How Spotify Made Music Disposable

“You can’t record music every three or four years and think that’s going to be enough.” That was a sentence uttered in an interview earlier this year by Spotify CEO Daniel Ek. Widely derided by musicians and fans alike, this sound bite brought the “Streaming Discussion™” back to the forefront of music circles on places like Twitter and Reddit. While very few artists are happy with the financial arrangement between themselves and Spotify, this statement breathed new life into the unrest at the heart of this agreement. This suggestion of “just release more music” also brought to the forefront a litany of problems with the current economic model that platforms like Spotify and Apple Music have used to make millions off of the backs of artists. 

It’s no secret that these services are notoriously stingy, offering up fractions of a penny per stream, but a less-discussed byproduct of this model is how it has literally devalued art and made music more disposable in the process. 

The pandemic (and general state of the world) has obviously caused irreparable damage to our collective mental health and finances alike, but musicians have been hit especially hard. Robbed of the outlet of touring, this has been an unspeakably horrible year for musical artists. Album rollouts have been disrupted, tours have been postponed, and musicians are struggling to make ends meet more than ever before. 

As creators flock to alternative sources of income to keep themselves afloat, the music industry as it stood at the beginning of the year will look very different than the one we see on the other side of this. Groups like Ratboys have taken up Twitch streaming; promoting their merch, prompting donations, and forging direct connections with fans along the way, all while promoting their (excellent) album that released in the weeks before quarantine. Bands like Mannequin Pussy, Prince Daddy, Glass Beach, and Diet Cig have taken to Patreon offering exclusive covers, merch discounts, and access to Dischord channels as benefits. On top of all this, Bandcamp has made a monthly tradition of eschewing their own cut of earnings, the end result being fans putting more than 20 million dollars directly into the pockets of artists, labels, and charities over the course of the summer. 

Then you have Spotify, where it takes 229 streams to make one dollar. Their solution to this? Silly bands, it’s so obvious: simply make more music. Fill their playlists, servers, and coffers with your art if you want to be successful in the musical landscape of 2020.

Near the beginning of quarantine, Spotify gave artists the option to add “donation” buttons to their pages, which, on the surface, seems like a nice gesture, but ultimately proved to be an unsuccessful endeavor. It’s something Spotify can point to and say, “look, see, of course we care about the bands!” Then turn around months later and say things like, “maybe if you were shoveling more coal into our content furnace, you wouldn’t be struggling so much to make ends meet.”

I’ve written before about how “disposable” streaming services have made music, but never went into detail articulating what that meant to me, and this feels like the perfect time. 

At the dawn of commercial music, you’d go to a store and buy your music in the form of a large piece of plastic that you’d bring home and listen to. As time went on, the size and shape of that plastic changed from vinyl to tape to cassette to CD, but the process always remained the same. Soon you could take your music on the go, listening in the car, on a boombox, a walkman, or a portable CD player. At this point, you might be thinking, ‘okay, yeah, thanks for mansplaining physical media to me,’ but this process actually had an impact on how we viewed and interacted with the music itself. 

Due to the financial (and physical) investment you just made, when you bought an album like this, you were going to listen to it, and you were going to listen to it a lot. At a certain point, it almost didn’t even matter if the record was bad or not, because you just sunk $20 into it, and now it’s going to be on your shelf forever. You were going to listen to it over and over and over again. 

My first collection of childhood CDs was pretty appalling. It ranged from stuff like Sum 41, Good Charlotte, and Simple Plan to Eiffel 65, Aaron Carter, and the Baha Men. Hell, I owned multiple Baha Men CDs. You can probably think of one Baha Men song off the top of your head, but I listened to the deep cuts because I had no other alternatives. If “Who Let The Dogs Out” released in 2020, it would go viral, get the band millions of streams, and then fade out in a month or two. People wouldn’t listen to that song and think, ‘Gee, I wonder what else these guys have to offer’ and then jump into the rest of their discography. 

Even in the mid-2000s, once iPods and mp3 players became widely accessible, your digital music library still had some semblance of connection to who you were as a person. The songs sitting in your iTunes library were all files that you ripped from your own CD collection, bought from Apple, were sent by friends, or obtained through more… nefarious means. It felt like every album, and sometimes even every song, had a story and a purpose. Everything was in its right place, even if it was just a 5mb file sitting somewhere deep in the tangled web of folders on your hard drive.

