52weeksofmusic

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Week 12: Harry Styles

If I may, Harry Styles could be compared to the ‘00s Justin Timberlake. He began in a boyband, and once the band separated, began a solo career that blossomed. It’s no secret that Harry Styles is a modern household name. His music is accessible to all walks of life, and his personability is noticed by many. As a co-writer for artists such as Michael Buble, Ariana Grande, and Meghan Trainor, Styles’, well... style, is adored by pretty much everyone everywhere. 

Harry Styles jumped almost immediately into the spotlight as a teeny-bopper contestant on British TV show The X Factor, where he was eliminated as a solo contestant then brought back to form the boyband One Direction. As a group their fame skyrocketed throughout the show until they eventually placed third. Shortly after the show ended, the five-piece put out a succession of five immensely successful albums over three short years. They announced an indefinite hiatus in early 2016 and each member began their own successful solo runs. 

Rather than jumping the gun, Styles didn’t release his self-titled debut album until May 2017. From this album came instant hits such as “Sign of the Times” and “Kiwi.” Described widely as BritPop, Harry Styles settled down the ever-electric vibe surrounding chart topping albums by Bruno Mars or Imagine Dragons. His eclectic public presence and ambiguous fashion since his rise to stardom both surprised and enamored his fans and critics alike. The album as a whole sounds best chronologically. With an ethereal, smooth opening sequence and energy building as the minutes pass, soon hard-hitting drums and powerful vocals envelop the listener. Taking great influence from the likes of The Beatles, Pink Floyd, and Fleetwood Mac, Styles shouts to the rooftops with the accompanying swagger surrounding British notariety. 

In December 2019 Styles released his second LP Fine Line. Met with positive reviews, the sophomore album listens more as a compilation of hook-and-chorus hits rather than his previous storytelling tracks. That is, until love and takes over (doesn’t it always?) in mid-album tracks “Cherry” and “Falling,” where Styles yearns for the romance of the international beatnik he used to adore, and who used to adore him. “Don’t you call him baby [...] Don’t you call him what you used to call me.” “You said you cared / and you missed me too / And I‘m well aware I write too many songs about you.” He snaps back to reality with tracks like “To Be So Lonely” and “Canyon Moon,” two bops that raise the spirits of the listener once again. Rather than in Harry Styles, Fine Line starts fast, slows down, then picks it up at the end. 

It’s no surprise that Harry Styles is my celebrity crush. I’ll shout it from the rooftops. Perhaps because we are the same age, or perhaps because he’s mysterious and charming, it ultimately doesn’t matter. I’m not the only one that is enamored by this guy (cue my mom). He is naturally incredibly talented, both in his artistry and in his charisma, and dares to push the limits of music, fashion, sexuality, and acceptance. This is just the beginning for the superstar, and I have a feeling he also understands exactly what he’s gotten himself into.

[52weeksofmusic]

Week 10: Grimes

Canada has produced many famous entities: Alex Trebek, Avril Lavigne, Seth Rogen. It’s the leader in niceties, maple syrup, and freezing winters. Canada has also graced the world with Claire Boucher, famously known as Grimes. The artpop synth queen has broken boundaries and barriers as an eclectic, powerful, nearly omnipotent goddess in the male-centric world of electronic music. She’s won awards for both her music and her artistic endeavors in film, artistry, and production. Grimes is an artist through and through, and her work amazes consumers all over the world (and possibly further).

Born in Vancouver, Canada, Boucher attended McGill University to study neuroscience and Russian language before leaving university in 2011. As a self-taught musician, Boucher began producing her music under the pseudonym “Grimes” on her MySpace page in 2007. It doesn’t get much more 2007 than that. She released her first album Geidi Primes in 2010. The album was a concept album inspired by the Dune book series and later TV series. Later that year she released Halifaxa also under Artbus records. 

Her breakthrough album came with Visions in 2012, shortly after signing with 4AD Records. To make the deadline her record company put on her, Grimes decided to lock herself in her sleepless, speed-driven Montreal apartment for weeks in order to fully immerse herself in the album. “Once you hit day nine, you start accessing some really crazy shit,” Boucher confessed to The Guardian. Though a tortured album, singing of the pain of losing loved ones and abusive relationships, Grimes is often portrayed as a squeamish, giddy, and a classic manic pixie dream girl. Included in the album were breakthrough hits such as “Oblivion,” whose music video shows Boucher, a multi-colored hair, seemingly out of place, spacey twenty-something singing in the crowd of a motocross race, at a high school football game, and in a men’s locker room. 

Following up with such a successful album proved difficult, but Grimes did it again with Art Angels in 2015. With hits ranging from boppy “California” to hard-hitting “Kill v. Maim,” the album received much praise from publications such as NME, Pitchfork, and Stereogum. Pitchfork writer Jessica Hopper describes Art Angels as, “evidence of Boucher's labor and an articulation of a pop vision that is incontrovertibly hers... an epic holiday buffet of tendentious feminist fuck-off, with second helpings for anonymous commenters and music industry blood-suckers.” In 2016 Grimes collaborated with best friend and fellow artist Hana to produce “The Ac!d Rain Chronicles,” a seven-part music video collaboration shot over their two-week European tour, which included “Butterfly”, “World Princess Part II”, “Belly of the Beat” and “Scream”. 

