The Run For Cover Shoegaze Canon

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We’ve all heard about the Heavy Music to Shoegaze Pineline, and the math checks out there, but there’s another, just-as-important shoegaze repository that we don’t talk about often enough: The Emo Music to Shoegaze Pipeline. Okay, I promise I’m going to stop saying “pipeline” now, but this is a very real phenomenon with one highly-influential label at the center. But first? Let me take you back in time.

It’s spring term 2014, and you’re just at the onset of your emo phase. You found this cool label from Boston named Run For Cover. They had just released this album called “You’re Gonna Miss It All” by Modern Baseball, and you were digging it quite a bit. Through forums, message boards, and various online chatter, you discovered this other album with a pizza on the cover by a band named Tigers Jaw and found out that the same label put it out. Damn, two for two. You decide to check out a few more albums the label has released, and soon enough, you have a pretty solid foundation for decades of dorky emo admiration. If you couldn’t figure it out, that person was ME.

In retrospect, Run For Cover has always been my favorite record label for a reason. They put out (conservative estimate) a few dozen highly influential, respected, and revered albums since their humble beginnings in 2004. A decade into their existence, they’d already brought us Title Fight, Fireworks, The Wonder Years, Tigers Jaw, Man Overboard, Koji, and Seahaven. If you have any affinity for this specific sound or era of indie rock, that list probably got your heart rate up. 

At this point in 2014, I was just beginning to find my footing in school. I was halfway through college, settling into my major, and discovering a host of music that felt unique and uninformed by my peers or friends. This felt like music that was speaking directly to me and that I could fully own. Run For Cover was offering music from some of the most exciting and important bands in my life, and pretty soon, seeing that Run For Cover Triangle Logo was as good as a stamp of approval in my eyes. 

In 2014 specifically, we were post-Youth, but pre-Peripheral Vision. This was a time when many of these bands were either revving up or actively dropping their best material. Seahaven had just released Reverie Lagoon, and Tigers Jaw were just beginning to roll out singles to their much-awaited Charmer… Sorry that this has been a lot of “remembering guys” up to this point, but I’m just trying to paint a picture here. If these names mean anything to you, then I promise I’m building to something. 

Just over the horizon was a little band from Indiana called Cloakroom. They were about to drop their debut album, Further Out, and cement themselves as Run For Cover’s first earnest foray into overtly heavier music. At some point in an early part of their career, the band openly described themselves as “stoner emo,” which sounds exactly how you would expect it to. On Further Out, the trio fully realized their powerful potential, combining the heaviest parts of Hum with the shreddiest parts of Earth. That Hum worship also materialized in a very real way after an album delay led to an apology 7” with a song featuring Matt Talbott of Hum. 

One month after Cloakroom’s ferocious first album came another debut from a Pittsburg band called Adventures. Much like Further Out, the first record from Adventures was a shockingly developed realization of the band’s sound. Titled Supersonic Home, this album was the payoff to two EPs and two splits; it was a fresh batch of ten new songs, all without flaw. For just over 31 minutes, the band hits you with one lightly distorted hook after the next. “Dream Blue Haze,” “Your Sweetness,” and “My Marble Hole,” one by one, the band unleashed these incredibly simple yet endlessly addictive tracks. The end result is an uplifting collection of songs that sit somewhere between Sunny Day Real Estate and the Brianna-led side of Tigers Jaw. It’s also an album that I only checked out because Run For Cover was releasing it. 

While it’s hard to call Adventures a shoegaze band in the classic definition, they were certainly indebted to a specific style of fuzzy 90s/early-2000s alt-rock. Regardless of what you’d label them, Supersonic Home was one of the coolest things I’d ever heard in my life. The crazy part is how much that record still holds up almost a decade later. The magic is still there, and its status as a one-off side project makes that perfection sting all the more. Oh, that’s right. Did I not mention that Adventures was comprised primarily of members from the metalcore band Code Orange? Because that’s a crazy fun fact that I decided to bury at the very end of this paragraph. That almost makes them a prototypical member of the heavy music to shoegaze pipeline. 