Now, streaming services have done a lot of good. Having a majority of this century’s auditory output one scroll away is an unspeakable achievement, but it’s a double-edged sword. The flip side of this is that it leads artists to game streaming numbers, create insanely bloated tracklists, and beg fans to fake streams. Those aren’t telltale signs of a sustainable business model. 

---

The byproduct of this process for fans is that music is not held with the same reverence when viewed through this platform’s lens. If you’re a capital “M” Music Fan, you’re likely following hundreds, if not thousands of artists from different genres and backgrounds. This is rewarding because it means you have something new to listen to every Friday, probably too much in fact. When there are five to ten new releases to listen to every week, things become buried so quickly that you might not even realize it. 

An artist as big as Taylor Swift can now surprise release an album to critical acclaim and fan approval. It can break records, dominate social media feeds, and feel like a genuine event, only for it to fade from all memory not even a month later. I enjoy folklore, but it’s no longer part of the “culture” as of September 2020, so therefore I’m not thinking of it and not streaming it unless I scroll far back enough in my library to see it. 

You could argue that’s just because it’s a bad album or otherwise unmemorable, but I’ve found this happening with every band, even ones I love dearly. Earlier this year, The Wonder Years, my favorite band of all time, released an acoustic EP that I spun for weeks and weeks but haven’t listened to more than twice this summer. That would have been unthinkable in the era of physical media or iTunes. 

I think the problem here is two-fold. First, it’s platforms like Spotify who capitalize on the hype of something like folklore to generate more users, streams, and engagement for their platforms. Second, I think we’re experiencing an era of unprecedented acceleration in every facet of our lives. Perhaps a product of being sequestered in our homes for six months, our sense of time is skewed beyond repair. Things that happened mere days or weeks ago feel like months or years. How can I remember that an emo band I like put out a new EP two weeks ago when I’m busy filling my brain with social media rot, political discourse, and the horrors of the modern world. 

I’m not begging for the return of the monoculture here, we’ll never return to an era where one band dominates the hearts, charts, and minds of millions of Americans, but it’s frustrating to watch an artistic medium that I love so dearly be treated as a passing fascination. Yeah, cool album you just put out, but what’s next? Artists release one thing, and fans are immediately clamoring for what’s next. It’s harder than ever to fully-digest art as we used to, and streaming platforms like Spotify aren’t helping. 

This is the difference between sipping on a glass of finely-aged whiskey and slamming shots of bottom-shelf vodka…. Not to compare my childhood Baha Men CD to a bottle of whiskey, but you get the point. Dozens of albums came out this year that impacted me in the moment and then faded from my immediate consciousness over time simply because they became buried in the never-ending scroll of my digital streaming library. No matter how much I love an album, something will come out in the next few days that covers it up and pushes it further down the screen. I’ve learned to keep a database of new releases and a shortlist of my favorites, but that’s because I run a music blog, I am far from the average use case.

At the end of the day, most people are perfectly fine throwing on a Spotify-created playlist and vegging out to whatever the algorithm sees fit. I know active listening will never become a truly lost art, but I feel awful for artists who put hundreds of hours, thousands of dollars, and incalculable amounts of effort into their art only for it to be swallowed up by the streaming beast and fade into obscurity within weeks. This is yet another reason why vinyl and cassettes are enjoying a resurgence because people are hungry to reconnect with art. 

Try as we might with petitions, outreach, and just roasting them on twitter, Spotify isn’t going to change any time soon. This is the norm for the foreseeable future, and it kind of sucks. It sucks for artists, and it sucks for fans. In fact, it sucks for everyone involved except the people at the top making millions of dollars off the blood, sweat, and tears of every artist at the bottom of the pyramid. 

Streaming services treat music just like that; a service. Spotify will continue to exploit artists in order to fuel their machine, so as fans, we need to break out of that routine whenever possible. There’s no preciousness anymore unless you bring it, so let’s bring it. Go support an artist’s Patreon, go start a thread on twitter, go buy a shirt on Bandcamp, go post a makeup selfie inspired by a band’s album art. Those are only a few ways to connect with artists, but they go farther than you probably realize; you never know how much your support snowballs. As long as there are passionate fans supporting artists, sharing music, and spreading songs that they love, streaming services will never truly be able to make music disposable, try as they might. 

