, you know? And it's like specialists rather than a big tent type people, like Travis Scott, you know.

So I think there's truth to it. I think maybe we're just in a transitional phase. But yeah, I don't like, because I'm like wondering, like, who could come back and, I don't know, make an album that really organizes the culture around it. You know, like Cardi B hasn't released a new album since 2018. But has the culture moved on? I don't know. But it's, I think it's fascinating to see people reckon with it.

Yeah, I mean, you know, we are at a point, you know, there's been all, there's been a lot of coverage of this that, like, people are talking about the 50th anniversary of hip hop. Oh, right, yeah. And how, if you put that on the rock spectrum, that's like 2005. That's, that's around when, like, rock music turned 50. If you want to say rock music started in 1955, some people might disagree, but it's about around that time. And what you saw at that point was rock music, I think, reaching a level of cultural, saturation where you become so ingrained in music that you kind of start to disappear a little bit. And I think there's something similar maybe happening with hip hop at this point because hip hop is so permeated every kind of music that you can have elements of that and not really be hip hop.

Like you mentioned Morgan Wallin, for example. You know, he is, you know, the biggest star in country music right now. There's definitely a hip-hop influence on his music. And he's, I mean, he's collaborated with rappers. But no one would ever, like, really say that he's anything but, you know, this moated country singer. We're going to be talking about someone in a minute from the country world who is literally lifting a guitar riff from a rock classic. And his song sounds like a rock song, but he's classified as country. Right.

So, you know, I think hip hop, unlike rock music, has been able to maintain its cultural identity and purity much longer. You know, I think rock was just got diffused much quicker than hip hop has. But at some point, like, it's, that's got to break down a little bit, doesn't it? I mean, you can't, I mean, because all genres take this path. And again, it's not saying that, oh, the music's bad now or it's not popular. It's just, it's in middle age. You know, it is an old genre at this point. And I know, it just makes me think, too, about, like, what is going to be the next genre?

You know, there hasn't been a next genre, really? In a way that, like, you know, if you want to say rap, usurped rock, is like, is it just pop music usurping rap at this point? I don't know. Because I think one of the things that gets mentioned when there's, you know, you know, this, you know, these, this like existential dread about hip hop receding from the culture. They bring up, you know, country or regional Mexican music as like the things that have really had great years in 2023. And, you know, I don't know if those are, I imagine those will be, you know, powers in the future. But I just want to like, I got to push back on one thing

because you said that like, you know, rock was like middle age in 2005 there about. You know, that was the year of the first clap your hand, say, yeah, I might think Rock was fucking thriving. Well, me too. Look, I'm not saying that was not a diss. I never used middle-aged as a dis at this point. It is always a term of endearment for me. Someone still loves you, Boris Yeltson released Broom that year. How can we say that the genre was on its last legs?

Well, but that is a point, though, that I think a lot of people would say that in terms of like the commercial relevancy of rock music, it really started to shift around there. Because that's like when, okay, so by 2005 you have new metal, petering out, and then like the return of rock bands from New York, they didn't make the kind of impact that the media wanted them to make. And that was becoming pretty clear by 2005, 2006. So I don't know, just thinking of it in those terms, it's interesting to think about hip-hop being on that timeline. You know, what are we going to see? It could be, they could totally take a different path.

But I don't know. It's a lot to expect of any genre of popular music to always be at the vanguard forever. You know, it just seems like that is impossible to happen. But at the same time, I don't know what replaces it other than maybe what we're going to talk about next, which is the rise of like pop music that just recycles old music. I mean, maybe that's the future at this point. I mean, it's like the present. I mean, I'm so happy that you put this song on my radar.

Because, you know what? Like, we've been doing a lot of episodes lately where we haven't talked about, like, big new albums. I think there's, you know, just been a kind of a dearth of interesting albums that have come out over the past month. But, like, we've always had some shit to talk about because I feel like you're more on the pulse than I am. And you find stuff like the David Bowie country song. So help our listeners understand what the heck you're talking about. And shout out to David Brown of Rolling Stone, who wrote about this this week. Yes, there's a song.

