U Talkin' U2 To Me? – An Album-by-album Descent into Insanity

U Talkin’ U2 To Me? is a podcast that wades the listener into the warm embrace of insanity over the course of multiple hours. Billed as a “comprehensive and encyclopedic” look at U2, the podcast is an epic album-by-album exploration of the Irish rock band’s discography and decades-long history. It’s a deep dive into the bleeding emotion behind artistry and the raw humanity that it takes to create a lasting piece of culture. Just kidding. While UTU2TM may not be that serious, it still manages to be one of the most hilarious, endearing, and (occasionally) earnest podcasts that I’ve ever listened to.

Hosted by Scott Aukerman (Comedy Bang! Bang!) and Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation), U Talkin’ U2 To Me? is a spiritual successor to Analyze Phish, a show taking place in the same “podcast universe” in which comedian Harris Wittels tries to convince Scott Aukerman why he should like the band Phish. The conceit of UTU2TM is similarly simple: Scott likes U2. So does Adam. Together, they combine comedic powers to systematically walk the listener through the band’s discography in an effort to expel all of the U2-related information in their heads.

Forecasted by a teaser clip that found Adam Scott recounting a childhood memory of the 1983 US Festival, U Talkin’ U2 To Me? officially launched one week later in February of 2014. The first episode began humbly enough as the duo laid out their plan to discuss three albums per episode in the lead-up to U2’s then-unnamed thirteenth studio album. Within several minutes it became clear that things were destined to go off-track as Scott and Scott venture off on multiple tangents all while simply trying to describe the conceit of the podcast. Eventually, they settle on a rambling half-serious mission statement:

What we want this podcast to be is the definitive, comprehensive encyclopedic compendium of all things U2. In other words we are going to talk about it all. If you have never heard of U2, you will feel like you have heard of U2.

No less than a minute after outlining this semi-lasting objective, the two stumble across the podcast’s first great recurring bit: saying “Achtung Baby” over and over again for minutes on end. Sprang from a moment of improvisation while listing off the band’s discography, Aukerman goofily pronounced the name of the 1991 album with a full-throated bellow which prompted Adam Scott to respond similarly. Eventually, the two find themselves volleying increasingly-accented shouts of “ACHTUNG baby” back and forth at each other like a vocal tennis match. It’s absolutely absurd to behold.  

Eventually Scott and Scott emerge from their tears of laughter long enough to move the podcast forward, but this is the moment that (less than ten minutes into their inaugural episode) forever sets the tone of the show and gave the listener a glimpse of the beautiful insanity that was about to unfold on a weekly basis.

The Achtung Baby bit sounds so nonsensical to write out on paper (and it is nonsensical, even in the context of the show) because it’s a joke that defies logic. It’s abjectly stupid, yet somehow this string of cartoonish exclamations feels right at home on U Talkin’ U2 To Me? It’s so mind-bogglingly silly that you begin to crack up by proxy just witnessing to these two grown men entertain each other as they break down into complete hysteria.

The podcast’s initial plan of three-albums per episode quickly deteriorates to one album per episode (and eventually no album per episode) simply because the hosts end up going on so many diversions. Often recorded late at night after a full day of work, the recordings begin to sprawl into hilariously-rudderless, sleep-deprived ramblings. Even so, the most charming element of U Talkin’ U2 To Me? (and the thing that will keep you coming back) is the chemistry between the two hosts. As the episodes pile up, the Scotts quickly develop their own in-jokes, references, and everything short of a unique language.

Scott Aukerman and Adam Scott clearly enjoy each other’s company, and eventually, the podcast morphs into two friends recording multi-hour dick joke-laden podcasts only loosely centered around an album. This artificial extension ended up working in their favor because after several months of episodes U2’s album was still nowhere in sight. The show then became the podcast equivalent of a stalling tactic, killing time until the band released their highly-anticipated thirteenth album.

Over the course of several episodes, the show’s scope gradually expands into its own self-referential universe. The Scotts bring guests into the mix, record a segment in the white house, and create a punch-drunk 2-hour podcast based on a one-off joke from an earlier episode. Listening to the pair’s spiral into madness over the course of 20-some episodes is a thing of beauty and something that I’ve never seen accomplished in the medium of podcasting.

The show’s first act culminated in June with the sixteenth episode, a “commentary special” in which Scott and Scott host a new podcast laidover the top of their first episode. It’s a mind-bending experience that served as a conceptual high point to the show’s already-meta narrative. With the U2’s new album still an unknown, the podcast went on hiatus until the record’s release. This was the end. For now.

In September of 2014, Apple held their yearly press conference. The tech giant announced their new iPhone, unveiled the Apple Watch, and made wallets obsolete with Apple Pay. At the tail end of the presentation, after nearly two hours of incredible, amazing, awesome products, Tim Cook threw the audience for a loop and introduced U2.

The lights dimmed, and the band came out to play “The Miracle of Joey Ramone.” After the performance, Tim Cook joined the band on stage for one of the most awkward conference exchanges in recent memory and revealed that the band’s albumless five-year drought was about to come to an end. After some back and forth, the two parties announced that U2’s thirteenth album was out now. Not only that, it was free, and it was already on everyone’s iPhone.

I was at work during the conference, and as excited as I was about the prospect of upgrading my phone, my biggest takeaway was the fact that this meant we would have a new episode of U Talkin’ U2 To Me soon. I raced to the /r/earwolf subreddit and joined hundreds of other podcast nerds who all found themselves excited by-proxy at a new U2 album because it represented the payoff the entire podcast’s run.

It’s worth mentioning at this point that I don’t even like U2.

Even in my fanboyish excitement at new Apple devices, all I cared about was that a band I’m lukewarm on was releasing an album, just because it meant I’d get a new podcast. It’s probably the weirdest string of events that I’ve ever found myself excited at, but I was ecstatic nonetheless.

And sure enough, the UTU2TM hosts met up the following day and released their celebratory, 2.5-hour Songs of Innocence episode only two days after the album’s release. I was overjoyed.

The album’s release was a total surprise, a highly-publicized rollout, and it harkened back to an earlier collaboration that warmed my heart. The internet hated it. Eventually, the Scotts got back together several weeks later to discuss how the album was sitting with them, and the internet’s overwhelminglynegativereaction to the album showing up on their phones. The episode that came out after the album’s release was a (seemingly) single bright spot in a sea of negativity as people complained that a free album showed up on their phones.

From there the podcast seemed over. The band’s new album was released, and the duo had (more or less) achieved their goal of discussing each album. They surprised us a few more sporadic episodes including a Christmas special, a live podcast, and a concert review. Each of these came after month-long breaks, so they were all pleasant surprises that I devoured almost immediately once they manifested in my podcast feed.

Then, in August of 2015, it happened.

I refreshed my podcast app and saw a mysterious download titled “U2 Talk 2 U.” Initially thinking it was a typo or that I was misreading it. I scanned the episode’s description to make sure that I understood it correctly. My eyes started watering. Adam Scott and Scott Aukerman had interviewed U2.

It was the climax of the entire show. A podcast that started out nearly two years ago with a period joke in the first two minutes now somehow found itself talking to one of the biggest bands in the world. It’s a journey that has to be experienced from the beginning, and one that I’m not even spoiling by talking about here because it pays off so many of the shows different in-jokes. It’s the heart-warming culmination of a two-year journey. Something that started out as an unassuming gag between two friends instantly became legitimized. Every dick joke had led to this.

U Talkin’ U2 To Me? is abject stupidity, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. This podcast came out at a pivotal time in my life where nearly everything seemed to be falling into place and shifting for the better. I credit UTU2TM with not only entertaining me for hours upon hours, but for improving my outlook on life and giving me a formative crash course in this silly comedic tone.

It’s one of the few podcasts that I’ve listened to multiple times in its entirety, and it benefits from both its limited run nature and the 22nd episode’s payoff. I still can’t describe how elated I was when I saw that episode pop up in my iTunes. The podcast has more surprises, inside jokes, and humor than almost everything else out right now. And it’ interesting to see how the little things (like recording late at night) led to a memorable and impactful experience. It’s an unlikely pairing and an unlikely topic that I ended up caring about way more than I ever thought I would.

The real beauty of the podcast comes from how often and how abruptly the hosts can fluctuate between moments of genuine, unbridled fandom, and delirious, unhinged absurdity. It became a blueprint for my recent sense of humor and willingness to embrace the absurd and stupid. And, it’s a horrible segue, but I did end up coming out of the podcast liking U2, if for no other reason than the music’s association with dozens of jokes.