The Divine Refuge of Welcome to Conceptual Beach

Where do you go when you need an escape? It was probably easier to answer that question before 2020, but that’s what makes the concept of personal sanctuary all the more essential right now. Between the ongoing global pandemic, a just-now-ramping-up election cycle, and a fascist government that’s systematically brutalizing and murdering its own citizens, most days it feels like there’s abject horror in every conceivable direction. 

Some days the scale of pain and unrest is too much to bear; it’s unending and feels like it’s only getting worse. While everything I’ve just listed is a fact of day-to-day life in 2020, it’s important to counter that sense of grief and hopelessness with something, anything, to keep yourself going. We’ve reached a point where it’s simultaneously ‘every man for himself’ and ‘we’re all in this together.’ You have to find your escape and hold onto it for dear life while also keeping close to the people you love to make sure they’re doing the same. 

Taking a break from the always-on rage-filled indignance of the world has transformed from a skill to a necessity over the past few months. Finding the balance between staying informed, using your voice, and taking time to unplug is an invaluable skill that’s nothing short of essential in 2020. On Welcome to Conceptual Beach, Young Jesus use lush instrumentation, dreamlike lyrics, and wandering improvisational passages to depict the ethereal world that lead singer John Rossiter has constructed as his mental refuge from the world. 

Beginning with a steady drumline and Perfume Genius-like augmented vocals, opening track “Faith” acts as an introduction to this world, the sonic equivalent of a plane descending from the clouds to its final destination. As the band layers on bass, guitar, and synth, the track becomes increasingly abstract, yet still somehow measured and orderly, like a Pollock painting. Splotches of distortion and dissonant stabs of guitar eventually all coalesce into a dreamlike ascension around the three-minute mark, providing a springboard for Rossiter to launch into a soaring, uncontrollable cry. And just like that, you’ve planted your feet firmly on the sands of the Conceptual Beach. 

Over the course of the next four tracks, the band pairs Rossiter’s vocals and their Matt Berninger-like ache with instrumentals that alternate between Peaer-style mathy emo and Wild Pink’s heartland indie rock. However, to pin Young Jesus down to one style or list of influences would be a great disservice, this is one of the few bands that have managed to pull off the enviable transition from “emo band” into something wholly unique and unclassifiable. There’s a heavenly saxophone solo on “Pattern Doubt,” and a hypnotic whammy bar chord on “(un)knowing.” There are tight riffs and jazzy improvisations. There are poetic lyrics, abstruse monologues, and mesmerizing mantras. There are bouts of chaotic stimulation punctuated by stretches of meditative silence. All of these artistic elements assemble to form an eclectic collection of sounds, concepts, and ideas that prove to be fruitful ground in bringing to life this ethereal land of sea and sand that exists in the band’s shared vision.

“Meditations” is a jazzy gut-punch that opens with fluttering woodwinds, swirling angelic vocals, and long strings of hammer-on guitarwork. As the haunting 7-minute journey comes to a rest at the midway point, the instrumental settles for a beat switch that works up to one of the most interesting passages of the album; a hypnotic repetition of “I wanna be around and live it” that begins as a whispered curiosity but works its way up to a cosmically affirming shout.

Lead single “Root and Crown” is the album’s most traditional-sounding cut, clocking in a playlist-ready two-minutes and 52-seconds. This song acts as the album's de facto mission statement, as Rossiter croons a fourth-wall-breaking soliloquy to the listener. 

Every record needs a thesis, needs a crisis, or campaign
All my feelings need a reason, need a righteousness or blame
What if living wasn't of the mind?
The root and crown don't doubt the wintertime

Simultaneously a thought-provoking criticism of art, emotion, and the eternal tie between the two, these lyrics are some of the most poignant on the entire release. As these thoughts are being delivered, a velveteen acoustic guitar progression and singular synth note guide these revelations, eventually entwining into a peaceful end that gives the first side of the album a sleepy yet existential resting point.

While the record has already been fascinating, purposeful, and unlike anything I’d ever heard up to this point, where Welcome To Conceptual Beach really shines is its final suite of songs. Both “Lark” and “Magicians” span the record’s back half, clocking in at 12 minutes and 10 minutes respectively. These tracks aren’t quite a curveball, but still manage to subvert the listener’s stylistic expectations, breaking format while simultaneously building off everything that had come before them at that point in the tracklist.