Her most recent release is titled Miss Anthropocene, a suffocatingly rave-pop album that immediately transports the listener to a smoky, stuffy, dimly lit warehouse rave. On drugs, this album is amazing. It’s smooth yet abrasive, captivating yet disengaging, and overall quite confusing. Grimes leaves your brain in shambles, with acoustic tracks like “Delete Forever” immediately following heavy-hitting “Darkseid.” To a mere bystander, Miss Anthropocene is bewildering, curt, and leaves the listener feeling… uneasy.

It’s simple to brand Grimes as just that: uneasy. But listen harder. Listen for longer. She’s shouting out her emotions and her anxieties. She has opened up her brain for anyone who is willing to dive in. Though she’s not easily accessible to the genpop, Grimes has proven herself time and time again that, even drowning in masculinity, the electronic music scene provides infinite room to grow, produce, create, and imagine. A small, colored-fringe, ex-goth from Canada shouts out her beliefs, and if you listen hard enough, you’ll see that she’s providing more than we ever would have thought.

[52weeksofmusic]

Week 9: Lana Del Rey

“But I’m just a soul whose intentions are good, oh Lord please don’t let me be misunderstood.” Ethereal pop sensation Lana Del Rey (born Elizabeth Grant) found her voice in her church’s youth choir in upstate New York. She was enrolled in a private boarding school during high school after a bout of teenage alcoholism. She hasn’t had a drink since. After graduating high school she decided to move to Long Island to stay with her aunt and uncle, where she learned the guitar and began performing under various aliases. During this time she developed her unique performance style and preoccupation with mortality. She was quickly signed to 5 Point Records, but terminated the contract early after “nothing was happening.” Her breakthrough came with the music video for her hit “Video Game” which currently has over 220 million streams on YouTube. After releasing the music video she eventually signed to Interscope and Polydor Records, where she still resides. 

In January 2012 Lana Del Rey released her debut album Born To Die, with singles such as “Summertime Sadness” and “Blue Jeans.” It was met with mild criticism, but Del Rey brushed it off and quickly released Paradise in November of the same year. Both albums were chart-topping hits and received multiple award nominations, including MTV Music Awards “best alternative performer” and “best pop vocal album” at the Grammys. After over a year of touring, the short film Tropico began filming, symbolizing an end to this particular chapter of Del Rey’s career. 

Ultraviolence was released in June 2014 with production help from the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach. Most likely because of Auerbach’s help, the album proved more guitar-heavy and verging on a desert rock style compared to her two last releases. Del Rey’s dark, dreamy vocals and lyrics remained the same. During her Endless Summer Tour, Del Rey released her first single from her upcoming album of the same title. Honeymoon was released in September 2015 to widespread acclaim. Pitchfork Magazine described it as “dark” but her “most artistic” work yet. 

Her fifth studio album Lust For Life featured many guests, such as A$AP Rocky and Stevie Nicks. It’s the first album she’s released that features other artists. Norman Fucking Rockwell!, Del Rey’s most recent work has been described as her best work yet, with NME giving it five out of five stars. Cryptic yet honest lyrics set this album apart from her previous works, talking about lovers and the uniformity of current existence. “Why wait for the best when I can have you?”

As a monumental pop artist of the 2010s, Lana Del Rey gained her unconventional popularity in a sea of sameness. Her dark and gothic yet sincere and gentle aura mystifies people. She’s never pretended to be a pop star or a tabloid queen. “I have been taking my music to labels for years, and everyone just thought it was creepy. They thought the images with the music were weird and verging on psychotic. And then, one day, it's like people decided it wasn’t actually too strange, it was actually too perfect.” Looking into Lana’s eyes, even on her album covers, can switch from flirtation to a devious knowingness in a matter of milliseconds. She is an enigma that is breaking barriers in the pop music scene with her cult-like following and swaths of avid listeners.

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Week 8: Sleater-Kinney

Sleater-Kinney are as old as I am. And just like me, they have grown to become some of the most prominent female punks of the past 30 years. The trio (Corin Tucker, Carrie Brownstein, and Janet Weiss) have written and performed a number of timeless hits including “Modern Girl” and “Dig Me Out” over the course of 26 years across the entire world. They have lived, loved, and changed the punk music scene. Fans who listen wholeheartedly believe that they are the only ones being sung to, or about. Sleater-Kinney and the riot grrrl movement of the Pacific Northwest optimized the power of the woman and broke the compass of previously assumed feminist ideals.