U Talkin’ U2 To Me? is a force for good. An impossibly-dense multi-hour dive into the depths of exponentially-increasing goofiness. And more importantly, an honest showcase of genuine fandom. It’s something to aspire to on an artistic level, and a journey that is worth embarking on whether you like U2 or not. It’s an achievement of the medium and should be required listening for any podcast, music, or comedy fans.

It’s something that must be heard to be believed.

It’s a good rock and roll uhh podcast.

Female-Fronted 2017: A Guide to This Year’s Best Music Made By Women

Editor's Note 2019: I initially wrote this piece in 2017 when I was discovering a wealth of bands helmed by women and embarking on my own exploration of gender. I was excited to elevate a set of artists who felt neglected by the mainstream music press. I regret using the term "female-fronted" because so many people now use it as a stand-in for a genre tag or any more meaningful descriptors. I still have love and admiration for all these artists, but painting with such a broad brush feels reductive in retrospect. The remainder of the article remains as it was when first published in 2017.

2017 has been regressive in more ways than I can count. Despite an oppressive political landscape and a constantly-overwhelming news cycle, it’s also been heartening to watch people band together in the face of bigotry, and hatred.

This feeling of resistance has also bled over into art. We’ve finally got a legitimately great female-led superhero movie as well as multiple strong female-centered TV shows (Orange, Veep, Kimmy Schmidt, The Mindy Project, Broad City, Take My Wife). More germane to this blog; the same shift can also be felt in this year’s music. Alongside 2017’s many excellent female-fronted albums, this past month Cardi B become the first solo female rap artist to top the Billboard charts since 1998. Whether it’s a movement or just a sign of the times, we’re witnessing an undeniable change in our culture.

Chalk it up to the political climate, toxic masculinity, or whatever term you prefer; lately I’ve been feeling “over” hyper-masculine music. Maybe it’s a byproduct of a free TIDAL subscription or seeing 20+ concerts in 12 months, but this year I’ve been exposed to a wider variety of music than ever before. Projecting myself onto machismo music has carried me far in life, and that type of music still has a place in my heart (and my iPod), but it’s been connecting with me less and less as time goes on.

I’ve also gotten away from this testosterone-fueled perspective because the alternatives feel infinitely more refreshing than an imitation of something I’ve heard a dozen times before. Even within typically-masculine genres like hip-hop, we now have people like Young Thug and Kevin Abstract who are slowly (but actively) dismantling long-entrenched negative tropes of the scene. This year I’ve found solace and comfort in these unique takes on the human perspective.

Serendipitously, 2017 also happens to be an incredible year for women in music. From vibrant radio bops to hazy bedroom indie, we’ve seen an absolute barrage of impeccable releases this year from female artists. So I wanted to highlight some of the projects that I’ve found myself coming back over and over again. These artists are making some of the freshest, most unique, and lived-in records of recent memory, so let’s take a moment to celebrate these creators and make a toast to new perspectives in art.

Julien Baker

Funnily enough, one of my favorite discoveries of 2017 turned out to be an album from 2015. I’ve already detailed my affection for Julen Baker’s Sprained Ankle in this loving write-up from earlier in the year, but in short, I’m embarrassed that it took me this long to discover it. Baker’s debut record has been lingering with me all year like a specter. I’ve read interviews, watched live performances, and my Julien Baker-related obsession will likely peak when I see her live this December.

Julien Baker has already had an eventful 2017 as she signed to Matador Records, released a haunting 7-inch, and is currently revving up to drop her Sprained Ankle follow-up Turn Out the Lights. I’m willing to admit her music has now fallen into utterly un-objective fandom territory for me, but even the three songs she’s released this year have been spectacular, and I’m fully expecting her album to worm its way onto my end-of-the-year list. Baker’s brand of somber folky slowcore has a way of hooking directly into my brain and violently wrenching on my heartstrings. I’ve already got my tissues stockpiled for her upcoming October 27th release, and I fully expect to cry in public at her concert in December.

Angel Olsen

This November singer/songwriter/guitarist Angel Olsen is treating us to a career-spanning album of loosies, B-Sides, and rarities. I’ve already expressed my love for 2016’s My Woman (which landed at #5 on my end-of-the-year list for 2016), and if Phases’ first single is any indication, we’re in for an equally-great collection of moody guitar-centered folk tracks.

Japanese Breakfast

Japanese Breakfast is the Philadelphia-based solo project of Michelle Zauner. In 2016 she released the grief-stricken 25-minute LP Psychopomp which featured a collection of tracks written in the wake of her mother’s battle with cancer. This year’s Soft Sounds From Another Planet essentially acts as an update. A group of 12 adventurous tracks that offer an honest depiction of what happens after the most important person in your life passes.

Aside from the personal update, Soft Sounds finds itself standing musically above Psychopomp thanks to improved production and added fullness of her now-honed backing band. All of these pieces come together neatly for a more fleshed-out, but less personal album than her debut. The tracks range from saxophone-laden danciness (Machinist) to Roy Orbison-esque balladry (Boyish), but Michelle’s personality shines through each and every moment, making for a hopeful space-themed journey.

Half Waif

Half Waif is the icy electronic side-project of Pinegrove’s resident keyboardist Nandi Plunkett. This year she’s found a voice speaking out against the internet (and the music industry’s) inherent sexism, but Half Waif’s form/a EP is all the proof you need that she’s a musical force all her own.

Often taking a more dark and honest approach than Pinegrove’s good-spirited group-based cheeriness, Half Waif allows Plunkett to explore deeply-personal stories and exercise the demons of her past. With disarming vocals, swaying melodies, and sprawling instrumentation, form/a is one of the most unique EPs this year.

Camp Cope

Camp Cope is a trio of Melburnians creating emotionally-punchy emo rock. In 2016 they released an impeccable self-titled debut that tackled everything from relationship nostalgia to police brutality, all in a little over half an hour. It’s a record of forward momentum, and  Georgia Maq’s unmistakably Australian accent adds a unique tinge to the band’s already-memorable songs.

This year they’ve signed to Run For Cover, released a split with Cayetana, and done an Audiotree session. As they rev up for a tour, it’s unlikely we’ll get a sophomore album from them this year, but it seems like these girls are poised to segue this momentum into something really special within the next year.

Snail Mail

Out of the dozens of concerts I’ve seen this year, a select few have resonated with me deeply, and Snail Mail is one of them. The first time I’d heard of the band was minutes before they were about to take the stage as Girlpool’s second opener. I stood in the crowd, about ten feet from the mic, enjoying my beer and reserving my prime spot for the main act. As Snail Mail took the stage and played their first song, I became slowly disarmed. The singer couldn’t have been older than twenty (she wasn’t) but every song shimmered with a level of maturity and hazy emo malaise.

I found myself hanging on every word, losing track of time, and as soon as it started, it was over. Before their set ended, the bassist and drummer stood and disappeared backstage, leaving frontwoman Lindsey Jordan alone with the crowd. Illuminated by a single spotlight, it was her, a guitar, a mic, and a crowd full of silent people. She played “Anytime,” a (still-unreleased) wandering emo ballad in which she guides you, at first by hand, then by force, deeper into your own emotional rabbit hole.

To put it simply: I was awestruck. It was one of the most powerful things I’ve seen all year. The band has recreated this (to an obviously less personal degree) in their 2017 Tiny Desk performance which dropped the same day the band announced they were signing to Matador records. It’s spectacular, inspiring, and a little jealousy-inducing that this 17-year-old is achieving artistic heights that I could only dream of, but I am so glad to have been here on the ground floor. Snail Mail’s growth will only be exponential from here on out, mark my words.

Diet Cig

High kicks, pom-pom earrings, and pictures of doggos. These are just a few of the characteristics that make New York-based Diet Cig a compelling duo. Aside from an infinitely-goofy and endearing social media presence, the band puts on one of the most energetic live shows I’ve ever witnessed. Fueled by nothing but pop-punk ferocity, guitarist and singer Alex Luciano slides across the stage, jumping, kicking, and diving off equipment all while Noah Bowman lays down a steady beat on the drums.

Their 2017 debut album Swear I’m Good At This opens with a humming guitar and a heart aching delivery as Luciano details her teenage attempts to sleep with a guy that shares her name. Within a minute the album quickly whirs into top speed and remains there until its final notes. Their confetti-filled Tiny Desk session captures their on-stage charm and energy quite well and earned the band a deserved spot in a New York Times profile over the summer.  

BABY!

The emphatically-named BABY! is a Florida-based pop-punk group helmed by Kaley Honeycutt. Fittingly enough, the eternally-hair-dyed Orlandoan released her debut album Sunny, F . L., at the tail end of summer. The record is a breezy marriage of intimate bedroom pop vocals and delicate shimmering instrumentation.