“Lark'' utilizes a shimmering and sunny instrumental to guide the listener through the lively sounds of crowded rooms and a spoken-word monologue. The song’s final verse ends shortly after the four-minute mark, leaving the instrumental to simmer down to the pace of a completely-still lake. From this point, the band unfurls a jaw-droppingly gorgeous and jazzy instrumental that sounds completely improvised. As the bass thumps, guitar glistens, and drums shake, the listener is left to meditate on what they had just taken in. The instrumental rises and falls, allowing the mind to race alongside the track, cresting at the same pace, projecting whatever thoughts, problems, or reflections it needs to upon the canvas of the song. 

Near the 8-minute mark of “Lark,” the band falls into a melody that mirrors the top of the track. Now sounding triumphant and unburdened, the song carries the listener off with celebratory uplift and amazement. While the first half of the track was chaotic, messy, and trapped in its own head, the outro gives the impression that everything had happened that way for a reason. It’s the sound of a life sorting itself out. It’s proof that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. It’s the optimistic take that the universe always bends towards justice and harmony.

Closing track “Magicians” picks up right where “Lark” left off, continuing this newfound sense of optimism but looking outward, viewing the world as it stands and looking forward to what lies ahead of us in that moment. Rossiter sets the scene within the first few seconds, depicting his past life, current existence, and possible futures.

I’m born at 29 occasioned by magicians
I felt the only life’s the life you lead alone
If every older guy’s a broker or casino
I thought I’d roll the dice or play ethnographer
And as a baby I was huge and quite judicious
I’d tell you every lie that is or ever was
But in divulging every secret or suspicion
I came to crying and to hate my life alone

After this first verse, the band falls back into a winding instrumental stretch, almost as if by accident, like the narrator was lost in his own train of thought, battling his anxieties before our very ears. These stretches reminded me immediately of the more grandiose tracks from Sharks Keep Moving, who have penned some of my favorite songs of all time. Within the space of two minutes, the Rossiter has regained his composure and finds himself grappling with his current realities before gently landing on the topic of love.

In every phone I find a reason to get bitter
But every critic’s got some things they’re not proud of
I count myself among the chief of all these critters
I count myself more often than I count the stars
But there are magicians making love and doing dishes
I make my way to magic or belief in love

Again, a chorus of soaring background vocals leads to the song “collapsing” into another improvised instrumental stretch where intermittent guitar strums, bass notes, and drum taps play off each other, giving the listener space to think, feel, and be heard. Eventually, the track winds down near-nothingness; single guitar notes float in space surrounded by long stretches of dark silence. Right as you think the album is going to end, the band comes back with one more fragment of a song to wrap the album up with.

First, the guitar catches its own rhythm, joined quickly by a rolling drumline, and eventually the bass. As this track picks up steam, it builds to a soulful guitar solo that paves the way for one final patch of lyricism that closes out the record. Rossiter enters with a literal whisper singing of cosmic pain and redemption.

You know it, the way it moves and
You think about it every single day
The sun and the greater bruise
The bridge when every day begins to fade

I know it, the way you move and
The holiness of what we did today
Our love is the aching news of
It’s everlasting and it’s single day

You know it, the way you move and
The holiness of every single day
Our love is the greater bruise
The bridge to everlasting every day

These final words are interrupted by a frisson-inducing riff that comes in loud and beaming as if being broadcast down from the heavens. Towering above the mix, this is one of the most powerful moments I’ve ever heard put to record and an absolutely perfect way to end the album. It sounds holy, it sounds pristine, it sounds like a perfect moment.

Welcome to Conceptual Beach is a world-class record that emphasizes everything I’ve found to be important in 2020. The fact that within 40 minutes the album moves from defeatist lyrics like “That’s how we live / Between pain and hopelessness,” to the relative optimism of it’s final two tracks is an awe-inspiring journey.

I’ve lost track of the number of things that have gone wrong this year, but Welcome to Conceptual Beach stands as an album-length memorial to the things that have gone right. This record is a monument to the moments of love, happiness, and peace that exist between the sadness and pain. Having that space to escape is an invaluable bit of real estate, and with this record, Young Jesus proved that sometimes the most rewarding thing is letting other people in.

Lamenting the Death of The Hidden Track

Not to sound like a copypasta, but I listen to a lot of music. Even before quarantine, I spent most of my waking hours with something playing on my phone. Now that I’m inside all day and have very few real-world obligations, music is playing from virtually the minute I wake up until the second I fall asleep. This means, yes, I’m on my emo bullshit more than ever before, but it also means that I have the time to revisit lots of older albums from my childhood.