It's a new song. It's called Young Love and Saturday Nights. It's by a country singer. Well, yeah, it could be. No, it's by a country singer named Chris Young, who I'd never heard of. And this song, I'll just read from the story here that David Brown wrote for Rolling Stone. when country singer Chris Young heard a demo of a new song in consideration for his next album, he didn't need a rock encyclopedia to identify a key part of it.

Quote, this song started and I said, That's the lick from Rebel Rebel, Young recalls. I immediately knew what it was. I wouldn't say I've exhausted David Bowie's catalog. But that one is instantly recognizable. So Chris Young acknowledging, I haven't listened to Scary Monsters or any of the, the rest of the Berlin trilogy,

but I do know this very famous David Bowie song. So yeah, so basically this song, it takes the riff from Rebel Rebel, very famous guitar riff, and just replicates it. It doesn't do anything with it. I think he slows it down a little.

Not really? I don't think... I wasn't sure whether it was just like my computer not like having good Wi-Fi, but it sounded like it did like the the rap thing where you'll like chop and screw the riff and then you bring it back and it's like regular speed.

I'll need to do further research. Wow. Okay. Well, I know, I think there's like some banjo like underneath the guitar riff to make it a country song. Yeah, I think, okay, if you're listening to this podcast, because obviously you are, if you heard me say this, you need to

pause the show for a second and go to YouTube and look up the video for this song. It's called Young Love and Saturday Nights. This video is incredible. We were talking about the Jason Aldine video, the racist one. This is like a benign version of that. It's taking a lot of the same cliches, but like taking out the sort of fascist imagery.

But like Chris Young, he's this guy. Again, he's like a Jason Aldeen and that he's kind of handsome, but he's just sort of like a regular looking guy. He's a guy. Yeah, he's like your brother-in-law. Or, you know, the guy at the office who has to leave right after work because he's got a softball game. You know, he plays in a beer league every summer. He has like this facial stubble that it looks like it's spray tanned on. Like, I don't know if there's, in Nashville there must be some sort of like spray tan equivalent of facial stubble.

That's what it looks like. He has like a white shirt on that looks like someone. just ripped it out of like a package of fruit of the loom t-shirts. It's like just stiff. Is it is it like a real t-shirt or is it like the one that Carme wears on the bear that actually costs like $89? That probably does. I'm not up on an expensive t-shirts. So it may very well be that. But it's like it's like a spotless shirt. And he pulls a fender Stratocaster out of the back of his pickup. I didn't mention he comes out of a pickup truck of course. You should go without saying though. And it looks like he's,

He's never played a guitar before. I don't know if you've ever seen that video of, like, Hulk Hogan. I'm a real American. Of course. Where Hulk Hogan's playing guitar, and it's very unconvincing his guitar stance. That's like Chris Young in this video. And I just want to read these lyrics. Just the most stock, lazy, country lyrics imaginable.

He's got a Chevrolet that don't always run. and the radio never turns down. He's got a pedigree that's no good for nothing. No comma's in his bank account. You're saying he's a poor old country boy. But there's a girl at the hole in the wall where he plays. Don't take her eyes off the stage. She loves her southern drawl from north of Atlanta.

Okay. We'll get back to that, but keep going. Okay. That's Silverado he got parked outside. loves a cranking 89 Alabama Is that a reference to like the band? I think it's a reference to the band.

It has to be. The band Alabama. Kissing for an hour in the parking lot light, here's to good girls who can't keep from falling for bad boys that their daddies don't like.

Small towns that keep staying small, that's a tip of the cap to Jason Aldeen there. Here's to old trucks, young love, and Saturday nights. Fuck yeah. How many cliches?

I think I just, rattled off about 75 cliches in like two verses. Yeah, this rocks, man. If you're going to like do something like this, you've got to commit to the bit. And we talked about this on a previous episode, about like one of the things that I admire the most about Nashville writing is how much fan service is involved with it.