Signed to ex-Japanese Breakfast’s Yellow K Records, BABY! is a prime example of killing it in a local scene. From touring the east coast to hand-making shirts and buttons, Honeycutt is an exemplar of an old-school punk DIY mentality wrapped in a sunny Floridian package.

Lorde

You’d have to have been living under a soundproof rock to have not heard Lorde’s chart-topping “Royals” back in 2013. After making waves with her (nearly-undisputed) song of the summer, she went six-times platinum and then dropped her debut album Pure Heroine, all by the age of 17. After years of touring, writing, and working on other projects, Lorde simply took some time away from the spotlight to live her life.

In 2017, four years after she first introduced herself to the world, Lorde returned to music, ready to reflect on the remainder of her teenage years. She paired up with Bleachers’ Jack Antonoff and released Melodrama, a markedly more mature and thoughtful record. This highly-anticipated sophomore album utilized real instrumentation and found Lorde grappling with a recent breakup. With 11 tracks stretched over 40 minutes, Melodrama offers a wide variety of explosive sounds centered around grounded slice-of-life stories from the worldly New Zealander. It also happens to contain some of the most infectious, ear-wormiest tracks of the year and has slowly crept up against E•MO•TION as one of my favorite pop albums of all time.

Girlpool

Often categorized as “folk punk,” Girlpool is a duo comprised of Cleo Tucker on guitar and Harmony Tividad on bass. The two swap instruments and share vocal duties, which led to the creation of their one-of-a-kind debut Before the World Was Big. This year they added a drummer, second guitarist, and released Powerplant, a more full-bodied follow-up.

The dynamic between the two remains strong as ever, and once the opening track “123” clicks into place, it’s clear the drums are there only to support our two leads. They get dark on tracks like “Soup” and eventually send the listener off smiling with “Static Somewhere.” I personally think the band lost a little bit of personality in going from just guitar and bass to adding drums, but there’s still some great charming moments on this record.

Jay Som

Melina Duterte is a 22-year-old Polyvinyl signee who first made waves in 2016 with her excellent debut Turn Into. This year, amid seemingly-constant touring, she’s already released her official follow-up Everybody Works. The album is packed with clear-eyed songs that depict a single life on an ever-shifting scale. Sometimes zooming down to interpersonal levels, other times peeling back to the cosmic scale, Everybody Works is a crystallization of Duterte as a human. The penultimate title track drills the album’s immensely-catchy title into your head, serving as the first hit of a one-two punch, followed by an epic 7-minute closer that will leave you breathless.

Courtney Barnett

Courtney Barnett is an indie rocker from Australia who charms the listener through witty self-deprecation. Her debut album, 2015’s Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit gained her attention for her deadpan delivery and slacker approach to writing. Sometimes I Sit is wall-to-wall memorable tracks that range in topics from biting punk to suburban settling and environmental helplessness. The album quickly became a critical darling, and Barnett earned a well-deserved spot on many end of the year lists.

This year, Courtney Barnett has released one well-received one-off single and has an upcoming collaborative album with equally-mellow pier Kurt Vile. Seeing how their slacker rock styles commingle this fall will be a treat.

Haim

After releasing one of the best pop albums of 2013, Haim has returned to shake up the musical landscape with Something to Tell You. With more of a retro sound than their debut, the three sisters pull influence from Stevie Nicks, The Eagles, and even Michael Jackson at certain points. The songs on Something to Tell You rattle on in a way that evokes an old Chevy: it’s got a little bit of dust and grit on it, but that dirt is just the countryside, there’s still a shiny hard-working body underneath it all.

Kacy Hill

G.O.O.D. Music’s resident female vocalist, Kacy Hill is a dreamy redhead with an incredible voice and a singular vision. Her 2015 EP Bloo first gave the world a taste of her offering, but this year’s Like a Woman is a sensual, slow, and occasionally violent exploration of the singer’s sexuality and what it means to be “a woman” in 2017. Alongside the album’s launch, Hill played up the sex angle with multiple steamy music videos and a pornographic parody website dirtylittleredhead.com. On Twitter, she’s just a goofy personality that seems genuinely awestruck and appreciative of her fans.

Lana Del Rey

Existing on the periphery of the pop music scene for over a decade, Lana Del Rey has steadily been making some of the most interesting pop music since 2010. Unflinchingly tackling topics like domestic abuse and drug addiction, Lana’s music is often a touch too edgy for radio play, but she’s garnered a sizeable audience since 2010 through a deft understanding of social media and several iconic breakout tracks like “Video Games.”

Her 2017 release Lust for Life finds her, for the first time ever, on the cover of her album smiling. Hair adorned with flowers, this happier Lana finds herself circling familiar topics like summer, and spontaneous beach trips, but manages to add some interesting wrinkles. Featuring guest appearances from the likes of Sean Lennon and Stevie Nicks, Lust for Life also seems to be grappling with some bigger, more existential issues like entertainment in the face of destruction and her own image. The record ends up being a nice offering of sultry, self-contained tracks that expand the world and mythos of miss Del Rey while leaving just enough to keep us hooked.

Paramore

After releasing some of the most important female-fronted emo albums of the 2000’s, Paramore could have gone anywhere. After various lineup changes, a couple monster mainstream hits, and soul-draining complicated legal battles, Hayley Williams decided to ditch the hair dye and embrace a vibrant 80’s throwback vibe. Featuring more engaging and personable songs, After Laughter is a colorful and cheery listen. Anyone paying close attention to the lyrics will quickly notice that the album’s joyful filter is simply a facade used to mask the uncomfortable personnel issues that the album tackles. Despite the lyrical bait and switch, Laughter ends up being a breezy and joyful listen, as long as you don’t spend too much time with the lyric sheet.

St. Vincent

Indie rocker and multi-instrumentalist St. Vincent has too much on her mind. The other-worldly guitar-player won a Grammy in 2014 for her excellent self-titled album that saw her assume the role of a “near-future cult leader.” St. Vincent (whose real name is Annie Clark) has been relatively quiet in the years since her last record, but in the lead-up to her upcoming Masseducation, Clark has rebranded herself as a straight-haired, plastic sex symbol. Perhaps pulling from her stint as a horror director early in the year, St. Vincent’s forthcoming album seems poised to dismantle institutions and send her on a years-long tour.

SZA

Much like Kacy Hill, SZA is the resident female artist of California-based Top Dawg Entertainment. Since 2012 she’s been releasing a string of quality PR&B mixtapes, gradually building a fanbase and expectations for her full-length debut. Featuring Blonde-esque instrumentation and more relationship strife than you can shake a stick at, SZA’s Ctrl is a bright, sexy, and honest portrait of a 20-something who just can’t seem to get things right but has all the best intentions.

Taylor Swift

Controversy seems to follow Taylor Swift around like the Coppertone dog. After a highly-publicized lawsuit, an exposing series of Snapchats, and too many beefs to count, the undisputed queen of pop is back with… something. Forecasted by a social media wipe and “dark” rebranding Reputation sees Swift at her most aggressive to date. Seemingly out for blood, this new sound springboards off her 1989 full-pop sound, updating things to be a little bit more modern. While I found “Look What You Made Me Do” to be an initially repulsive song, the video helps add a much-needed layer of context and rich visuals that make the song better retroactively. Whether it’s good or not, Reputation is bound to be one of the biggest and most-talked-about albums of the year, and will undoubtedly dictate Swift’s place in the pop culture landscape for years to come.

Tiger’s Jaw

After the departure of every other band member, pop-punk iconoclasts Ben Walsh and Brianna Collins have returned with Spin, a record proving that they still have much to say. While Tiger’s Jaw is primarily sung from the perspective of Ben, “June” marks the first entirely-Brianna-helmed track in the band’s discography. The song provides a nice sunny break in an otherwise homogeneous and similar-sounding record and earned the band some well-deserved attention after a few years away from the spotlight.

Carly Rae Jepsen

Taylor Swift may be the reigning queen of pop, but for my money, Carly Rae Jepsen should be the one on that throne. As we all remember, in 2012 each member of the human race was forced to listen to “Call Me Maybe” at gunpoint, and thanks to the song’s oversaturation many listeners came to either actively disliked Jepsen or assumed she was a one-hit-wonder. 2015’s E•MO•TION was a critical success and a commercial failure, but to this day remains one of the best pop albums ever recorded. Lovingly detailed in Max Landis’ 150-page dissertation, CRJ is an artist of darkness and surprising depth. After expelling the rest of the E•MO•TION-era work with a B-sides album, Jepsen dropped a single early in the year that snatched wigs the world over. The fact that a single song invigorated me this much and made such relative waves only excited me more for her next album. Hopefully this time the world sees the light and comes back around to the Canadian goddess because she deserves to be listed up there with the greats.