As someone who was born in 1993, I grew up in a time where CDs reigned supreme. My parents had hundreds, if not thousands of CDs, which was probably where my obsession with music began. We listened to music in the car, at home on our stereo, and in my room on my personal CD player. Once I got my first iPod back in 2004, I eventually just started ripping every CD that I had even a passing interest in, quickly building out an expansive library of MP3 files to satiate my voracious musical appetite. 

Now that I have more hours than ever in the day to listen to music, I’m breaking out of my typical emo/indie rock rotation and revisiting more classics from my childhood. Albums like Barenaked Ladies’ Gordon, Presidents of the United States self-titled record, and Relient K’s Two Lefts Don’t Make A Right… But Three Do. I’m not necessarily going to bat for the artistic merit of any of these records because my mind is too clouded with the pleasant glow of nostalgia to listen to them objectively. What I will say though is in revisiting all these 90’s and 2000’s albums, I was reminded of a trend that seems to have been forgotten completely: the hidden track. 

It may seem goofy to explain, but for the sake of anyone under the age of 20 reading this, “hidden tracks” were essentially bonus tracks buried at the end of an album, usually after a long period of silence. The experience of discovering these hidden treasures was almost always notable. Whether it was being jolted awake by the chuggy stoner rock riffage of “Endless, Nameless” or being blindsided by the Daniel Johnston-ey weirdness of Green Day’s “All By Myself,” the hidden track provided artists with an outlet to deliver die-hard fans some of their weirdest, most left-field easter eggs. 

While vinyl records and cassettes had their own novelties, the hidden track was a unique byproduct of the compact disc format. The expansion from a vinyl’s 44-minute running time to CD’s 74-minute running time meant that artists had nearly double the amount of time to play with. This was even an increase from cassette tape’s roughly 60-minute running time. While some artists utilized CD’s entire time allotment, the average running time of an album still hovered somewhere between the 40-60 minute range. That meant a large chunk of extra time at the end of the CD for literally anything else. 

The experience of listening to an album, reaching the end, and sitting in silence for a few minutes is a near-lost art. The surprise of an additional piece of music that wasn’t listed on the back of the album is all but dead. 

The hidden track began to mean less as soon as iTunes and other music digitization meant all the raw MP3s and their running times were exposed. This meant that the final track with a suspicious 10-minute running time was a little less sneaky than the artist originally intended. It also meant you could just skip straight ahead by clicking on the timeline in your music player of choice. Sure, you could do this on a CD too, but that “first listen” surprise is gone forever. 

Even now, most of these songs exist on streaming services, but they’re just listed as their own song without any pause or gap in between the album’s intended closer. This is especially frustrating because it’s not the true “ending” of the album as the artist intended. For the most part, hidden tracks were meant to be throwaway jokes, weird little callbacks, or fun bits of studio chatter, they were not real songs, but now streaming services treat them as such.

Sometimes there are legitimately great tracks hidden at the end of records that, for whatever reason, the band just didn’t feel like highlighting on the tracklist proper. Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Fever To Tell is a landmark album for many reasons, but why something as great as “Poor Song” was tucked away unlabeled at the end of “Modern Romance” will forever be a mystery to me. 

Tracks like “Poor Song” were the exception rather than the rule, and if you need evidence, look no further than practically any one of Blink 182’s albums. It’s hard to accurately articulate the strange mixture of shock and confusion of being nine years old and hearing “When You Fucked Grandpa” while listening to Take Off Your Pants and Jacket for the first time… hell, I still get blindsided by that one. 

The digitization of music has arguably brought more good than bad. It’s easier than ever to discover a new artist, share songs with your friends, and even get your own music out into the world on a massive scale. On the flip side, losing physical media means the average listener views music as more disposable and less unique. This is all on top of the fact that there are now even fewer opportunities for format-based easter eggs like hidden tracks.

I’m not going to pretend that the death of hidden tracks is as terrible as artists being paid fractions of a penny per stream, but it’s something that still hurts as a lifelong music nerd. Things like this are why vinyl had a resurgence because it gave artists the opportunity to go above and beyond with their art. Same thing with cassettes… that’s more of an affordability thing, but there’s no denying how cool it is to fold out a new J-Card for the first time. Hell, I’ve even seen people getting back into VHS in 2020, so who knows what the future holds. Hidden tracks may have become a forgotten art form, but I have faith that the next generation of musicians will find something even cooler to replace them with. 