But I just, I got to talk about the southern draw from north of Atlanta because this hits me like, you know, like the South Detroit line from Don't Stop Belief. like do you know what's north of Atlanta like I've lived in Georgia like believe me I'm like not a expert on like you know this topic but I did live in Atlanta

and like my conception of like north of Atlanta are like the suburbs like Alpharetta and Marietta like outside the perimeter shit like the place where they moved to Atlanta Brave Stadium because you know basically to stick it to the city they wanted to make it inaccessible from

you know the people who actually live in the inner city so again that's not something that I think, you know, the average person will, will pick up on, but like, you know, Southern Drol north of Atlanta, it's clever songwriting. Also, like, as we're talking about, like, as you say, like, you know, he's just some guy. The guy's name is, like, Chris Young, which to me reminds me of, like, when Lil Baby or Young Thug started coming up, where I'm like, ah, name's too generic. They'll never, they'll never be anything. They'll be forgettable. But, like, Chris Young is, like, so forgettable and yet so perfect. It's absolutely the little

baby of like pop country music. Yeah, this, I mean, how many like youngs are there in Nashville? There's just probably like a Luke Young or a Colton Young or like a James Young. I mean, yeah, I feel like that is a common trope. Yeah, instead of like Young Lean, it's like they reverse. They put the Young as the surname in Nashville. I'm glad you brought up Young Lean. I mean, what's your take on Drain Gang? You know, we never had that. We never had that conversation. I'm talking out of my ass with that one. Young lead is an actual person, though. Oh, I know that.

I know that. But in terms of, like, you know, breaking down the discography, I'm not going to do that. You know, this is an example of something that has become pretty common, not just in country music, but in pop music. And I guess it's called, like, interpolation pop, like this idea that you take, like, an old song, and you aren't just, like, stealing it, the way that people used to do, you're actually like going to publishers who, you know, right now publishers are buying up all these old songs and repurposing them,

you know, putting them in different sort of venues to make money off them in different ways. And this is like one way that they're doing it. And I don't know if this is something like where David Bowie's publisher approaches like a Nashville song factory. And they're like, hey, do you want to take the riff of Rebel Rebel and create a new song? And like you'll give David Bowie like,

partial credit for the songwriting and we'll make money and you'll have a good spine for a future pop hit. This is something that's happening, happening increasingly more. It's funny because it's also happening in an era where there's all of these questionable lawsuits that people are bringing up about songs being ripped off and yet you have this like officially sanctioned plagiarism going on essentially. It's a very, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, a strange thing. Yeah. Well, first time, I got to just mention that, like, you know, I got to call myself out here

that American football is honestly also kind of Nix Rebel Rebel, but that's what they won't tell you. I got to just wonder, of course, you know, because this is Indycast, we got to think about, you know, the verve. Like Richard Ashcroft, like, he hasn't made a dime for Bittersweet Symphony because, like, he took one unrecogn- like a part of the Rolling Stone song, which is unrecognized. except for their lawyers. And here you have, it's like what, if I paid up front, right?

It's like this kind of like predatory loan sort of thing or whatever. It's like, do you want to pay, you know, an upfront fee or do you want to pay on the back end? And I don't know. I'm just like very curious about where this is going to go because it, I feel like there's like some sort of connection between, you know, the times where like hip hop had to have this question of like are becoming too popular, which was like the shiny suit era where, you Puffy and like all the other

artists that were like sampling stuff wholesale were doing something quite similar to this but at least they like change the they changed the lyrics or something like that. I wonder if there's like this this like cabal of like you know purest country people

who are going to make like you think Hank done it this way part five billion or whatever maybe there's going to be this like parallel backlash of like you know interpolating Hank Williams songs or something like that. Yeah, I mean, look, as you mentioned, this isn't a new thing, and it goes back much farther

than even past the 90s. I mean, if you want to look at, like, blues and folk music, there's, like, a long tradition of just take this line from a pre-existing song and write a new song around it, or take this melody and put different lyrics to it. Like, that's just something that was inherent to those scenes. And then, you know, you talk about the hip-hop thing. I don't even want to say this band name because it's super offensive, and I can't believe this group was successful,

but do you remember there was a British DJ act from the late 80s called, and I'm just saying the band name, Jive Bunny and the Master Mixers? Are you familiar with this? I thought you were going to say Charred Poppin Daddies. No, somehow you've beat me on, like I feel like this is the sort of area where I should bring the expertise, but I'm not familiar with them. Yeah, they had a bunch of hits, more so in England than here, there was this one song

what was it called? It was called, oh, swing the mood. It was like a, it just missed the top ten apparently. But I remember this song being on the radio all the time. And basically what it was was they just took all these old 50 songs and they put them together. And it wasn't even like a mashup thing. It's like the girl talk of its time.