Phoebe Bridgers

Finally, for the sake of some kind of bookending, Phoebe Bridgers is an LA-based indie folk artist much akin to Julien Baker. Despite a disarmingly-goofy social media presence, Bridgers’ Big Lebowski-referencing debut Stranger in the Alps is a heart-breaking, foggy, first-person recounting of individual experiences. The album has already received co-signs from Hayley Williams, Tiger’s Jaw, Julien Baker, Best Coast, Dan Campbell, and Grimes. She’s currently tearing it up on a tour War on Drugs, but I expect this album to show up on a good number of end of the year lists. If you want to hear a unique collection of stories on heartbreak, you’d be hard-pressed to do better than Stranger.

Additional Artists

This ended up being way longer than I originally intended, but the above albums are some of my favorites this year. There have also been some other great releases this year that I just don’t have the time, knowledge, or words to detail as lovingly as the ones above, so for the sake of keeping this relatively brief, here’s a quick-hit version of some other kickass female artists who dropped some great albums this year.

• Beach House: The dream pop duo follow up their excellent 2015releases with a collection of equally-listless B-Sides and Rarities.

• Feist: After a fluke pop megahit in 2007, Feist hits a new artistic peak with the guitar-drenched Pleasure.

• Cayetana: The self-described “boisterous Philadelphians” released a sophomore album of 12 punchy rock tracks.

• Banks: After an alarmingly-sexy 2014 debut, Banks seems to be ramping up to a new album after dropping two steamy singles this year.

• Jetty Bones: Clearly-delivered indie rock that transparently showcases the struggles of one person’s life.

• Mannequin Pussy: The band revisits their blistering 2016 breakthrough album in an explosive 14-minute Audiotree Session.

• The Japanese House: On her fourth EP as Japanese House, Amber Bain serves up four hypnotic synth-drenched love songs.

• Daddy Issues: Grunge isn’t dead, it’s just been lying dormant until bands like Daddy Issues arrived to bring it back to life.

• Who Is She?: A Seattle-based supergroup consisting of members from Lisa Prank, Chastity Belt, and Tacocat who combine powers to create infectious pop-punk songs dripping with 2000’s-era nostalgia.

• Torres: Three Futures is a mature and careful album that finds Mackenzie Scott at the helm, steering the ship more sure of herself than ever.

• Charly Bliss: On Guppy Charly Bliss is a charming mess of broken humanity featuring the unmistakable vocal stylings of Eva Hendricks.

• Alvvays: The antisocial Canadian indie group utilizes fuzzed-out instrumentals and rich layering to create an enchanting and memorable indie experience.

• Small Circle: backed by three members of Sorority Noise, this Marissa D’elia-fronted emo supergroup effortlessly created one of the years most hard-hitting and emotionally-impactful albums.

• Marika Hackman: I’m Not Your Man begins with the welcoming sound of laughter and immediately launches into a tale of infidelity. The rest unfolds from there.

• Sheer Mag: This summer, the jangly and soulful rock group finally unleashed their long-awaited full-length Need to Feel Your Love.

And

There you have it. You take the good with the bad, and for all that 2017 has taken from us, it’s amazing to see artists and creators like the ones above adding some beauty to the world. Theirs is a perspective that’s sought, appreciated, loved, and needed now more than ever.

Poptimism, Complexity, and Musical Stockholm Syndrome: Why Some Albums Grow On Us Over Time and Others Don’t

One of the biggest musical revelations of my life, like many things, came from a podcast. It wasn’t a cool song or the discovery of a new genre, but a conceptual framework that changed how I viewed the entirety of music.

The statement, born of a drunken video game discussion, found one of the hosts outlining his definition of pop music. His parameters weren’t based on the artist’s popularity or the sound of their music, but rather something that you could “hear once and enjoy.” He went on to elaborate “I didn’t even like most of my favorite albums the first time I heard them.”

I’m paraphrasing massively here (because I don’t remember the exact quote, episode, or even year), but this general notion is something that has stuck with me for almost a decade. It’s a bit of a roundabout way to define the pop genre (which I still love and appreciate), but it’s also a slightly snobby framework that looks down on an entire genre while simultaneously glorifying your own taste. So sure it’s problematic, but I also don’t think it’s entirely wrong. Pop music is scientifically designed to be catchy, appealing, and broad, that’s inherent in its DNA.

Still, the more I thought about this framing device, the more I found it to be true. I especially latched onto the host’s claim that most of his favorite albums were “growers” he found himself enjoying more over time. As I searched through my own music library, I realized that nearly all of my favorite albums were ones I’d listened to dozens of times and seemingly got better with each listen. In fact, most of them were records that I thought nothing of or flat-out dismissed at first but eventually grew to love. Oppositely, there were dozens of other albums (pop or otherwise) that I’d listened to once and forgotten almost instantly.

So this theory seemed to hold water, and it’s a filter that I’ve used to view music through for nearly a decade at this point. Recently the idea of albums being “growers” brought up online and spark quite a bit of debate. There’s one side that subscribes to the “grower versus shower” mentality, and another that views this behavior as simply subjecting yourself to an album over and over again until you like it. As with most everything, there’s truth to both sides and neither is truly “right.” So I’ve spent some time mulling over this framework, asking people about it, and gathering opinions from both sides of the fence. I’ve uncovered ten different inter-connected elements that are at play within the “grower” concept. I’m going to outline each point below along with personal examples in hopes that I arrive at some sort of conclusion or thesis statement in the process.

1) Denseness and Complexity

One of the biggest arguments in favor of returning to albums and the concept of “growers” is the idea that some genres/bands/records are so musically complex that they encourage it. Whether it’s lyrical, instrumental, or contextual, sometimes there is so much going on in a record that it’s impossible to take everything in on first listen. Take something like Pet Sounds or The Seer where at any given moment there are dozens of individual components all fighting for the same sonic landscape. You can listen to Pet Sounds once and “get it,” but repeated listens reward the listener by allowing them to slowly discover everything at play in these carefully-layered songs. It’s like crossing things off a list; once you know the lyrics you can pay less attention to the vocalist and focus on a different element of the arrangement. You can keep revising an album and delve deeper each time until you have the full picture; one that was impossible to see the first time you listened.

Meanwhile, pop music is almost always internationally bare. By remaining surface-level (both lyrically and instrumentally) pop songs are easier to grasp at first pass. This allows pop artists to more easily fulfill their primary purpose by transporting a single supremely-catchy hook or chorus into the listener’s brain. As a result, the pop genre as a whole actively avoids things that could “distract” the listener because those experimentations and imperfections are often things that risk detracting from the core message that’s being delivered. That’s not to say pop songs don’t require skill to make, just that they avoid anything too “out there.”

Take Katy Perry’s “California Gurls”: it’s a song that I adore, but I’ll be the first to admit there’s almost no substance to it. The main elements at play here are Katy Perry’s voice and a warm radiating synth line. There’s a guitar and bass laid underneath these primary elements along with a handful of ad-libs from both Mrs. Perry and Mr. Dogg, but those the closest thing to musical depth that this track offers. Much like the music video, “California Gurls” is a synthetic and sugary-sweet pop song that exists to convey a single straight-forward message. As a result, you have a song that’s catchy due in large part to the fact that it’s presented in a barebones way. By being lyrically or musically complex you risk immediacy, so you must present your song in a pointed way so as to embrace catchiness.

So obviously sheer mass and complexity are major factors in this debate. Some of my favorite records are indeed sprawling epics that I’ve essentially bonded with over the course of several years. Records that have drawn me back in time and time again and improved my impression of them in the process by developing a unique and ever-changing relationship with me. A musically-dense record will always be more rewarding to return to because it rewards repeated listens and allows the listener to pick up on something new each time. Meanwhile, a pop track may keep a listener coming back for the earworm factor, but won’t necessarily be as deeply rewarding the same way that a “complex” album would be.

2) The Unknown Factor

Sometimes there’s a mysterious, unknowable X-factor that keeps you coming back to a record. Even an album you don’t like can draw you back, if only to pin down its ephemeral magnetism. This has happened to me in 2012 with Carly Rae Jepsen’s megahit “Call Me Maybe” and (after dozens of listens) I’ve since pinned it down to her unique delivery of the goosebump-inducing line “and.. all the other boys.” Early on in his excellent 150-page CRJ-based manifesto, Max Landis does an excellent job of breaking down the song’s undercurrent of distress and subversion, but the point is in 2012 we, as a society, were collectively drawn to this song for some reason.

Sometimes it’s as simple as a weird vocal quirk, other times it’s an attention-grabbing instrumental moment, or a riff that gets stuck in your brain like jelly. In any case, these unique moments aren’t limited to one genre and their ear-worminess plays a huge part in why we return to a piece of art.