One year later, I would stumble ass-backward into Psychopomp by Japanese Breakfast, thanks to a transcription of an absolutely manic and hilarious string of text messages posted to the /r/indieheads subreddit. That album would go on to become one of my favorites of all time and soon lead me to Little Big League, a gritty Run For Cover band that Michelle Zauner sang and played guitar in. This was before becoming the published author, Dead Oceans-signed, music video and movie directing Michelle Zauner that we all know today, but the music was just as good.

I wouldn’t personally discover them until years later, but around this same time, Pity Sex was releasing their iconic one-two punch of Dark World and Feast of Love, rounding out a dreamier side of Run For Cover’s gazey lineup. Similarly, Superheaven was rocking the 90s grunge worship years before anyone else would get there. The fact that one label was at the epicenter of all this music is, quite frankly, mind-blowing.

To this day, a Run For Cover co-sign is still a seal of approval. Seeing this label involved means a guaranteed listen from me. Sometimes it’s not my shit, but more often than not, I’ll discover a new obsession or favorite artist.

In recent years, the label has brought us Anxious, Sadurn, One Step Closer, and Glass Beach. Run For Cover’s involvement got me in early on bands like Camp Cope, Field Medic, and Pinegrove, in addition to everything listed above. This label has ushered me into the sprawling discographies of artists like Advance Base and Alex G, and they’ve even released one of my favorite albums of the last decade with Fiddlehead’s Springtime and Blind. 

Last week, Run For Cover dropped Narrow Head’s third album, Moments of Clarity. It wasn’t until I was listening to this record that I put all this together. At first, my reaction was “another great record from Run For Cover,” which is a relatively predictable response from me. Then I started looking through my music library and realized this label’s pedigree with these shoegaze-adjacent albums. Run For Cover was instrumental not just in my emo music fandom but also acted as my introduction to this specific heavier scene of music. 

From the dreamy wisps of “Dogwalk” and saccharine sweetness of Adventures to the stoner crush of Cloakroom and grungy blaze of Narrow Head, Run For Cover has always been there.

There are a ton of bands playing at this “grungegaze” intersection right now; Fleshwater, Soul Blind, Glitterer, Dosser, Drug Church, and Prize Horse, just to name a handful. Each of these bands are carving out distinct corners of hardcore and heavy music, pulling from the grunge, nu-metal, and the 2000s alternative rock I heard all the time growing up. This sound feels extra crystalized on Moments of Clarity, but to some extent, is just the latest in a long string of Run For Cover Records knowing what I need to hear exactly when I need to hear it.

Narrow Head – Moments of Clarity | Album Review

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Run For Cover Records

Growing up, I was raised in a pretty conservative home, and more “extreme” forms of art were often tricky to explore. I often had to find bands that toed the line with songs I could play without frightening my parents while still scratching that heavy itch. The most effective route for this was ensuring the bands I wanted to listen to were Christian, or at least marketed as such. You see, the lack of a parental advisory sticker wasn’t enough. Linkin Park didn’t cuss on a proper album until Minutes to Midnight, well after my tastes had changed, but even still, I was not allowed to listen to them because their lyrics were deemed “too depressing.” Fair enough, I guess, but the point stands. I had to do the work to find music that I enjoyed and was permissible.

There’s been somewhat of a resurgence of bands settling into massive riffs and hazy, spacey vocals. The reunion albums of Quicksand and Hum, in addition to more recent efforts by bands like Fleshwater and Soul Blind, have been stirring up waves of wistful, reflective nostalgia within me. It's been comforting if a bit tough to nail down. I hadn’t been able to pinpoint exactly what about that sound had been affecting me so much until a passage on Narrow Head’s latest LP, Moments of Clarity, where the feeling became palpable. 

After eight tracks of driving shoegaze riffs (with plenty of 90’s alt and pop sensibility thrown in for good measure), the one-two punch of “Gearhead” and “Flesh & Solitude” kicked in, and I realized that this is exactly what my thirteen-year-old self loved and sought out. This kind of stuff is how I got to where I am today in both the music I create and consume.