Sort of, but it was like a more primitive version of that. It'd be like, oh, play Chubby Checker, the twist for a minute and then go into like great balls of fire. and then go into Johnny Be Good. And it'd be almost like a medley of old songs, but they were calling it a new song. And it was, I mean, they had like three or four, like number one hits in England,

and they had some hits here. Just super lazy. I mean, when you think about that, Chris Young seems like a genius, you know, because at least he's taking this riff that's very recognizable, but he's putting it in a surprising context. You know, he gets rid of all that, like, artsy shit that David Bowie's talking about that I could give less of a shit about.

And he's talking about the things that, you know, resonate with me as a American living in 2023. You know, it's like Chevroletes and Silveradoes, listen to the Dixieland Delight. I hope he takes suffragette city and turns it into peach tree city or something like that. I just hope he keeps doing it with David Bowie. Like, that would be the cool shit. Yeah. Like, I don't want him to, like, you know, dip into other catalogs. I just want him to be the David Bowie guy.

And so Space Oddity, it's like Chevy Oddity. Yeah, Chevy Odyssey or whatever. That is a Chevy, right? Yeah, Chevy fucking Odyssey. We are like mapping out the next 10 years of Chris Young, man. You know, I'm afraid of Americans. I mean, it's pretty obvious for what a country artist is going to do with that song. Oh, my God.

Yeah, I mean, that Rolling Stone story was, it ended by speculating on like, would David Bowie appreciate this being done to his song and it noted that... Well, he did some interview apparently once where he said that he likes every kind of music except country. You know, like that old cliche that people have.

I like every kind of music except rap and country. He actually said... I'm paraphrasing here, but he basically said, like the one kind of music I've never really gotten into is country music.

So I'm sure he would be dumbfounded by this. But maybe he'd be like, you know, You know, it's like more subversive. Oh, that's a terrible day. Oh, yeah. That's a terrible. I'm glad we got.

Yeah. What Chris Young did to David Bowie, Steve just did with David Bowie's voice right there. Oh. Are we going to talk about Lizzo? I feel like we got to talk about this because otherwise people are going to think this is a banked episode. There was like literally nothing else happening this week aside from like Lizzo's legal issues. I think we just kind of have to talk about it because, look, on this podcast, we have talked a lot about, like, are we going to, like, close the door on that early Trump, like, 2017-2019 resistance era?

And, you know, the fact that, like, both Lizzo and Donald Trump had legal issues on, like, the same exact day gives the possibility of, like, perhaps we are going to, like, shut the door on this era completely. and move on from it, but... Wow. I don't know. It's just like... Yeah, it's a little... It's a little too convenient. But, I mean, like, Beyonce,

apparently dissed her on stage the other day, and it's like... Well, she didn't... Okay, well, let's just explain like what's going on here for people who haven't been keeping up with the Lizzo news here. And I'll read from the NBC news story about this. Three of Lizzo's former dancers have accused the singer of sexual harassment

in creating a hostile work environment in a lawsuit filed Tuesday. They also allege that you... She pressured one of them to touch a nude performer at an Amsterdam club and subjected the group to an excruciating that's in quotes, audition after leveling false accusations that they were drinking on the job. The dancers accused Lizzo, a performer known for embracing body positivity in celebrating her physique of calling attention to one dancer's weight gain and later berating, then firing that dancer after she recorded a meeting because of a health condition. So, yeah, apparently, like the gist of it is that these dancers are accusing Lizzo of being an abusive boss and also perhaps of being a boss who doesn't recognize professional boundaries. I think there was a story about them being in this Amsterdam club and someone having to eat a banana that was in a dancer's vagina.