I’ve done this with countless songs. Sometimes I’ll find myself listening to an entire album just to experience a single moment in full effect. Sure I can listen to Hamilton’s “Take a Break” in isolation, but it’s only when I listen to the entire play from the beginning that I fully tear up at the song’s implication within the larger narrative. Moments in the song like hearing Phillip’s rap, coupled with Alexander’s growing distance from his family, and dark multi-leveled foreshadowing, are all made more impactful when the piece is taken in as a whole. We don’t get to pick the little things that draw us in, but this search is one of the most rewarding aspects of music appreciation and discovery.

In a third case (I’ll fully-delve into deeper this December), up until last year, Sufjan Stevens has been an artist that I wanted get into. Thanks to a serendipitous iTunes DJ Shuffle back in high school, I became infatuated with exactly three of his songs and I spent literal years listening only to these three tracks until I was ready to explore the rest of his discography.

The Carly Rae Jepsen example proves that there’s still room for these moments in a pop song. Experimentation and subverting expectations can reward the artist in unexpected ways, but if there’s not something there to make the listener curious enough, then it’s unlikely that they’re going to go back and try to figure it out on their own.

3) Critical Acclaim, Message Boards, and Peer Pressure

Like it or not, critics play a role in dictating taste within culture. I suppose it’s less like “dictating” and more like influencing, but I think we’ve all been swayed by reviews at one time or another. Whether it was being convinced to stay away from a bad movie, or giving a record a spin based purely on universal acclaim, critics have an undeniable impact on our cultural landscape.

I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. At worst it will make you more hesitant, and at best you might give something a chance that you never would have known about otherwise. I did this with Kanye West in 2010 following the release of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, after its perfect Pitchfork score and placement as their best album of 2010. Aside from Eminem, I’d never really listened to any hip-hop in earnest, but this level of praise couldn’t be a coincidence, right? I downloaded the album, gave it a reluctant spin, and came away from it mostly underwhelmed.

As a side note (before I get called out) it’s worth noting that I didn’t have any context for My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy at the time. I had no idea about Kanye’s background, or what the album represented within his career. I also had no real appreciation for the record’s layers upon first listen (circling back to Point #1) but I went on to rediscover and genuinely love it in 2016. The point is I picked up this album solely because of critics.

Continuing the Kanye West anecdotes; I’ve already written about how the internet’s reaction to the release of Yeezus spurred me to give the album a shot. I still didn’t get him. For whatever reason, I gave the album another listen a couple months after its release and suddenly everything clicked. I loved Yeezus and soon found myself venturing back through Kanye’s discography from the beginning. I’d like to think that I came to love Kanye of my own free will, but the reason I gave him a chance in the first place (and the second place) is because of other people. Whether it was a “reputable” journalistic source like Pitchfork, or simply witnessing the unbridled joy of hip-hop heads on an internet message board, I could tell I was missing out on something, and that kept me open.

4) Personal Context, The Language of Genres, and The Passage of Time

After “discovering” Kanye West in 2013, he was the sole hip-hop artist I listened to for some time. I would casually browse forums and keep up on large-scale movements within the genre, but it wasn’t until years later that I would find myself delving deeper into the contemporary rap scene. By the end of 2015, I was listening to everything from leaned-out trap, conceptual double albums, absurdist mixtapes and even Drake. Soon I found myself listening to goofier (then) lesser-known acts like Lil Yachty, Lil Uzi Vert, and Desiigner. I can guarantee you that I never would have latched onto any of those guys if it wasn’t for Kanye breaking down my personal barriers and dismantling my hip-hop-related hangups. It took time for me to go from actively disliking hip-hop to embracing it wholeheartedly, and that’s a journey that can only happen over time.

While your personal journey within individual genres matters, there are also things like general knowledge and maturity at play too. Once I got out of that shitty high school ‘everything that’s popular sucks’ punk mentality I opened myself up to dozens of new artistic directions. I gained a new appreciation for things I’d previously despised, and I began to understand why things like MBDTF were important. It’s a combination of open-mindedness and cultural awareness that comes with age, and one that I hope never slows as I get older.

Maturity is an uncontrollable factor that’s hard to pin down, and impossible to quantify. I’ve experienced “musical maturity” as recently as this year with the Fleet Foxes. They were a member of my generation’s pivotal “indie folk movement” and I consider them one of my gateway groups, but despite their importance, I’d never really considered myself a fan. And it’s not for lack of trying, I own all their albums, gave them multiple chances throughout high school and college, but I had always found them interminably boring. I didn’t see what other people saw in them… until this year. With the multi-month build-up to 2017’s Crack-Up, I found myself giving into the hype and giving their older albums another shot for the first time in years. To my surprise, after a handful of half-passive listens I really liked everything I heard. All three of their previous releases grew on me over the course of several weeks, and I became a fan like that. I can still see why I found them boring in high school, but I think the real reason is a lack of maturity. I now have the patience and appreciation for the kind of careful, measured indie folk they’re making, and that openness has rewarded me with hours of enjoyment.  

Circling back to Point #1: it’s often hard to fully grasp an album on first listen, and sometimes a record’s complexity doesn’t allow it to truly grab ahold of you until years down the line. In a way, this is also a point against pop music since so much of it “of the moment” it tends to age worse. It’s a genre that’s by nature the most tapped into pop culture, and as a result, it’s harder to go back and enjoy older songs when A) you’ve heard them thousands of times, and B) there’s more recent stuff that’s more tapped into the current sound. It feels like there’s more of an “expiration” to pop music which means it’s not necessarily as rewarding to venture back to.

5) Streaming, Permanence, and Getting Your Money’s Worth

A semi-recent extra-musical factor at play in this discussion has to do with how we consume music. Up until about a decade ago the process was 1) hear a song 2) go buy the album at the store 3) listen to the album. With the rise of iTunes, YouTube, and more recently, digital streaming platforms the entire process has become flattened. A song can come to mind, and we can pull it up on our phones within 30 seconds. You can hear a song at a bar, Shazam it, and add it to your digital collection within an instant.

As a result of this, albums as a concept have been diminished in both stature and importance. You have people like Chance The Rapper releasing retail mixtapes, Kanye West updating his albums after release, and Drake releasing commercial playlists. But on top of these (somewhat arbitrary) distinctions, there’s a layer of increasingly-pervasive accessibility. You can hear about an artist and have their discography at your fingertips within seconds. You can read about a new release and be streaming it by the time that it takes you to finish this sentence. That freedom has forever changed how we consume music. Comparing this on-demand accessibility with the “old ways” of going to a store and buying a physical record, it’s easy to see how the times have changed.

As a result of this shift, people are less committed to albums. If you don’t like an album you can play another just as quickly. We can jump ship with no loss at all. We’re not connected to the record, so it’s easy to abandon.

Funny enough, with the rise of streaming we’ve seen a near-direct correlation with the rise in the popularity of vinyl as it’s on track to be a billion-dollar industry this year. These are people that want and miss that physical connection with their records. There’s an undeniable difference between listening to an album on Spotify and hearing it come out of your vinyl player at home. “Warmth” and all that bullshit aside, this is an example of the format influencing our listening habits. If you’re using Spotify and don’t like an album, you can easily stop streaming and jump to any of the millions of readily-available alternatives.

Most importantly, when streaming, there’s also no reason to “justify” your purchase because we haven’t dropped $20+ on a piece of physical media. If you bought a record and didn’t like you’d damn sure try to listen to it more than a few times because you invested in it, goddammit!

There’s also a pattern of familiarity at play too. Every time you open Spotify you’re given the choice between something new and something that you already like. If you gave an album a shot and didn’t like it, you’re now given a choice between that and something you know you already like. So why would you ever opt for the thing you don’t like?

Reddit user nohoperadio explains this phenomenon and the wealth of choices that we have in the modern music landscape:

“Those pragmatic constraints on our listening habits don’t exist, and we have to make conscious decisions about how much time we want to devote to exploring new stuff and how much time we want to devote to digging deeper into stuff we’ve already heard, but every time you do one of those you have this anxious feeling like maybe you should be doing the other. It’s only in this new context that it’s possible to worry that you’re listening wrong.”

It really is an interesting psychological door that’s opened with our newfound technological access, and analysis paralysis aside, it explains why some songs draw listeners back by the millions. Drake’s “One Dance” is the most streamed Spotify song of all time with 1,330 million plays. It’s a good song, but not that good. It’s an example of a song achieving a balance of accessibility and pervasiveness until it becomes habitual and self-reinforcing. That’s something that only could have happened in the streaming world.