From the opening strums of the loose strings on the grungy (and then pummeling) “Gearhead” to the harsh vocals and the chaotic last minute of “Flesh & Solitude,” the album becomes a different beast. A beast that I greatly appreciate as it allowed me to connect to a self I don’t consciously spend much time with. This isn’t the first instance of heaviness like this, though. The moody and crushing “Trepanation,” while not in the exact same vain, darkens things up in the first half of the record before shifting to the stoner’s pace of “Breakup Song,” a track that evokes the openness of a classic Doug Martsch cut mixed with the Pixies. 

The darkness permeates throughout even the less intense tracks. The thematic opener, “The Real,” feels both biting and earnest, with the chorus asking, “How good does it feel? / To be you / To be real” It brings to mind the aforementioned Hum reunion album Inlet in the best ways. Through infectious songs like the title track and “Caroline” or the palate-cleansing “The Comedown,” Narrow Head have crafted a cohesive collection of songs that really move with intention and weave a portrait that is reflective yet uninterested in dwelling. It certainly has highlights but is best digested as a whole. Sonny DiPerri’s (NIN, Protomartyr, My Bloody Valentine) production is stellar, and taking the record in from start to finish truly allows it to reveal itself, especially on repeated listens. There’s a lot to admire.

It’s often funny to recognize the steps you’ve taken to end up wherever you are. It’s comical that I consider P.O.D. to be the band that got me into heavy music, but it’s true. Their album Brown was instrumental in getting me into bands like Blindside, who led me to Underoath, who led me to Norma Jean, and so on and so forth. Hell, Brown honestly still holds up today. Tell me this track doesn’t fit perfectly in the current state of heavy music. A little bit of now, a little bit of then. Everything’s connected. As a kid, my search for exciting yet parentally palatable music led me to scour lyrics sheets and connect the dots of like-minded bands. While I’m no longer concerned if an album is considered depressing or if they say “fuck,” I’m mindful of the intention and the piece as a whole due to the necessity of paying attention to all the details. 

The sonic territory in which Moments of Clarity exists is familiar but fresh in the melding and execution. This is one of those stepping-stone albums that allows the depths of heavier music to be explored without pushing the listener too far out. It’s both catchy and introspective while also not shying away from being aggressive with walloping clarity. Narrow Head is part of an ilk that looks to the past, both externally and internally, in order to forge ahead and craft a future they wish to live in, and the results they’re yielding make it a pleasure to be along for the ride. 

Christian Perez is a member of the band Clot and a rabid record collector.

Andy Shauf – Norm | Album Review

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ANTI‐

The power of discovering music in a record store is still as relevant today as it was before the turn of the millennium. Walking into your favorite local shop, hearing the staff picks on the speakers, and then buying the album on the spot. It’s something that just can’t be recreated by sharing a streaming link. That’s where my fandom of Andy Shauf began in 2020.

Masked up and existentially confused, the soothing tones of his release that year, The Neon Skyline, immediately stuck out to me. Sitting somewhere between the Scottish twee of Belle And Sebastian and the cabaret croons of the Burt Bacharach catalog, Shauf really showcased a singer-songwriter style I felt like I’d missed for many years. It was a heavy spin for me in the back half of the year, as was his 2021 follow-up Wilds that continued the story. Consider it the Mallrats to its predecessor’s Clerks; the same characters followed from different perspectives while introducing new ones.

Norm is Shauf’s eighth proper LP and is a wonderful way to kick off the year in music. From the beginning of the opener,  “Wasted On You,” longtime fans will be pleased that Andy is not deviating from his signature style; he continues to be one of the most recognizable voices Canadian indie rock has to offer lately. If you heard Father John Misty’s last album, Chloe And The Next 20th Century, and thought, “what would it be like if these songs were good?” Norm delivers that reality. It creates a soft-spoken world using elements of the orchestral pop and easy-listening landscapes of our grandparents’ generation. To appease all ages, those same elements shine under the ultra-clean production of the modern indie era.