Something a lot. I think that's like a mash-up, but like all those. elements are like true. There was an Amsterdam strip club. There were like vagina projectiles. There were a banana somehow involved. But like I don't know if it's like exact in two days I'm sure the game of

telephone will tell you that's actually happening. And Lizzo came out and like look when something like this happens usually what someone says is something to the effect of I respect the right of people I respect the right of victims to speak out

however in this case I feel that I'm being unjustly accused. You know, you, you couch it in, like, this language that isn't just calling these people liars, but is also maintaining your innocence. And Lizzo basically just came out and called them liars. Like, she kind of, like, she's playing a hardball here with them. So this is going to be interesting, because, like, as you said, like, Lizzo came out of this era, like that late 2010s era.

the Trump resistance era and I think if you're going to do the think piece you need one more person it's like the rule of three like if someone else like who would have been another person that would have been from that era if they had something

happened that day I'm like I don't even want to think like I have to put myself back in that time and I mean look it's probably like one of the people who like made one of those you know became like a I mean we've seen so many like DEI people step down and so forth. I mean, like, I don't want to...

Who's the woman that, like, lip synced the Trump speeches? Oh, my God. Social media. You remember her? Yes. I remember that person's existence, but the name escapes me. Like, if she had gotten arrested for, like, stabbing someone to death. Or she, no, if she did, if she did February, if she did January 6th or whatever.

Oh, like, yeah, that's like... Video came out that she was there and that she was, like, with the... John Mouse and Ariel Pink and the lip sync woman. Yeah. They were all fucking partying together. So, yeah, the rule of three, I think you need that for a think piece. So we're missing one more. But, yeah, I mean, obviously this is a bigger story because Lizzo has this empowerment image.

I mean, a big thing that people played up in headlines about this that I think was a little misleading was that she was body shaming people. Right. As if that was like the most important thing. I mean, there's like charges of like false imprisonment in this. There's like some pretty bad accusations here. And look, innocent till proven guilty, these could be disgruntled dancers. We don't know. There is a preponderance of accusations, though.

So, you know, I guess we've got to wait and see what happens here. But it seems like the thing that people are jumping on here with Lizzo is that she has a brand that is very positive and very, again, it's about empowerment. And it seems like behind the scenes, it's a little bit different. I've seen people compare her to Ellen. you know, Ellen. I don't know if people even remember this now, but she used to have a good image as like a nice person and then all these stories about like a toxic workplace came out

and she's never been the same sense. And it seems like maybe Lizzo is being set up for that kind of fall. I don't know. I think it's too early to say with Lizzo. Yeah, we're just, we just got to let this play out, man, because this is bad all around. I mean, that is, but like you bring up that resistance era of pop culture. And it's just interesting to look back on that.

And it doesn't seem like it's like an era that's going to age well. I think it's already been shown to have not aged well. A lot of the music and film and just conversation that was going on. I don't know. It's an interesting thing to think about. Is that all we have to say? Are we just, like, reporting this and we're not going to delve too deep at this point? Yeah, because, yeah, I just remember, like, the one time, like, Lizzo got, like, a mediocre review from Pitchfork.

She basically said music writers don't exist and shouldn't exist. And so, yeah, we don't want to, like, get in the crosshairs here because she is definitely coming out, all guns blazing. All right. Well, another hard left here. I'm taking a lot of hard lefts in this episode. I wanted to ask you about semi-sonic. They're a Minneapolis band, right? Yes.

90s, Alt Rock, Minneapolis, Kingpin, Semi-Sonic. They announced a new reunion album. Their first album in 22 years. Do you have the title of the album? I don't have it. Ah, fuck. I'm Googling it right now. People need to know what the new album is called.

It's a little bit of sun. It's called Little Bit of Sun. It's called Little Bit of Sun. A Little Bit of Sun. A little bit of sun. Sounds like a Chris Young album. It really does. It's out November 3rd.

Apparently it features Jason Isbell and the 400 unit. I don't know if the entire band is on there. It's like a, you know, like two drummers and a bunch of guitar players. But Semi-Sonic, yay or nay? Okay. So, I mean, you're probably thinking, yay, because, like, oh, this song was from 1998. it was like semi-popular. Ian's probably loving this shit.

Well, I mean, the reason we're talking about this to begin with is I'm just a little shock that Semi-Sonic is back because, you know, Dan Wilson's got that Adel bag. You know, he's not in this for a quick paycheck. I'm like wondering what he's like rolling up to the studio, you know, with the other two guys in the band. And like, look, I was impressed by the fact you know, like, the other dudes in Wilco. if you happen to know the other guys in Semi-Sonic without Googling it, like, I don't. I know one of them wrote a book.