6) Fandom

Up until now, we’ve mostly been talking about this framework within the context of “new” albums, but what about when you already have context? What about a non-accessible release from your favorite artist?

This has happened to me with many albums over the years. I wrote a 7,000-word four-part essay that was mostly just me grappling with my own disappointment of Drake and Travis Scott’s 2016 releases. For the sake of talking about something new: The Wonder Years are one of my all-time favorite bands. I’ve written a loving review of their second album, and I plan on doing the same thing with their third and fourth releases as well. After a trio of impactful, nearly-perfect pop-punk records, the band released their fifth album No Closer to Heaven on September 4th of 2015. While it’s not an “inaccessible” record, it’s easily my least favorite from the band and a far cry from their previous heart-on-sleeve realist pop-punk. It took me months of listening to the album to fully-realize my disappointment, and even longer to figure out why. I’m still not sure I can accurately explain why Heaven doesn’t gel with me, but that’s not what this post is for. The point is I’ve subjected myself to this album dozens of times racking up nearly 700 plays at the time of this writing. In fact, it’s my 19th most-listened-to album of all time according to Last.fm, and that’s for an album that I don’t even enjoy that much!

I was driven to this album partly by my frustration and confusion, but also my love of the band. I’ve enjoyed literally every other piece of music they’ve ever recorded, what made this one so different? I guess 700 plays isn’t something you’d afford even the most promising album, but this is an example of the listener’s history influencing their own behavior and desire to love an album. It’s trying to make an album into a “grower” when it may never be one in the first place. That leads nicely into #7…

7) Instant Gratification, Uncertainty Tolerance, and “Forcing It”

The most common argument I see against the concept of albums as growers is the idea that the listener is “forcing it.” This is problematic mainly because everyone’s definition of “forcing it” is different. Some people have a specific number in mind ‘if you listen to an album three times and don’t like it, then you’re forcing yourself’ others base it on feeling ‘if you’re despising every second of an album, then just turn it off. Otherwise, you’re forcing it.’

The idea is you force yourself to like something out of pure habit or by subjecting yourself to it over and over again, eventually becoming hostage to something that you didn’t really like in the first place. To me, this is the meatiest discussion point here because it’s such a multifaceted issue. I’ve already discussed this concept within the context of Drake’s Views, but to briefly recap: I loved his 2015 album If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, and he had a killer summer with What A Time To Be Alive and a high-profile rap beef. I was beyond hyped for his next release in 2016 but came out of my first listen incredibly disappointed. Over time I grew to like most of the songs, presumably from sheer repetition, but I still recognize it as an album that isn’t good on an objective artistic level. So is this forcing it? I never hated any of those listens, I just grew to like the album more after time had passed, but I still don’t think it’s good.

I’ve done the same thing this year with Father John Misty’s Pure Comedy. After an impeccable 2015 release and a metamonths-longinterview-ladenlead-up to the record’s release in April I, again, emerged from my first listen disappointed. I have come to enjoy the album more over time, especially after giving myself a break from it and seeing some of the songs performed live. So maybe these two cases just have to do with unrealistic built-up expectations and already being a fan (Point #6) but no matter how you look at it, I wanted to like these albums and kept subjecting myself to them.

At any rate, the biggest flaw with this argument is that everyone’s definition of “forcing it” is different. Unless someone’s making you listen at gunpoint, there is no force. You can stop at any time and you shouldn’t feel pressure to like something just because. But I fully recognize someone could see my listening history with Drake’s Views and say “my god, why would you listen to an album you’re lukewarm on that many times? That’s torture!” but I guess what’s torture for some is simply passive listening for another.

For a more scientific perspective, this youtube video details some of the crazy behind-the-scenes factors at play in making pop music particularly pervasive. Everything from the radio to Urban Outfitters to fucking memes spread music and have the ability to make something exponentially more popular. This circles back to “forcing it” because you may have no power in these cases. God knows after years of the same retail job I grew to hate some songs that were otherwise great just from sheer repetition. It would make sense that this then becomes “forcing it” since you have no power, but sometimes even that can circle back to genuine love if you build enough positive associations over time. I may not like “Hotline Bling” as a song, but god knows I’ve upvoted enough memes featuring the turtleneck-clad Drake that I enjoy something about it.

Furthering the pseudo-scientifical discussion of articles I that don’t have the intelligence to write of research: this blog (which cites this study) discusses “addiction economy” and explores the profiles of “explorers” and “exploiters.” The primary difference between the two groups is their propensity for either delayed or instant gratification. The study explores the idea that technology has accelerated this process which (in a music context) circles back to Point #5 of streaming’s role in our listening habits. Why bother trying to listen to something “difficult” or “weird” when you can have the instant hit of euphoria that comes with a bouncy non-offensive Taylor Swift song?

I really think this one comes down to what you’re in the mood for. If you have the attention, time, and necessary background, why not explore something rich that you may love? But if you just want something quick and easy, just put on the Spotify Top 50 for some background noise. It becomes the musical equivalent of a hearty homecooked meal versus a big, greasy fast food burger. One may be objectively “better,” but it’s not always right for the situation.

8) Expectations and The Initial Approach

Another factor that exists outside of the music itself is the listener’s initial approach. If you go into any art with a preconceived notion you’ll either be surprised by the outcome or have your beliefs confirmed. If you go to a shitty movie expecting it to be shitty, you’ll emerge thinking “well duh.” The inverse of this could also be true (a shitty movie turning out good, etc.), but the real discussion here has to do with the viewer’s initial expectation.

I do think with music it’s rare that you’ll do a complete 180 in either direction. The most likely case of a “grower” is generally a record that you go into not knowing anything about and then some unknown factor (Point #2) keeps bringing you back. It’s also true that you could dislike and album and over time come out liking it (as I did with Views). And while it’s a rare occurrence, I suppose an album could also be a “shrinker” that you love on first listen, but grow to dislike more and more.

Circling back to genres, I think pop music tends to be a shrinker more often than not. It’s something that’s (by nature) immediately accessible but slowly drives you mad with each repeated listen like a screw tightening into your skull. We’ve all been there (especially anyone with a retail job) but I can’t think of a single occurrence where I’ve done that to myself of my own free will. Oppositely, I know people that only interact with music by listening to songs until they’re absolutely sick of them. That’s not how I prefer to interact with art mainly because I feel like there’s only so much time in the day and so many other things to listen to, why force that upon yourself?

I think that the listener’s starting point is a huge concept. Reddit user InSearchOfGoodPun outlines his thoughts on the initial approach and the impact of time on your listening experience:

“My personal opinion is that if you listen to almost anything enough times with a receptive attitude, you will start to appreciate it. It might not become one of your favorites, but you’ll like it for what it is. In any case, at the end of the day, you like what you like.”

The key phrase here is receptive attitude. If you aren’t listening with a receptive attitude, then you’re forcing yourself. Then you’re just making it unenjoyable no matter what. I think this is one of the biggest points in this whole write-up and a key indicator of who you are as a consumer of art. It’s all about being receptive regardless of your starting point.

9) The Language of Genres

Jumping back to Kanye: it was a long and winding road filled with lots of resistance, but despite my own hangups, I now consider myself a hip-hop head. I listen to the genre constantly, I’m up on the “newcomers” and I find myself devoting an absurd amount of time to researching the realm’s happenings each day. I wouldn’t have cared that much without Kanye, and I wouldn’t have discovered half of the shit that I currently love without Yeezus breaking those barriers down.

I’ve spent this entire time talking about albums as “growers,” but it’s also possible that this concept could be applied to entire genres too. I mean, after all, a genre really is like a language you have to learn, and I was fortunate enough to have Kanye as my teacher. Through his discography, I learned about the genre’s history, who its major players are, as well as the language, cadence, and frameworks that it uses. In another sense, it’s almost like “building up your tolerance” to something you previously didn’t understand or couldn’t grasp.

I’ve detailed my own history wading into genres like hip-hop and indie, but it makes sense that this personal context would impact how we would interact with albums through the broader umbrella of their genre. I wouldn’t have understood hip-hop if I jumped straight to Migos. Everyone has a starting point for their musical taste, and it spreads outward from there. Pop music is an easily-accessible taste, but most other genres take a little bit more of an adjustment to get used to. Certain albums or genres are just objectively less-accessible, and harder to get into as a result.

In fact, it could easily be argued that exploring a genre could be the biggest decider on whether an album is a “grower” or not. Contextualizing a record within a larger space can help the listener and understanding it better and appreciate it more. Listening to one album multiple times might be the exact opposite of the correct approach, because while the listener may not like it, they may find something musically adjacent that’s more up their alley.