Apropos of nothing but being stoned, I recently watched 2002’s Scooby-Doo and was struck by the movie’s depiction of early-2000’s cool. It was all radio-sanitized pop-punk, spiked hair, and frosted tips. I remember thinking, “these college kids are so cool” when I watched the movie back in 2002, but now it’s just a hilariously-dated time capsule. In other words, hidden tracks had their time, and that time has passed. Much like frosted tips and chain wallets, maybe it’s for best that we leave them in the past. 

Pinkshift's Music Video for “i’m gonna tell my therapist on you” Is an Ode to Socially Distant Rocking

It’s no secret that 2020 has been miserable. Throughout the year, music has remained a consistent escape and (often singular) ray of hope in the face of the crushing bleakness that is reality. 

Not to sound too coldhearted or depressing, but when numbness is your default mode of operation, I’ve found music to be the one thing that can break me out of that every time. Whether it’s being jolted awake by the madness of the 100 gecs remix album, finding solace in the spaced-out relaxation on Texas Sun, or the feeling of excitement that comes with discovering a new band that becomes your next obsession.

While everyone is struggling (and coping) with the new realities of our world in different ways, musical artists have been hit particularly hard. Album releases have been disrupted, touring music has ceased entirely, and the tenuous relationship between artist and streaming services has grown even more strained. Everything from dropping a song to selling merch has been upended, but musicians are nothing if not resourceful. 

Bands have turned to direct lines of support in order to maintain their lives and passion. Artists have turned to Patreon, livestreaming, and Bandcamp to sustain themselves both creatively and financially. It’s making the best of a bad thing, and that’s an admirable thing considering we’re looking at a world where concerts might not return till late 2021 if we’re lucky. 

In the face of quarantine, artists have found creative workarounds for these restrictions; Charli XCX created a whole album in quarantine about quarantine with the help of her fans. Ratboys have scrapped their 2020 tour plans in favor of a “virtual tour” playing places like Stonehenge, Niagra Falls, and the Moon. 

The latest in this line of quarantined creativity comes in the form of Pinkshift. This Baltimore-based punk group combines the snarled vocals of Destroy Boys with the driving instrumental bite of mid-2000’s power pop groups like Damone. Last week the band released “i’m gonna tell my therapist on you,” a catchy, three-minute punk cut that grapples with the assholes in your life and the asshole in the back of your head. 

Today the group dropped the video for “therapist,” and it fits the song perfectly. Filmed in their cars, homes, bathrooms, and nearby open fields, the music video is a socially-distant take on rocking, showcasing each band member fully-committing to shredding even if it means wearing a mask and keeping six feet away from each other. It’s a brilliant document of music in 2020 and a testament to the resilience of DIY bands. Because if music really is your calling and your one true outlet, you’ll always find a way to make it work, even when the world is ending.

Follow Pinkshift:

Bandcamp | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Retirement Party – Runaway Dog | Album Review

I first discovered Retirement Party through a stroke of Spotify Algorithm Luck™ when the streaming platform served up “That’s How People Die” after my emo album of the day had come to a close. The song opens with Avery Springer’s raw vocals accompanied by sparse, solitary guitar strums as she recounts a time she fell asleep outside and woke up with a debilitating sunburn. Before spiraling out about the implications that this ultraviolet overexposure has on her long-term health, a wall of distorted instrumentation washes over the track, whisking the listener off into a hearty emo riff. Not only is this a perfect introduction to Springer’s style of nervous, self-deprecating energy, but it also subverts expectations in a way that makes you think that anything could happen next. 

That song hooked me instantly, and I soon found myself clicking my way down the Spotify rabbit hole to dig into the rest of the album. I quickly discovered that the band was signed to Counter Intuitive Records, which is home to bands like Prince Daddy & The Hyena and Mom Jeans, aka an immediate seal of approval. The remaining 30 minutes of the album were some of the most sharp, well-observed, and personable emo I’d ever heard. It wasn’t particularly midwesty or tappy, but it still scratched my insatiable itch for precise guitarwork and fast-paced, punky instrumentals. 

The thing that immediately sold me on Retirement Party was the band’s voice. Not just Avery’s singing voice, but the way that she writes too. In her solo side project Elton John Cena, Springer aptly describes her artistic approach with the line “it’s kinda my thing to write sad songs that sound pretty happy.” While cutting and immensely self-aware, I don’t think I’ve ever heard an artist capture their creative essence more accurately in-song. 