Okay. I think the bass player wrote a book. John Munson and Jacob Slickter, which is, you know, these are very good other guys in a alt-rock band names. But so with Semi-Sonic, look, I graduated high school in 1998, so like closing time was just stupidly ubiquitous back then. I don't mind it so much. Singing in My Sleep, great song.

It's like one of those songs like, you know, Jimmy Eat World's Sweetness or Say It Ain't So, where it's become like the de facto, oh, this is actually their masterpiece because it's not quite as ubiquitous as the big hit. But I'm just surprised that there hasn't been more semi-sonic talk, because it seems like every single alt rock band, particularly Power Pop that had like some modicum of success back then has become like reappraised. Like I've seen a lot of like super drag fans come out of the woodwork. but I don't want to talk about feeling strangely fine. It's a good record. I don't remember a hell of a lot of it.

I need to talk about all about chemistry, which is the one that came out after this. Steve, do you have any memory of this album? I recognize the title. It has like two test tubes fucking on the album cover. It's got a song called Chemistry. It's like that I remember playing on the alt rock station. Terrible song.

It had Carol King on it too. I don't know. I gotta say, like, I'm like, I don't feel anything about Semi-Sonic. Maybe I just need to, like, go back and listen to, you know, feeling strangely fine. But, yeah, it's kind of odd for, like, a band that is seen as these, like, power pop savants that they made a record who, after the second song,

I cannot remember a fucking thing about it. Yeah, but, you know, they've got closing time, which is a standard. And I feel like that's a song that is in that one headlight zone where it seems to bubble up every now and then and people remember. Oh yeah, I love that song.

And it's not the same as the kind of following that third-eyed blind has in the sense that I think like a lot of younger people like that band and now they're older, but they remember that from when they were teenagers. Semi-Sonic to me always seem like... You see the core. You're going to go... You would see that always.

Or before this term was invented, like they were like the adult contemporary alt rock band, you know, that they were a band that you were really into, if you were like 28 to 35 in 1998. I could see that, like if you were in that zone, I could see just loving semi-sonic because there was something about them that it was smart, it was well-written songs, but they also had a certain maturity to them. Like they weren't writing about teenage angst. You know, closing time is this song that it feels like a slightly more grown up type song. You know, you at least have to be going to bars, you know, to relate to that song. Has there been like a Chris Young type interpolation of that song? Yeah, I feel like there's been... It pops up a lot in pop culture.

You know, to go back to Grantland. First story ever wrote for Grantland was about closing time. And I interviewed Dan Wilson. And it was just talking about the cultural durability of that song. Like it's come up in a lot of different contexts in different TV shows and movies. And you talk about Dan Wilson getting the bag for Adele. And, you know, he wrote something about you and a bunch of other. He also worked on that Dixie Chick's record, Long Way Home or whatever, that went all the Grammys.

So he got the bag from that. but I think closing time, if that was his only claim to fame, he would probably be pretty comfortable. Yeah, he'd be like the new radicals guy, you know? Yeah, from all the sinks that's gotten, and it's still a song, that's got to be like a top 10 CVS jazz of all time, especially like if, I wonder if you work at CVS

if you actually play Closing Time at Closing Time. Hell no, you play, if you're anything like me when I worked retail jobs like that, you put on like DMX or death grips just to get the customers the fuck out of there. We've now reached the part of our episode that we call A Recommendation Corner, where Ian and I talk about something that we're into this week. Ian, why don't you go first?

So I'm, like, really happy to talk about this particular album, because, you know, I think maybe when we do indie casties later this year, we'll bring up, like, the Shaquille O'Neal meme. I'm sorry I wasn't familiar with your game. George Clanton is an artist I see kind of pop up here and there, because, you know, I think he put on that festival that got criticized for having John Mouse on it this year. But, you know, of course, for the most...

for a couple of years, I'm like, wait, no, it's not George Clinton, the guy who was in P-Funk, or the Mortal Kombat soundtrack guy that we've mentioned. You know, like, I think he was like maybe vapor wave or something like that. You know, like kind of altered zones-esque stuff. And so he did an album with Nick Hexum from 311 a few years ago that I saw some people were into just because, you know, that's the sort of thing that we have to applaud. And so, as we mentioned earlier in the episode, not a hell of a lot going on musically. So I figured, why not?