10) Songs Versus Albums

For the sake of furthering the discussion outside of albums, it’s also worth zooming down to a micro level to look at individual songs. While I tend to listen (and think of things) in terms of albums, it’s undeniable that songs are the main component at play. In fact, a single song is probably the reason for you checking an album out in the first place. Thinking “hey I like this one thing, maybe I should check out the rest” is how I’ve discovered most of the music in my library.

But this same framework of “growers” can easily be applied to songs too. When listening to an album the first time, occasionally only individual songs will jump out at you right away. I love Lost in the Dream by The War on Drugs, but for the first dozen or so times I played the album, the only song I could remember was the opener “Under the Pressure.” That song had a memorable chorus, a catchy riff, and a driving rhythm. It alone is the sole reason I kept coming back to the record, but each time I put “Under the Pressure” on I’d find myself thinking ‘ah, I’ll just let the rest of the album play.’ Eventually, the rest of the record revealed itself to me and individual songs emerged from what was once an amorphous blob of sun-drenched heartland rock.

I did the exact same thing with Young Thug’s breakthrough 2015 album Barter 6. I’d already had a passing interest in Thug thanks to his previous collaborative efforts with Rich Homie Quan, so I gave Barter a semi-attentive spin and left underwhelmed. After a glowing Pitchfork review (Point #3) I gave the album another shot but couldn’t find myself getting past the first track. In a good way. I kept relistening to the album opener “Constantly Hating” and every time I tried to move onto something else, this transfixing opener drew me back in. Soon Barter 6’s second track grabbed me just as hard. Then the third. Then a single. Then a late album track. Eventually, I was listening to the whole thing front-to-back and enjoying every song. Individual songs are a viable path to an album becoming a grower, and while I don’t like digesting albums piecemeal, sometimes that approach can allow an album to creep up on you over time.

Final Thoughts

At the end of the day, there’s a difference between feeling lukewarm on an album then giving it a few more chances and hating an album but feeling like you’re obligated to listen because you “should” like it. Usually, there’s some redeeming quality that brings you back, God knows there’s plenty of albums I’ve heard once then forgotten forever.

Patience is key, and that receptivity can lead to an album becoming better over time. With pop music, I feel like there’s an individual tipping point that everyone hits where you go from fully-embracing a song to actively combatting it. We don’t all have the time or patience to devote ourselves to “difficult” albums, so sometimes the road less traveled is less appealing.

After writing all of this, I’ve come to the conclusion that my initial theory is a flawed. Like many things, it’s not universal. There’s no one “right” answer or perfect framework that applies to all of music. This theory still works on a case-by-case basis, but there’s nuance to every genre, artist, and song, and this broadness makes it hard to view music through such a broad lens.

If anything, a big takeaway is that there’s no one “better” genre, just different fits for different people. With all these possible elements at play, it’s easier to see how someone could gravitate towards one easier genre meanwhile a different person has cut their teeth in a different genre and has a more developed understanding of its intricacies.

And whether you look at it as “a grower” that gets better over time or a “shrinker” that driver you more insane with each listen, there is a point at which you are “forcing it” but (again) that varies from person to person. The only absolute is that there are no absolutes.

The truly compelling part of music is the way that you interact with it. What you bring to the experience and how you interpret the artist’s work. Whether it’s going track-by-track or listening front-to-back, or listening to one single song until you’re sick of it. Music is special because of what we project onto it. The memories we make around it.

It’s obviously incorrect to view all pop music as shallow, just as it’s incorrect to view all rock as deep, or all rap as thuggish. Everything is on a spectrum, and your perspective within the genre, the artist, your life, and the world all come into play when listening.

I don’t think there’s any defined “conclusion” to arrive at, just many different elements to keep track of. These frameworks can help explain why I like A while you like B. The absolute most important thing to take away from this is to keep an open and receptive mind.

I’ve recently come to the realization that my dream job, the one thing I really want to do, is to share things that I love with other people. To spread art, joy, and love in hopes that someone else is affected by these things the same way that I am.

That requires an objective mind, but you still won’t ever like everything. And that’s okay. You shouldn’t have to.

I think sharing things and spreading love is productive for the world.

It’s the most positive impact we can make on the world around us.

It’s spreading beauty.

Both being able to see why someone likes something and being able to share your own experience. It’s the one universal. The human experience. We all have unique perspectives, thoughts, and lives. Sometimes sharing is the only thing we can do.

Art is a bonding agent.

What we add to it is the special part.

Remain open.

Share your love.

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Additional Reading and Citations

1. As the Roots Undo by Circle Takes the Square

2. Doing Good in the Addiction Economy

3. Internet Explorers (Not Exploiters)

4. Is Pop Music Holding You Hostage?

5. The Mozart-like Complexity of Carly Rae Jepsen’s Biggest Hits

6. Reddit Indieheads Discussion Thread

7. A Scar No One Else Can See

8. The Secret Science of Pop

9. Taster’s Choice: Let’s Talk About Love

Counting in Hip-Hop

For the past several weeks I’ve been working on a monster write-up, and I keep hitting walls. I don’t know if it’s writer’s block or sheer laziness, but as an exercise to overcome my wordlessness I’m going to unleash a dumbass idea that I’ve had in my head for months.

This is a post about numbers. Counting specifically. Not like time signatures or recursive rhyme schemes, or anything complicated. Nope, I’m talking about Sesame Street-level counting upward by single numbers.

This is a phenomenon that I first noticed earlier this year in the explosive lead-up to Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. After spotting this example, I quickly noticed other instances and it began to feel like a genre-wide happening. It became a weird trend that I’ve spotted in multiple songs this year alone. There are probably even more instances that I haven’t heard yet, and at the risk of drilling down to levels of abjectly-obscure hyper-specificity, here it is: the definitive list of 2017 hip-hop songs that employ counting as a rhyme scheme.

Migos “Slippery”

In this Gucci Mane-featuring track, the Atlanta trap trio takes turns discussing women, drugs, and the liquidity of their jewelry. After the song’s first hook, Quavo, the group’s resident crooner, jumps into his verse headfirst. Any verse that starts with an earnest delivery of the word “tater tot” deserves recognition in the first place. After a cursory mention of haters followed by a crocodilian turn of phrase, Quavo circles around to the song’s primary focal point and describes his jewelry:

Iced out watch (ice) ridin’ round, ten o'clock (ten)

While not completely out of place, the transition from his bejeweled timekeeper to a relatively mundane time of day seems a little jarring. The next line reveals the mention of 10pm to actually be a setup for a series of time-related bars that would have sounded at home coming out of the Count’s mouth:

Ridin’ round, geeked up, damn, think it’s three o'clock (three)

Four o'clock (four) five o'clock, six o'clock (five)

It’s a pretty bizarre conceit, but I guess it just serves to reinforce the fact that Quavo is riding around “geeked up” at presumably any hour of the day. It’s still a line that makes me smile after dozens of listens, and if anyone can sell a song in which you literally just list off the different times of the day, it’s Quavo. His delivery on these lines are fittingly icy, and they transfer their distorted sense of time to the listener simply by proximity.

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Kendrick Lamar “The Heart Part 4”

The lead-up to Kendrick Lamar’s highly-anticipated fourth studio album was an exciting time. While we’d only experienced swirling rumors up until March, the internet’s hype hit an all-time high when Lamar dropped the surprise one-off “The Heart Part 4.” There’s a lot to digest in this song from possible disses to announcing his own arrival, but most importantly, the track served as an announcement, a message the Kendrick Lamar was officially back.

Midway through the song, there’s a beat switch, and Kendrick starts spitting a particularly venomous set of bars over an interpolated Beanie Sigel beat and a 24-Carat Black sample. He’d go on to rap over the exact same beat on the album cut “FEAR.” but for the time being, it was simply an impactful verse with some of the most braggadocious lyrics we’ve ever heard from Mr. Duckworth.

Early on in this second verse, Kendrick spits a handful of lines that only he could get away with:

Yellin’, “One, two, three, four, five

I am the greatest rapper alive!”

So damn great, motherfucker, I’ve died

What you hearin’ now is a paranormal vibe

I say only Kendrick can get away with this because it would have sounded like a lie coming from nearly anyone else. Seeing the lines written out, they still look like objectively bad lyrics, but Kendrick gets a pass because of who he is and what this song represents.

The song’s genius annotation is a hyper-linked clusterfuck of references hoping to connect all the things that Kendrick could be calling out. It’s possible he could be pulling from any one of these points, but I think this line also works because it’s so infrequent that we hear a rapper say anything like this in 2017. With younger artists releasing music that pulls more from other genres and actively distancing themselves from the “rapper” label, it’s refreshing to see some old-school “I’m the best in the game” boasting from someone who also has the technical skill to back it up.