The falsetto opening of “Telephone” comes in so strong I was certain he was bringing in a guest vocalist for a duet. Which, given the style of this record, would probably fit quite well. In turn, this is just Andy using his range as a strength, like Adrienne Lenker would on some of her most intimate material. Andy’s vocals are once again a standout throughout the LP, but it’s the way he uses them on top of the sparse, relaxed instrumentation that makes all his records captivating. Swooning through passionate lines such as “I would live on the telephone if I was listening to you talk about your day.”

“Norm,” the title track, is the perfect centerpiece. Calling the lead character by name for only the second time so far (the first being a subtle mention in the very last line of “You Didn’t See”), we learn he “lays on his side with heavy eyelids” and hears the voice of the narrator “lead[ing him] to the promised land.” If one thing is clear throughout the album, our hero Norm is straight up not having a good time.

On “Halloween Store,” Shauf delivers maybe his strongest stanza of the record. In describing Norm’s feelings on meeting one of the many persons of interest encountered, he “wondered if I locked the house, walked back and found that I hadn’t. But now my keys were in the car.” / “Pulled the handle, and it snapped back. At least I’d locked one door.” It’s clear the small victories for Norm are enough in some cases. Shauf’s almost talk-sing delivery makes it hard to fully take it in if you’re not listening with a close ear. It’s an intoxicating moment of insecurity.

If Norm invokes one thing, it’s tenderness. Like many of Shauf’s releases, his ability to effortlessly bring you into his orbit and immediately feel comfortable is continually impressive. For example, take the opening salvo of “Sunset” and “Daylight Dreaming,” a pair of songs whose sonic qualities live up to their titles. Shauf wields his words perfectly: “Just watching the sunset, and I’m letting you know just how long I’ve loved you for,” he pleads. On the latter, he sings, “All my daylight dreaming can’t get you on the phone, so send me strength to God Almighty.” The presence of a higher power is considered throughout the album, but maybe never accepted.

So the story ends as it begins, the 102-second closer “All Of My Love” taking its name from the chorus of track one. It gives the impression that the legend of Norm is endless, or maybe that the titular Norm’s romantic journey is. Shauf’s smart decision here to not only tie the last song to the first, in addition to making it brief, invites the listener to start it again. Flip the record back over. Hit the album repeat button on streaming. Imagine King Gizzard’s Nonagon Infinity, an album on a seemingly constant loop, albeit more French café than outer space in this instance.

I can also understand Shauf’s gift of quiet tone setting being a crutch for some listeners. If you’re not willing to be right there, ears to the words, you could miss the details. Norm is patience demanding but wildly fulfilling. If you enjoy the similar quirk of Jens Lekman, the character-driven library of The Mountain Goats, or the heartfelt delivery of late fellow Canadian legend Gord Downie, Andy Shauf’s Norm should be considered for your 2023 new release rotation.

Logan Archer Mounts once almost got kicked out of Warped Tour for doing the Disturbed scream during a band’s acoustic set. He currently lives in Rolling Meadows, IL, but tells everyone he lives in Palatine.

Twitter: @VERTICALCOFFIN
Instagram: @sleeps.with.angels

Hater's Delight – January 2023

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For a traditionally slow time of year, January has already been a whirlwind month of new music, announcements, and discourse. The return of boygenius, the promise of Wednesday, the long-awaited album from Fireworks. All of this and lots to look forward to in the coming months… but those are all good things, and we can’t be all positive all the time.

Enter Hater’s Delight, a micro-review column brought to you by Swim Into The Sound writers who want to vent about the things online and in music that have gotten under their skin over the past month. While I am a firm believer in love and positivity, even I admit that sometimes you just gotta let the Hater Energy out, and that’s exactly what this is.

If you want to catch up with a comprehensive playlist of all the new releases I liked this month, click here. If not, read on for the dregs of January. 

