Switched on Pop - Rosie Tucker's unending bliss

Episode Date: May 10, 2024

Tongue twisters that mock techno-optimism and cite critical theory don’t usually make for catchy song lyrics. But indie rocker Rosie Tucker’s Utopia Now! finds beauty in the dross of late capitalism. Over 13 songs backed by distorted guitars and blazing drum fills, Tucker’s searing vocals bemoan the inherent dislocation of our modern world while searching for moments of truth and human connection. The night before Tucker embarked on a tour, Nate visited their home studio to speak to them about the inspirations behind their latest album. Although it deals with “big” topics, Tucker stressed that it all comes back to the individual and that the world we have reflects the world we make. “I am trying to reckon with both processing personal resentment,” they told Nate, “and recognizing my own role in my own misery.” Songs Discussed: Rosie Tucker - All My Exes Live In Vortexes, Lightbulb, Paperclip Maximizer, Unending Bliss Erik Satie - Gymnopedie No 1 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're tired of endless scrolling to figure out where to eat, same. I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Eater. We've just launched the new-ish and way better Eater app. It has all the restaurants we love, gives you personalized picks wherever you are, and serves up smarter search results just for you. You can find my list of the best places for martinis and fries in New York City. And save your favorite spots, share lists, follow editors, and book right in the app. the Eater app at Eaterapp.com. It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm musicologist

Nate Sloan. Now, a little over a week ago, we recorded an episode. It was a roundup of the music in 2024 that we loved, that we hadn't had a chance to talk about on the show. And I mentioned this artist, Rosie Tucker, whose album, Utopia Now has been something I've been listening to non-stop and we ran a brief excerpt from that interview with Rosie Tucker on the podcast. We talked about their song, All My Exes Live in Vortexes. There are a lot of things about the song I really dug the opening lyric. I hope no one had to piss in a bottle at work to get me the thing I ordered on the internet. The chorus that transforms halfway through changing perspective, In the first chorus, it says, you want everything all at once.

And then in the final chorus, it says, I want everything all at once. I just couldn't get over this album's searing critique of late capitalism, while also acknowledging the inescapability of it and even the humor of it and kind of the weirdness of it. To me, this is an album that perfectly marries a lot of strong personal insights in grappling with a sort of wider lens on society and culture and the economy at large. That's a hard thing to do. But Rosie and their collaborator, producer, Wolfie, managed to thread the needle. These are songs that have energy and pulse and distortion, but they also have a lot of

tenderness and a lot of inwardness. So I just think it's a remarkable mix. And many of you agreed. We got comments demanded. that we share the rest of the Rosie Tucker interview. And, you know, I'm going to listen to the people. Okay, without further ado, here's my conversation with Rosie Tucker. I am Rosie Tucker.

More details? I am a songwriter and instrumentalist from Los Angeles, born and raised. Your latest album is. Utopia Now, exclamation point. Yes. All caps. All caps, exclamation point. Thank you for the correction. The very first thing that we hear on Utopia Now is a song called Lightbulb.

And the very first lyric is the light bulb is updating and I sit in the dark. Why did you want that to? to be the first thing that people heard when they hit play on this record? I think that this song was one of the very first that I wrote after a long period of kind of writer's block. And it just sort of naturally ended up synthesizing a lot of the really big themes. I was trying to relate to and connect. And I wrote it on the piano, which is not normally how I write.

I am not an extremely proficient piano player. My parents had, as a birthday present, paid to have my, like, childhood piano moved to our home. And so I had just been playing like settee, like, because I read once that he was not very good at the piano. But that, and so that has always endeared me to him because I love the piano, but I'm not good at it. I wrote it and it just felt like such a,

perfect expression of so many of the things I had been thinking about. And then in production, it became something that even more was reflecting that. And it just felt like a nice way to introduce people to my thoughts. Yeah. It's kind of arresting because this idea of the light bulb updating is at once kind of such an absurd statement. It's like the peak of technology and convenience and also just a complete absence of any light whatsoever. Yes, absolutely. A product whose intention is to maximize efficiency has actually failed. And not to show my hand, but yeah, I had purchased some colored light bulbs and they needed an app on my phone and the app on my phone needed permission to read all of my text messages.

