Fluxblog 307: Indie 03-07 | Sycco • Genesis Owusu • St. Vincent • For Those I Love
Plus... the PARTY ROCK SYMPOSIUM featuring And Introducing!
This week’s episode of Fluxpod is a special event in which I am joined by Molly O’Brien and Chris Wade from And Introducing for a symposium on the topic of PARTY ROCKING. We define the concept of party rocking, explore its aesthetics, consider its origins, and ponder its social and political implications. We talk a lot about LMFAO – the foremost icons of party rocking – and digress into discussions of the “hot couch guy” archetype and the power of “uncle magic.” If you’ve never heard the show before this is a fun one to jump in on – it’s on all the podcast platforms and the Fluxblog Patreon.
This week’s playlist is THE LAWS HAVE CHANGED: INDIE ROCK 2003-2007, covering the phase in which indie went big time in the MP3 era. Or, if you happen to be a Millennial, a playlist you might just call “high school” or “college.” It’s on Apple Music and Spotify.
This collection fills in a hole on a timeline of playlists in which I’ve been sketching out the lineage of post-punk through college rock, indie rock, alt-rock, and nü-indie up through the present day. As it stands right now, these are the playlists in chronological order:
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• After Punk 1980-1983 [Apple / Spotify]
• Radio Free: Early Alternative 1983-1985 [Apple / Spotify]
• What Was College Rock? 1986-1990 [Apple / Spotify]
• What Was Indie Rock? 1991-1995 [Apple / Spotify]
• What Was Alt-Rock? 1991-1996 [Apple / Spotify]
• What Happened to Alt-Rock? 1997-1999 [Apple / Spotify]
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• The Laws Have Changed: Indie Rock 2003-2007 [Apple / Spotify]
• The New Indie 2008-2010 [Apple / Spotify]
You can find other relevant “side quest” playlists covering shoegaze, industrial, NYC 2000-2004, Britpop, and “modular pop” on my Apple and Spotify pages.
Here’s this week’s regular posts…
In Need Of Fluffy Clouds
Sycco “My Ways”
At face value “My Ways” is a bop with hooks that seem to easily fall into each other in sequence like a row of dominos. The arrangement breezy and bright, conveying a general vibe of carefree weightlessness. Sycco’s lyrics tell a different story – mundane actions, constant neuroses and paranoia, a pervasive sense that she’s at war with her own mind and imprisoned by her habits. She tries to calm herself down, she tries to imagine a happy situation, but the mental undertow brings her back to despair. “Want a break from my brain,” she sings in the bridge, “insane, so much I’m feeling!” The irony of the song is that it feels like the “no thoughts, head empty” state she craves, but then again, maybe the song was designed to bring her – and us – into that blissful oblivion.
Buy it from Amazon.
Chip Away My Heart
Genesis Owusu “Gold Chains”
It’s funny how songs in which young artists sing or rap about dealing with mental illness has become so ubiquitous that what once seemed bold and vulnerable now very often seems mundane and cliché. The bar for this to be interesting is higher now, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Genesis Owusu’s lyrics in “Gold Chains,” both sung in a silky tenor and rapped in a rich lower register, mainly speak to his frustration and strain in trying to maintain a steady and centered state of mind. There’s some good details in his writing but it’s all very literal, which makes sense if you’re just trying to unload or directly communicate to the listener. I see the utility of that but I personally find it a lot easier to connect with abstraction, so for me the most resonant part of this song is the odd skronky bits of lead guitar that cut through the arrangement. It’s a deliberately awkward sound that’s like someone trying to play something as melodic and passionate as something Prince would’ve shredded out effortlessly but almost immediately failing. It’s knowing you have something you need to get out of you, but not actually knowing how to get that cathartic release, or at least not the way you’d want it to be. That metaphor hits me a lot harder than anything Owusu says that I might directly relate to – the latter is something you nod to, the former is more of a gut feeling.
Buy it from Amazon.
The Stove Is Only Getting Hotter
St. Vincent “Pay Your Way In Pain”
“Pay Your Way In Pain” is a pastiche of elements traceable to Sly and the Family Stone, Funkadelic, Earth Wind & Fire, and Stevie Wonder, but Annie Clark wisely sidesteps retro vibes by filtering all of it through her established aesthetics and bisecting the track with a harsh synth groove at odds with the warmth associated with most of her reference points here. It might be a little disappointing if you were expecting a full reinvention, or reassuring if you were hoping she wouldn’t abandon her signature sounds. Mostly what I hear is the confidence of an auteur musician who bends her inspirations to suit her own fully-formed identity, and someone who honors genre-transforming figures by emulating their specific aesthetic choices as well as their own will to recreate traditional sounds in their image.
Clark’s vocal on “Pay Your Way In Pain” is outstanding – I hear a lot of Prince’s cadences in the verses, particularly the way he could twist self-pity into a sort of flirtation by inviting you to join in on his debasement. The most thrilling moment here is when she cuts loose with a big, theatrical high vibrato midway through the song, a classic showstopper move that pushes all the instruments out of her way before they all come crashing back in on another chorus. Given the choice, given the heart, given the tool, given the word, given the cheers, Annie Clark has decided to turn us all inside-out.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
We Didn’t Say No 20 Years Ago
For Those I Love “Birthday/The Pain”
“Birthday/The Pain” is built on the ironic contrast of its chill and joyful Balearic beat production and the grim details of its semi-rapped vocals, performed in a gruff Irish accent. It’s not a new idea – this stuff is extremely “RIYL: The Streets” – but it still comes off as fresh as both the production and vocal are gripping and inspired. David Balfe’s lyrics are vivid and brutal, and very Irish in its romanticism and sentimentality. Even when his voice sounds blunt and dead-eyed, there’s no ignoring the big bleeding heart at the center of this track.
Buy it from Amazon.
LINKS LINKS LINKS LINKS
• If you love karaoke – and especially if you have esoteric tastes and can only do it at home these days – I strongly recommend Lemmy Caution’s YouTube channel. It’s a treasure trove of eclectic classics and deep cuts you’d never find in a traditional karaoke system. Best of all, Lemmy takes requests!
• I was revisiting Raygun a bit this week via the Raygun coffee table book that came out in 2019 – that book is mostly visuals, which makes sense as it was a visual magazine to such an extent that it was famously difficult to read the copy. Digging around the internet I found a text transcript of an interesting Pulp feature by Michael Krugman from 1998, which was presented in a screenplay format. It’s pretty good and a reminder that Raygun could be as creative on the writing end as it was with design and photography. (FYI that Raygun coffee table book is currently half-price at Amazon.)