These lines also call to mind Kendrick’s game-changing “Control” verse in which he named names and brought back an old-school rivalry to hip-hop. This verse achieves that same feeling to a lesser extent but still comes off as a good-natured challenge for his peers to better themselves.

21 Savage “Bank Account”

In this Song of the Summer contender, Atlanta-based rapper and knife enthusiast 21 Savage is pulling double duty both rapping and producing this platinum-selling cut off of his debut studio album. The single, which samples Travis Scott’s excellent “Oh My / Dis Side,” is a dark, moody, ad-lib-riddled account of 21’s wealth and an outline of how far he’s willing to go for the people he loves. When I say “account” I mean that quite literally as the song’s infectious chorus finds a joyless 21 Savage listing off the numbers in his savings account:

I got 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 Ms in my bank account, yeah (on God)

In my bank account, yeah (on God)

In my bank account, yeah (on God)

In my bank account, yeah (on God)

In my bank account, yeah (on God)

In my bank account, yeah (on God)

I got 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 shooters ready to gun you down, yeah (fast)

Ready to gun you down, yeah (on God)

Ready to gun you down, yeah (on God)

Ready to gun you down, yeah (on God)

Ready to gun you down, yeah (on God)

Ready to gun you down, yeah (on God)

It’s a repetitive series of lines that are both surprisingly catchy and personable within the context of the song. This chorus is just confident enough to serve as a chest-inflating masculine brag, but also goofy enough to be used in memes like this. I’ve already documented all of Issa Album’s food references, but lines like these are the reason that people keep returning to this song (and album) in droves. The chorus of “Bank Account” is a perfect encapsulation of 21 Savage’s appeal by highlighting his trademarked emotionless flow while walking the line between repetition and darkness that he is known for.

Lyrics like the ones above may not look like much on paper, but the point is that they all work. Whether it’s the delivery, a contextual turn of phrase, or a multi-layered double-meaning, these lyrics all work flawlessly within the context of their songs.

In fact, they’re all kinda dog shit when taken out of context like I’ve done here, but this phenomenon of literal counting is just something I noticed and felt compelled to highlight. I guess with enough skill, proficiency, and charisma, people like the artists listed above can make anything sound good.

Here’s to 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 more decades of equally-straightforward lyrics. Honestly, if you can make sequential numbers compelling, then you’re succeeding as an artist.

Lil Aaron is The Internet's Last Hope

A bit of a sequel to my recent write-up on the 2017 Soundcloud scene, this post is a markedly more positive look at an artist who is using the same path blazed by trap musicians to create something wholly unique on his own terms.

While the hair-dyed “mumble rap” scene of 2016 paved the way for an unrelenting crop of new artists like XXXtentacion and Lil Pump, it also built a framework that allowed for the emergence of new artists who were able to use the same sound and take it a step further. The anthesis of these aggressive bass-abusing rappers is a long-haired dude named Lil Aaron. Described as one of the music industry’s “best kept (and weirdest) secrets,” Aaron is a 23-year-old rapper from Indiana who grew up with an omnivorous appetite for music. With a diet consisting of equal parts hip-hop and rock, Aaron’s music is the product of two decades of careful study and appreciation. He is the result of unrestrained internet access and becoming musically-conscious in an era where T-Pain and Outkast were as prevalent as Taking Back Sunday and Blink-182.

In 2017, those genre-based barriers are lower than ever, and Lil Aaron has spent the last year building a musical playground in which all sounds are treated equally. He isn’t making the same blown-out trap centered around adrenaline-inducing primordial chants, but he uses many of the same techniques as the Soundcloud rapper greats. From song topics, terms, and cultural idioms, even down to the dyed hair, Aaron takes the traditional signposts of the genre and plays with them until they’re barely recognizable. What emerges is a Das Racist-esque parody that shows immense appreciation for the scene while simultaneously deconstructing the tropes as he’s using them. It’s mercilessly poking fun at the genre in the way that only an insider can, all while making one-of-a-kind music in the process.

103°

I first became aware of Lil Aaron’s existence while browsing the Twitter-sphere on a particularly hot 103° day in Portland. I’d spend the day writing in my backyard, sweating it out and listening to Lana Del Rey in between submitting vaguely-flippant job applications. I’d put in a surprisingly hard days work and figured some mindless Twitter scrolling was a suitable reward.

I stumbled across a video that power user @belatweets2u had retweeted featuring a big white dude with green hair dancing and the caption “im a hot topic.” I’ll admit I was intrigued (and ready to hate it), but I clicked on the video anyway, mainly in an attempt to figure out how this played into my go-to high school clothing shop. When I expanded the video, I heard the unmistakable sounds of Panic! At the Disco’s ”I Write Sins Not Tragedies” and was taken aback.

I had to look away from the phone and catch my breath just to make sure I was hearing this right. To say I was perplexed would be an understatement. I hadn’t listened to the song in years, but the song’s instantly-recognizable opening notes took me back to middle school instantly. The 2005-era orchestral plucks were accompanied by Aaron’s alternating “ayyy’s” and “yeah’s” in between the song’s quickly-plucked pizzicato strings. His ad-libbed additions were on-beat and, while incongruous, fit in eerily well with the song’s original overwrought emo context. As the song’s eighth measure hit, right as you’re expecting Brendon Urie’s vocals to enter at their familiar spot, a catastrophic bass blast enters the mix accompanied by Aaron’s auto tune-drenched voice singing “I’m a Hot topic, yeah.”

I was smitten.

im a hot topic pic.twitter.com/xd4qRS9lIQ

— LIL AARON (@lilaaron911) August 3, 2017

He continued to dance, sing, and ad-lib along with his Disco-infused trap song, and within seconds everything fell into place. It was an instantly-endearing mix of modern trap stylings and middle school nostalgia that melted my heart and made me a fan within the space of a single 37-second Twitter video.

Further Down

From there, I sought out Lil Aaron’s Soundcloud and played his most recent song “Warped Tour” which takes the same approach as “Hot Topic,” this time sampling Paramore’s megahit “Misery Business” for another trap-inspired anthem. Within the song, Aaron toys with a common trap idiom by making a direct comparison between his bands (stacks of money) and the number of bands playing Warped Tour. In the time it’s taken me to write this, he’s since released “Top 8” which samples Fall Out Boy’s “Sugar We’re Goin Down” and acts as a loving, nostalgic ode to MySpace using the name of the site’s notorious friend-ranking feature as a springboard for wordplay which leads to the line “give me top, aye.”

It’s an incredible mixing of genres, sounds, terminology, and humor that I never would have thought possible given all the time in the world. Most of the tracks follow a similar format: lure the listener into a sense of familiarity with the original sample, throw them a curveball with a leaned-out trap chorus, sandwich a quick verse in the middle, repeat the chorus, then end. It makes for a brief but compelling listen that doesn’t overstay its welcome or wear out the novelty. And as short as these songs are, Aaron has since (perhaps jokingly) promised he’s working on “making his songs even shorter.” Brevity is the soul of wit, and Aaron is crafting a song structure that’s unmistakable and all his own.

You’d think the crossover between decade-old emo pop and modern trap wouldn’t be a very wide Venn diagram, but it turns out Aaron’s audience is surprisingly vast. It seems that many other listeners have experienced similar twists and turns in their journey of music discovery. Aaron is uncovering a built-in audience of fans that share a single touchpoint and cultivating a relationship with them as he continues to add onto it. With songs that routinely get hundreds of thousands of plays on Soundcloud and cosigns from Chief Keef, Slim Jxmmi, Bella Thorne, and even Kylie Jenner, Aaron’s audience is massive and only growing.

I’m glad the internet has allowed for artists like Lil Aaron to flourish. It’s such an audacious combination of genres (one that would have never found success or even life in the traditional music industry), and I’m glad that it exists. The ability for an artist to put something out into the universe and have it find an audience is one of the beautiful benefits of living in 2017.

He doesn’t fit perfectly into a box, but that’s fine, he’s not for everybody, and that’s the upside to our ever-splintering media landscape. In an interview with Pigeons and Planes Aaron addresses freedom:

“That’s what’s cool—with the Internet and where we are with media and technology, you don’t have to be selected by people in power to be successful in the music industry. Anywhere I am right now, I did all by myself.”

It’s absolute, unbridled freedom. The ability to mash two disparate sounds together and see what comes of it. Your audience will find you eventually, sometimes you just have to create and see what happens next. As Aaron revs up to drop his next emo-infused track “IWGFU” I find myself anticipating his every move and anxiously awaiting the inevitable collection of trappy-pop-punk bangers. Here’s to innovation, and a long, weird career. Here’s to Lil Aaron.