And I just felt away about it. Yeah. I didn't use them. I feel like that line introduces us to a lot of the tensions that you're going to explore throughout this album. And that's expressed towards the end of the song, too, maybe. There's a really striking moment when the rich production of the song is kind of stripped away.

And that piano, which I guess is your... is your childhood piano comes to the fore and it's just the piano and your voice. And you're singing almost like a meta commentary on the process of making the record that we're hearing. Yes. Writing the record, you must want it heard and return on investment is all but assured. Success is a steal where the price is obscured. If you're doing it right, then it won't even hurt. Is it fair to say you're like, have some ambivalence about making this record?

Yes. No, I loved making the record. I loved making the record, but I had a great deal of ambivalence upon participating in a concerted way in the music industry as a recording artist. In the course of creating this record, all of these songs were written, with the exception of one after pandemic lockdown. Yeah. And just in a period of great upset, I was dropped by my label, but that was kind of okay. I parted ways with one long-term collaborator and also my manager, which was the biggest one, and had just sort of begun to assess the ways that I had kind of sold myself out because I had been functioning. under an idea that if I were to commit myself to trying to be a recording artist in a professional way, it was going to elevate me to a position where I would be able to find my people,

people who listen to music the way that I do and relate to art the way that I do. And that was not my experience. But creating the record, I got dropped about halfway through recording it. And it was incredibly cathartic. It was a beautiful experience. I have so much love for this record. I'd love to talk about paperclip maximizer. Cool.

What does paperclip maximizer mean and where does it come from? The paperclip maximizer is a thought experiment about a machine that is so effective at creating paper clips. Its only existence is creating paper clips, and it gets so good at rearranging atoms so that they become paper clips that the entire universe is destroyed. Emotionally in the song, for me, it is functioning in terms of watching a person who is kind of willing to harness everything in their life to the end of their own productivity or career. It's not a phrase that you would hear and think like that needs to be a song. And yet when you're listening to it, it is so catchy. And not only that, but I really just got such a high listening to this song because you're dropping words like panoptical and ontological. You know, and I read so much French critical theory in college.

So I was like, yes. I think what's enjoyable and maybe refreshing about listening to this song is that even though you're talking about all these heady things, it's still, it's so listenable, it's so melodic, it's so kind of even funky rhythmically and crunchy in the kind of production. You're dealing with some really heavy, dark themes, but you're doing so in a way that is never despairing. It's also never too preachy, and it's funny without being flippant. So how do you try and home in on that tone of a certain amount of detachment, but also

not being too blase about anything. I'm really grateful for that characterization, and I think that I had been kind of trying to write songs, which were speaking to more ideology-type values for many years. I feel like it just took some time in the cooker of growing up to be able to articulate these things. I needed it to feel totally fresh, and any time that something felt like it could have come from the internet,

I would discard it because I just needed it to feel totally fresh. I feel like I had been trying to articulate myself in a specific way in music for a long time and was just kind of continually characterized as like confessional singer-songwriter. And there's so much value in that. But it wasn't what I was going for.

And so I wanted to be explicit and I wanted to be honest and speaking from a place of understanding where my own personal stakes were in regards to these wider themes. And then I wanted it to be articulated in a way where it felt like I was talking to someone I respected

because I did not want anyone to feel condescended to. I think listening to it is very satisfying because there's never a sense that like, oh, this, you should be doing this. You know, there's no finger wagging and there's no nihilism either. Yeah. And I think it's very, I'm getting like a little emotional just talking about it,

but it's very, just to hear someone kind of experience some of the same weird dissonances and irreconcilable weirdness of living in late capitalism. It's just, is very emotionally healing or something. Thank you. Thank you. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like, What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough.

Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay. Ready? Ready. Do not sugarcoat something for me. No. No.

We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. Unending bliss. Yeah. This might be another example of what you were saying, a song that sort of grows and transforms. Like literally the chorus of this song expands. Each time you hear it, which I love. So the first time you hear it, I can't help it. I throw stones. Like, if I keep in motion, I won't sing. And then the next time we hear it, we add a line. If at the bottom

of everything we are all alone, then I want nothing but undending bliss. And then the third time we hear it, then I want nothing but unending bliss for my enemies. Was this planned to have the song expand like this? Or was this something that just happened organically as you were writing it? probably got to the unending bliss for my enemies aspect pretty immediately, but I did not feel like the song was ready for it until the end. So you kind of retrofitted that structure by subtracting things. Yes. And then adding them in. Which to me felt kind of thematically appropriate because I wanted it to feel like a revelation. to come to a place of forgiveness. Yeah.

