Fluxblog 364: Maggie Rogers • Wet Leg • Keshi
Plus a playlist of women in '90s alt-rock
This week’s playlist is SEETHERS: WOMEN IN 90s ALT-ROCK, a collection of songs from the golden age of alt-rock, 1992-1997. This one has been requested a lot in the past and I hope you like it! [Spotify | Apple | YouTube]
Covered In Flowers
Maggie Rogers “That’s Where I Am”
The bones and sentiment of “That’s Where I Am” are pure classic VH1 adult contemporary but the arrangement is all blaring distorted bass, huge breakbeat drums, and guitar chords that sound like they’re being played on light switches. I think in its own way it would be bold enough for Maggie Rogers to unashamedly write something along the lines of “Unwritten,” but it’s even more interesting to take that song and push it into this loud, stomping musical territory. She’s basically taking a very inspirational sort of song and reinforcing it with an arrangement that makes it sound like this massive, unstoppable force. It’s a brilliant move for a song she deliberately wrote to convey a triumphant happy ending, and I love that it’s also merging a very femme sound with a very hyper-masculine sound in a way that feels far more natural and complementary than contradictory.
Rogers’ lyrics describe a peaceful feeling on the other side of years of romantic drama. There’s enough plot points here to fill out a pretty solid 90 minute rom-com, and even though the chorus is written from a place of acceptance and perspective, she still sings about the more fraught and confusing moments in way that honors those feelings. The part that really slays me is when she questions how much this guy’s ex knew about their profound connection – “Did she know that we were together somehow? / you never touched me, but I felt you everywhere.” It takes a lot for someone to write a thing like that and sing it in a way that doesn’t sound at all delusional, but she pulls it off.
Buy it from Amazon.
Don’t Wanna Have To Think
Wet Leg “Being In Love”
The magic trick of the Wet Leg roll out is that while the songs on their record were written around the same time, they were fed to us in a sequence that filled in the character of the band and made it look like real-time creative growth. They were introduced as inscrutable and mischievious weirdos with “Chaise Longue,” but as the songs came out the lyrical POV became more apparent – they’re writing songs about being young women who want to have a good time but keep running into all the odd and annoying ways a good time can be spoiled by other people. There’s a raw vulnerability in a lot of their songs that wasn’t apparent on the aloof and opaque “Chaise Longue” but the playfulness of that song carries over to even their most fraught heart-on-sleeve numbers, so it all clicks together nicely.
“Being In Love” hit me as an instant classic the moment I heard them play it at their show at Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn in December. The lyrical conceit is simple but very strong – Rhian Teasdale is singing about a powerful and debilitating anxiety, but deciding that she doesn’t hate the feeling because it strongly resembles the feeling of falling in love. The song, which has an energy halfway between that of Wet Leg forebears Blondie and Elastica, really sells the crush feeling but the lyrics subvert the form by completely removing the romantic element. You could listen to it and make it about a person, but it would be missing the point.
Buy it from Bandcamp.
That’s More My Tempo
Keshi “Limbo”
The first third of “Limbo” is a delicate and meditative sequence in which Keshi sings wordlessly in a gorgeous falsetto over very gentle acoustic guitar and piano. It opens the song in a very placid sort of melancholy before the beat comes in and his vocal switches into a semi-rapped cadence, and he starts laying out exactly why he’s so upset. It’s a little like spotting a guy brooding on his own, and then going up to him like “hey, you want to talk about it?” Keshi really lets it all out here – mostly he’s wrestling with competing feelings of hyper-confidence and self-loathing, and struggling with a drinking problem that he doesn’t seem to have fully treated just yet. The best part of the song is when he switches back to pure singing for a post-chorus hook where he admits “this is all that I am, I only show you the best of me.” But of course, in writing and singing this song he’s allowing himself to show the mess in his life while still holding on to grace and beauty.
Buy it from Amazon.
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• I enjoyed this Barnes & Noble interview with Jennifer Egan, but not nearly as much as I’ve enjoyed The Candy House, her excellent new sequel to A Visit from the Goon Squad. It’s been so nice to be back in the Gooniverse!
• Devon Ivie continues their hot streak of interviews with music veterans with a terrific chat with Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo in Vulture.
• I love Grunge Frasier.