The Album Art for The National’s First Two Pages of Frankenstein

From the moment I saw the album art for First Two Pages of Frankenstein, I knew exactly what it reminded me of right away. It looked like the album art for every car commercial indie/alternative band of the 2010s. While The National haven’t always had the best album art, this one feels different. When I look at this album art, this could easily be the art for any of the following bands: Walk the Moon, Cold War Kids, Grouplove, American Authors, Cage the Elephant, Twenty One Pilots, Fitz and the Tantrums, X Ambassadors, lovelytheband, Passion Pit, American Authors, Young the Giant, The Temper Trap, The Naked And Famous, Miike Snow, Foster the People and so much more. Now, why does this album art remind me of all these bands? I can’t tell you. I’m not a graphic designer, and my attempts at art in the past I would consider to be failures. But you just know it when you see it, and God, do I see it in all its blinding glory.

Matty Monroe – @MonrovianPrince


Jack Antonoff’s Enemies

Dig this– an Instagram story showing Jack Antonoff and Michelle Zauner of Japanese Breakfast sparked outrage on January 1st from “stans,” to which I can only respond: Let him cook. Antonoff has been working with your self-professed “favs” for years before he made one lackluster LP with Lorde. Melodrama is great. 1989 is great. Norman Fucking Rockwell, while not for me, is still Lana Del Rey’s best record beyond a shadow of a doubt. Hell, I’ll even go to bat for both Bleachers and fun. Both are great indie pop bands who produced multiple good records with generally slick production that retained indie (analog?) charm in ways Antonoff’s other, poppier work can’t or won’t. The man’s discography is longer and more star-studded than any seething 14-year-old’s Tweet history, so get off his back, capiche?

Mikey Montoni – @dumpsterbassist


Kim Petras ripping off SOPHIE

Earlier this month, Kim Petras posted a Tiktok of her showing Meghan Trainor a clip of her recent song, and many were quick to point out the resemblance between the audio Petras played and the sound textures of the late transgender music icon SOPHIE. It’s appalling when any artist is ripped off without credit, but this feels especially unjust and painful. I already was a Kim Petras hater for her defense of abuser Dr. Luke. And Meghan Trainor’s presence… bewildering, and frankly insulting. Hate hate hate to see it!

elizabeth handgun – @OneFeIISwoop


“Sad Girl” as a Subculture/Identifier/Genre Descriptor

If you listen to an artist whose thematic and sonic palette is as emotionally expansive as that of Mitski or Fiona Apple or any member of boygenius, and all you have to say about their work is “more music for the sad girlies to cry to 😭” you’re not really saying anything. It’s a regressive way to talk about music made by female artists (though the term isn’t entirely gender-exclusive– songwriters like Elliott Smith, Sufjan Stevens, and Alex G are no strangers to the “sad girl starter pack” playlists that have swarmed your Spotify algorithm like a plague of locusts). In reality, “sad” tells us almost nothing about the music itself and only encompasses a tiny fraction of the vast emotional landscapes that these artists create. When you fail to engage with their art fully, you’re disrespecting the work of musicians you claim to care about AND cheating yourself out of a more enriching musical experience. Or, as Mitski herself put it in words far more succinct and less pretentious than mine, “sad girl is OVER!” So get over it. 

Grace Robins-Somerville – @grace_roso


Mosh or be Moshed: Hardcore vs. TikTok

Look, whether you’re on the outside or part of the scene, some elements of hardcore music are supremely stupid. Whether it’s standard pit karate, sitting on the stage mid-set, or literally hurling a TV at other patrons. The discourse of “don’t talk about hardcore if you’ve only been in it for a few years” is ridiculous. I met up with someone at FYA (Fuck Your Attitude, Tampa’s yearly kickoff of hardcore fests) who had only been into hardcore for a year and a half who told me this was his fifth(!) festival experience. So there’s no need to gatekeep. On the other side, if you’re a young internet person looking to comment on every subculture you refuse to research, you’re not helping either. As the new and not-quite-yet overdone Kevin Hart meme goes, take yo sensitive ass back to the B9 boards.

Logan Archer Mounts – @VERTICALCOFFIN


(Sped Up Version)

Hey pop artists? Stop it with the sped-up versions of your songs. I might risk sounding like an old fart, but I just don’t get it. This trend feels like the musical equivalent of those Family Guy Subway Surfer Stimulation TikToks. It feels like rapid consumerism combined with ADHD to bring our collective attention spans down to zero. I know they’re sometimes funny or fitting for a TikTok, but why someone would go out of their way to listen to a Chipmunk version of a pop song is beyond me. More ranting on this here. 