Yeah. That is a theme that is oddly rare in music, I think, especially pop music, which is my beat, is like so much about, like, rejecting the haters, you know? That's, like, such a common theme. So to hear you sing, at the close of this song, I want unending bliss for my enemies was really striking. Why do you want unending bliss?

list for your end. It's kind of an asinine question, but. I was trying to reform my own concept of what forgiveness is, and I wanted, I wanted forgiveness to work for me. I wanted forgiveness to free me and to heal me from anger and bitterness that was messing with my well-being. And I, And I do think everyone loves a revenge song. Like, no worries there. I do think that we are in a fairly vindictive moment in the culture at large. But also we are contrasted. And I don't mean to try and elevate my songs to this level.

but contrasted with like in my lifetime conversations around say prison abolition have become much more mainstream than they were in the beginning of my lifetime. And so I think that having that as kind of a core value and trying to move from a place of how much hurt can a group handle. without continuing a cycle of harm and degradation. And in a personal way, I just started to think about how the people who I felt really pissed off at are generally speaking on my team in the world. Some of the core values I think are similar, are not similar enough to where I want to ever be in the same room with these people,

but kind of trying to zoom out being like there's no common ground where I'm sitting, how far do I have to zoom out before I can find enough common ground to where I stop being so angry that these people exist? Yeah. At some point someone will have to say a version of this. I want nothing but unending bliss for my enemies, if anything is going to be repaired and changed. does have to allow that to happen.

Yes. And so I think listening to this song is very galvanizing kind of in that way. I think that forgiveness has to be a tool in service of empowerment. And if you are permanently harmed by something, you are less powerful. And so forgiveness for me and trying to... to learn how to function and to be more forgiving was part of my own desire to be more resilient and to have more agency in my own life, which is not normally how forgiveness is talked about. It's normally talked about as diminishing us to forgive because we are such good people.

We are willing to be diminished. And I just wanted to find something that wasn't that. You're departing for a tour tomorrow. Yes. What are you looking forward to in being able to share these songs with audiences across the country after gestating them here in your studio for so long? I am just so excited to see what people enjoy of this record. I went on a tour last November that was just me in an acoustic guitar, and it was very very, surreal. That song on Ending Bliss had come out like two days earlier and in New York City

people knew the words. And this was a brand new experience for me. I've been writing songs and performing them in clubs for like a decade now. And so to suddenly have people who had clearly listened to the music before was quite a trip. And the people that I have ended up meeting who are showing up at the shows, I have had some really, really nice interactions with. I've just felt great about it. And I love the band that I'm touring with. I'm really excited to have my bandmates potentially have the experience of these really nice people enjoying their, you know, skill yeah it sounds it sounds pretty great yeah dude i think it's gonna be really fun i don't know you never know but i think it will yeah rosy tucker thank you so much for joining us today nay thank you

so much for having me and asking such wonderful questions all right as you heard rosy and the killer band are on tour at the time of the release of this episode i think there are a few chances for you to see them If you're in Atlanta, Georgia, New Orleans, Austin, Phoenix, or Los Angeles. Those are the remaining dates on the tour as of this episode dropping. If you're in L.A., I'll be there. Come say hi. Switched on Pop is produced by Rihanna Cruz. It's hosted by me, Nate Sloan, and Charlie Harding.

Brandon McFarland is our engineer. Our Chung is our editor. Abby Barr does community management. Iris Gottlieve does our illustrations. Our executive producer is Nashak Kurwa. We're a production of the Vox Media Podcast Network and New York Magazine's Vulture. You can find more episodes on Switchedonpop.com.

Anywhere you get podcasts, you can talk to us on social media at Switched on Pop. And we'll have a brand new episode coming up next week. Until then, thanks for listening. Attention, Spotify. Has arrived at the new Google Jasmine Absolut of Carolina Herrera. A fragrance intense with a character curman and addictive. Imagine a jasmine emvolventy,

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