Retirement Party’s debut is packed with overthinking, self-doubt, and awkwardness. The choruses were sticky and sing-along-able, but also portrayed the all-too-relatable feeling of being deeply uncomfortable with yourself. Luckily, Retirement Party’s sophomore album Runaway Dog feels like a direct extension of Somewhat Literate in both style and substance. 

Lead single “Runaway Dog” acts as yet another perfect opener, this time opting to wade the listener into the record with a chunky guitar line that bounces back and forth like a metronome keeping time for Avery to enter the scene with a mouthful of doubtful lyrics. As she spouts off numerous cynical observations, the drums swing in followed quickly by the bass, all of which fall in line with the riff already established by Springer’s guitar. Together, these pieces all coalesce into one finely-oiled machine that gradually picks up momentum until the track lifts off into a soaring riff that’s as dancy as emo music could ever hope to achieve. 

While Somewhat Literate finds Avery rife with insecurities about her life, her relationships, and her place in the world, Runaway Dog sees her crossing at least one of those concerns off her list. While she may have found her place as a musician in the intervening years between records, it’s clear that she’s still wrestling with just as many insecurities and looming dreads. 

The decision to make “musician” your job title is a weighted one; it’s a career that requires commitment, creativity, and a near-endless supply of belief in oneself. To make money off of music, you ostensibly have no choice but to become a touring musician, and to be a touring musician, you must be tireless, risk-tolerant, and willing to eat Taco Bell for a minimum of ten meals a week. Runaway Dog is a record that sees a young musician struggling with those facts, knowing in her heart that this is what she wants to do while also recognizing the risks and tradeoffs must be made in the process. 

Music-related unease aside, Retirement Party also offers up a deluge of more widely-relatable personal anxieties throughout Runaway Dog’s 34-minutes. One of the things that I’ve always admired about Avery’s writing style is her ability to hone-in on hyper-specific details and obsess over them to a worrying degree. While there’s still plenty of that to be had on the band’s sophomore record, the group also manages to shift the lens out to a broader scope. 

The band tackles existential dreads large and small, whether it’s the dynamic of touring on “Wild Boyz” or the looming specter of climate change on “Afterthought.” As always, Avery’s lyrics remain honest and cutting, utilizing her plainspoken delivery to disarm the listener and force them to lean in a little closer and listen a little harder. This is most apparent on songs like “Fire Blanket,” where Springer recites her lyrics over a blistering guitar solo and rattling rhythm section that simultaneously fit together but also seem at odds with one other.

Anyone that’s listened to Retirement Party before knows that this is about par for the course, and the band’s killer writing is always accompanied by killer riffs. Whether it’s “No Tide” with an instrumental that plows into you like a school bus or the thunderous and biting riff that closes out “I Wonder If They Remember You,” this record is chock-full of groovy emo-adjacent shredding that’s both striking and catchy. 

The true “dynamic” of Retirement Party is heavy-hearted lyricism alongside those hard-hitting riffs. This is music that’s primed for beer-spilling moshpits and sweat-covered singalongs. These are sad songs, but you might not even recognize that until you’re singing along at the top of your lungs and start to realize what the lyrics actually mean. 

While Somewhat Literate is an album about the painful monotony and granularity of everyday life, Runaway Dog shifts those anxieties into a more specific place that directly reflects Avery’s current situation. While the experience of being a touring band living life on the road is not a universal one, the emotions that are used to grapple with that reality are. Avery has a knack for turning the listener to an empath, and these songs are so honest that you begin to feel her life, her experiences, and her anxieties by-proxy. 

In a world where touring music is on pause and musicians are struggling more than ever with their chosen career path, I believe it’s important to recognize that reality and help out in any way possible. This is not a “coronavirus” record, but it tackles harsh realities surrounding musicianship and now these struggles feel like they’re caught in a new light. Life is hard for everyone, and it’s hard for different reasons. We all get that desire to break away from things, leave it all behind, and start anew, but as scary as that seems, it takes even more courage to stay, confront those problems head-on, and actively try to make things better. In a time when we need art, creativity, and escapism more than ever, the sacrifice that goes into creation cannot be understated enough, and that’s exactly what Runaway Dog is sprinting towards.