Taylor Grimes – @GeorgeTaylorG


Complaining About Your Favorite Artist Changing Their Sound

In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert writes that “pigeonholing is something people need to do in order to feel that they have set the chaos of existence into some kind of reassuring order.” That’s all to say that I hate when people rip artists for experimenting with different sounds. I was a Fall Out Boy fan before their hiatus and have not connected with them since they reunited, but if someone enjoys whatever genre they’re trying on, kudos to them. Max Bemis of Say Anything was (understandably) all over the place throughout the band’s discography, but his art intrigues me regardless of whether I found it good or bad. Who knows how many times I’ll listen to the latest Fireworks album, but I’m glad that they are releasing music again, and I will listen to whatever they put out at least once just because their music has connected deeply with me already. If people enjoy listening to music so much, why are so many of us pigeonholing the artists that pleasantly surprise us with what they create? Expand your palettes, embrace change.

Joe Wasserman – @a_cuppajoe


Rick Rubin’s Production

When I was 15 years old, my favorite bands were System of a Down, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Weezer. I read Rolling Stone magazine and watched VH1’s I Love the 90s. I didn’t have any sort of high-speed internet, and would mostly use my dial-up connection to browse Wikipedia and read about the bands I loved. With this limited perspective, it was easy to think Rick Rubin was the greatest record producer who ever lived. And ya know, maybe he is the greatest record producer—if you are a 15-year-old boy. In a recent interview with Anderson Cooper on CBS’s 60 Minutes, Rick Rubin stated, “I know nothing about music,”—31-year-old me is inclined to agree.
Russ Finn – @RussFinn


Show Photographers

The most annoying thing that has happened post-COVID lockdown has been an influx of concert "photographers."  These people decided to take up the hobby and, in turn, take up the entirety of the front row and even most of the stage during shows. Now don't get me wrong, I'm glad people are documenting shows and taking pictures and such, however, I am BEGGING all of you to learn how to use your flash appropriately. What really created this level of hatred and anger for me were two shows in particular; Portrayal of Guilt with Graf Orlock at Que Sera in Long Beach, and INFEST at 7CMC in Denver. The INFEST show makes sense, right? Like legends are playing a DIY space, you gotta take some pictures, but when you climb the PAs and take up stage space just so you can get your shots and don't even participate in the show, I feel like there's something lost there. Now the Que Sera show— that one was maddening. They didn't even need to turn the lights on because of the constant flashes from cameras during the entire show. In short, respect the concertgoers’ experience as well, and don't be a fucking tool just because you bought a film camera over the pandemic. 

Chris M – @sngs_abt_grls

"Waiting Room" Has Been Removed From Spotify, and Phoebe Bridgers Fans Are NOT Okay

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“Waiting Room” by Phoebe Bridgers is no longer available on Spotify, and that should worry everyone. The six-and-a-half-minute gut-wrencher wasn’t on any of Phoebe’s core studio albums, EPs, or various side projects but appeared instead on a 2015 compilation put together by Lost Ark Studios. 

Having been released five years prior to Punisher (aka before Phoebe Bridgers became Phoebe Bridgers) and on a relatively obscure comp, “Waiting Room” was a hidden gem in Phoebe’s discography. The track was a diamond in the rough, waiting to reward those willing to dig around for it. Now it’s gone.

We have no idea whether the song is off Spotify because of some random copyright nonsense, a license renewal lapse, or something else entirely. All fans know is that they can’t easily listen to one of their favorite Phoebe tracks. 

If I were to guess, I don’t think Phoebe or her crew even assumed people would notice if this song disappeared. In fact, they might not have even known. The track had over 24 million streams on Spotify but was buried so deep under other, more popular releases they probably didn’t foresee any outcry to this song being yanked off streaming. But outcry there was. 