I'll fucking give this a shot. Turns out he's like not vapor wave, like James Ferraro or any of that. He's more like an urban outfitters chill wave, like 2012-2013 era on this new album of his, which it's called Urap Aya, imagining that's how it's pronounced phonetically. but if you're the type of person who like A, remembers the name of the second washed out album and B, that it was actually pretty good, you're going to love this shit. He has a guest vocal from Hatchy, which is another artist I brought up in a previous episode who does that kind of urban outfitters, shoegaze sort of thing.

Like, I bring up urban outfitters, not because I've been there in the past 10 years, but because I think of it as like buying the second Best Coast album on vinyl. that era. That's the kind of you know, sync bumper music I can be into. So it might sound like damning with fate praise, but if we're going to compare this album the fucking Paracosum, you know

that's like a seal. That's a seal of approval for me. Wait, that's the second washout. I thought it was within you, without you. So Life of Leisure was an EP. Ah, so that's the full of album. Within you without you is the proper album. Paracosum, produced again, by Ben H. Allen, best known for Merry Weather Post

Pavilion and Halcyon Digest and Youth Lagoon's Wondrous Bughouse. That production is super 2013. That's what George Clanton is doing. Urapaya. Don't make me say it again. Ben H. Allen, man.

I haven't heard that name in a while. Apparently he's doing like Walk the Moon records now. Maybe I need to fucking check those out. It's like how Dave Friedman, it's like you'd find out. like Dave Friedman is like doing an Alan for like this alt rock band that you've never heard of and I'll just like

give it a shot because hey man I like those flaming lips records I'm gonna I'm gonna get involved with this Ben H. Allen if Walk the Moon's doing some shit look uh they liked Norles Barkley no I didn't really either but you know what I'm saying

yeah no he was the man back then so I want to talk about a documentary that actually was It premiered in December, and I didn't hear a word about it until someone tweeted about it this week. And I was inspired to check it out. It's a four-part documentary about Phil Spector. And it's just called Spector. And it was on Showtime, but now Showtime is, I think, Paramount Plus.

So you've got to get that streaming service if you want to see this. But I think it's worth the money. I've been really sucked into it. And again, you know, for those who don't know, Phil Specter was this legendary record producer in the 60s and 70s, famous for working with a lot of girl groups. He wrote Be My Baby. He wrote The Do Run Run Run. Actually, he didn't write that, but he produced it. A lot of big hits in that vein. And then he just became an insane person, just hard drinking, lots of drugs, carrying a lot of guns around. Basically just like a terrible human being. Yes.

And he ended up going to jail because he shot a woman. in his house in the early 2000s and then he actually died in prison was that last year that he died? I think it was a year or two ago that he died. And I'm just so sucked into this movie. It's sort of like part biography of Phil Spector and part

like true crime. Like how he ended up meeting the woman that he killed. Like he didn't really know her really at all. She just was like in the wrong place at the wrong time. And he's just such an interesting guy. Like again, not a good person. he's a terrible person but

definitely somebody that I can watch like a four hour movie about just he's so messed up and he's such an interesting character and I just think for music documentaries

this is one of the better ones I've seen recently so again I think it just goes to show books about terrible people movies about terrible people not endorsing their behavior but they are very interesting specimens of humanity.

And this movie about Phil Spector, again called Spector, I think bears that out. So I don't know. If you feel like you want another streaming service, pony up for Paramount Plus, I think you will enjoy this movie. You can watch Top Gun Maverick again. I don't know. I'm not going to, you know, shill for Paramount Plus, but it's a good movie. Before we close out, like just so we ended on a more positive note, Do you want to know the last album that Ben H. Allen produced?

What's that? Maximo Park in 2021. That's remembering some guys. So we can remember some terrible guys, and we can remember some guys who had like three or four good songs in 2005. When rock and roll peaked with... There you go. Apply some pressure.

That's right. 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. mixtape newsletter. You can go to uprocks.com backslash indie and I recommend five albums per week and we'll send it directly to your email box.