One of the first warning shots came from “phoebe daily,” a Phoebe Bridgers fan account on Twitter with over 15k followers. On Tuesday, the account tweeted in all lowercase, “‘waiting room’ is no longer on spotify,” with as much pseudo-journalistic authority as a fan account can muster. The tweet quickly garnered thousands of likes and shocked quote tweets.

“This is literally the worst thing that’s ever happened in my life, and I watched my dad die when I was 17,” tweeted one distraught fan. Elsewhere, people used humor to soften the blow. Some users held mock funerals for the song, while others reminded people to be kind to their gay friends and the hot girls in their lives because they would be in mourning. It was collective group therapy at its finest and the kind of reaction that feels hilariously on-brand for Phoebe’s fanbase. People were truly Going Through It. 

As word spread through Twitter, Reddit, and TikTok, one question was being asked consistently: why? Why this song? Why now? Why would Phoebe do this to me? The frustrating thing is we don’t know. 

While some guessed it might be a copyright issue, others noticed that Lost Ark Studios (the recording studio that put together the release) was labeled as “temporarily closed” on Google and reasoned that they might have gone out of business. No money means no more paying to keep your songs up on streaming. 

An optimistic fan hoped that maybe this meant Phoebe was recording a new version of “Waiting Room.” This is a nice theory, especially in the wake of the return of Boygenius, but in the following sentence, the same person also speculated that Phoebe herself doesn’t resonate with that song anymore given how old it is. That’s a common phenomenon that many artists have with their early work, especially those who rise to success as astronomically as Phoebe. In any case, we still are left guessing, and that puts everyone in a similar frustrated position.

Whether or not you count yourself among the ranks of Phoebe fans lamenting the loss of their favorite under-the-radar deep cut, this news is symptomatic of a bigger problem with streaming services. Spotify ain’t free. It isn’t free to use as a listener, it isn’t free to run as a company, and it isn’t free for the bands who upload their music to the service. 

As I’ve written about before, this could all go away at any moment. Spotify could go under tomorrow, and you’d lose everything: your songs, your playlists, and every single artist you follow. The same thing goes for Apple Music, TIDAL, or any other digital-based streaming subscription service. 

Even if the company didn’t go bankrupt (admittedly a far-flung catastrophic scenario), there are other ways you could still lose access to your library. Stop paying for your monthly account? You better have a backup plan. Spotify’s servers go down (as they did earlier this month)? Good luck listening to your music. Violate Spotify’s terms of service? Kiss your profile goodbye. 

My point is there are a million different ways you could lose access to your music library, and for a person like me who spends countless hours/weeks/months of their life building these intricate webs of musical obsession, that’s terrifying. 

This is why seeing “Waiting Room” going away is such a shock; it feels like a violation of our personal music library. Removing the ability to hear a song just flat-out sucks, no matter how you cut it. The second kick in the ass came when Lost Ark also removed the track from their Bandcamp page, essentially eliminating any easy (or legal) way to obtain an MP3 copy of the song. Fuck that. 

Things like this are why I have a safety net. I know sometimes I probably sound like a physical media doomsday prepper, but the whole “Waiting Room” fiasco should act as a reminder to save the things we love. It’s a reminder that preservation is important. It’s not like this song is gone forever, but it sure is gonna be a hell of a lot harder to hear now. And who knows? Maybe “Waiting Room” will be re-uploaded to streaming in a few days, and it will be like none of this ever happened. But maybe it won't.

Even still, I hope this instance inspires at least a few people to start offline music collections. Download a bunch of MP3s to your computer, back them up on a hard drive (or two) and keep them safe. We can only trust artists, labels, and companies to be stewards of their work to a certain point. Sometimes it’s best to assume that if you’re not backing something up, then no one is. 

In the case of “Waiting Room,” Phoebe is a big enough artist that this track will live on through file sharing, Youtube uploads, and live performances until the end of time, but she’s the exception to the rule. All of this could go away at any time and for any reason, so preserve what you love, back it up, share it, and treat it with the reverence that it deserves. Most importantly, as with all art, love and appreciate it while you can.