Forming in Olympia, Washington in 1994, Brownstein and Tucker met and started dating during their time at The Evergreen State College. They were each part of their own riot grrrl-era bands, Excuse 17 and Heavens To Betsy, respectively. Performing with each other on the side, the two eventually devoted their entire brain space to Sleater-Kinney once their other bands fizzled out. As they were on vacation in Australia, they wrote and recorded what would become their first full-length, self-titled album in 1994. This 22-minute, ten-track LP was met with critical reviews, particularly for their monotone choruses and generic punk angst. 

Once drummer Janet Weiss joined the band in 1997, their career flourished as the riot grrrl movement came to a close. Sleater-Kinney produced albums such as Dig Me Out (1997) and All Hands On The Bad One (2000), sliding slowly into a more attainable and mainstream sound. That being said, Tucker’s vocals maintained their harsh sound throughout their entire career. Since the band was lacking a bassist, Tucker and Brownstein tuned both of their guitars one and a half-steps down (D-flat tuning) to make up for their bassless recordings and to match Tucker’s alternative vocal style. 

In 2006, shortly after the release of The Woods, the band announced they would be taking an indefinite hiatus with no warning and no reasoning behind it. Fans had various speculations, but most assumed it was due to complicated logistics and personal reasons such as families and children. 2015 came a chapter though, and the band announced they would release a new album titled No Cities To Love and tour north America and western Europe. Utilizing poppier riffs and a few fresh brains, the trio managed to create a higher-quality but inherently punk album in the age of Fetty Wap and Mark Ronson. Janet Weiss decided to leave Sleater-Kinney in July 2019, citing different directions. “We were a force of nature,” Weiss wrote in her farewell post on the band’s Twitter. 

The riot grrrl movement inspired girls, women, men, and everyone in between. The glass ceilings that were destroyed during the 1990s provided music people could agree with, fight over, or dance along with. Sleater-Kinney gave their fans an excuse to be a feminist with a 100-watt smile. They proved daring and complicated and loud, in a world where we are told to quiet down. These girls are my heroes, and though they may not be performing to only me, it feels like they are, but simultaneously I’m surrounded by everyone I love. They gave me a reason to smile for what I’ve fought for and what I’ve won.

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Week 7: Cigarettes After Sex

Grab your blankets, your lover, and hopefully a condom, because this week’s highlight is Cigarettes After Sex. This smooth, sultry, comforting quartet romanticizes… well, romance. Love, affection, sex, heartbreak, and everything in between. The band’s frontman and creator Greg Gonzalez uses his androgynous vocals and his band’s sleepy, softcore sound to win over woeful teenagers and sadbois alike. Originating in El Paso, Texas, Cigarettes After Sex has attained a cult-like following through their distinct sound and lyrics glorifying the ethereal moment we all yearn for (you know what I’m talking about).

First releasing an EP titled  I., the band gained popularity with their breakout single “Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby”. The protectiveness and subtle deviance behind his lyrics go nearly unnoticed because of the smooth slowness of the melody. “Whispered something in your ear / It was a perverted thing to say / But I said it anyway / Made you smile and look away.” From here the band released their first full-length, self-titled album with singles such as “Apocalypse” and “K.” Just last year they released their sophomore LP, titled Cry. Their monochromatic album covers coordinate perfectly with their seductive, suave, verging on predatory lyrics.

Because of his enigmatic but aggressive tendencies, many publications have smeared Gonzalez’s artistry for being outdated, racy, and hypersexual. Especially because his music’s main demographic is female teenagers. As you may have been able to tell, I had a very difficult time listening to Cigarettes After Sex without thinking of how they normalize such communications between men and women. The calmness and comfort I felt from the melody quickly deteriorated as I listened to the lyrics more closely. Sure, smoking a cigarette after sex with your lover, half-clad in a wrinkled bedsheet is what the media says is romance, but if one of the parties is coerced with ill intention, the glamour disappears and the aggressor is nothing but a conniving weirdo. Don’t believe everything you hear or see, because the days of insistence are over and consent is the sexiest thing two lovers can provide for each other. 

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Week 6: Turnover

Evolving from your run-of-the-mill pop-punk band to a multifaceted collective, Turnover has and continues to defy all expectations with their sound. Hailing from suburban Virginia Beach, Virginia, the group consists of brothers Austin and Casey Getz and childhood friend Danny Dempsey on bass as permanent members, while guitarists rotate with frequency. Turnover has spanned from pop-punk to emo to smooth beach jazz in their four full-length albums. Shooting to the Billboard charts with their sophomore release Peripheral Vision, the boys found a musical identity they were good at. Their most recent release, Altogether, has been met with mixed criticism, most likely due to the stark change in sound and appearance. 

First creating Magnolia in 2013, a hard-hitting pop-punk album with lyrics yearning for the romanticized vision of love, life, and friendships, the four-piece proved rhythmically talented with rolling snares and frequent guitar solos.  Compared to their previously released EPs, this album proved less whiny and infinitely more put together. With tracks like “Most Of The Time” and “Bloom,” Getz proved his refined vocals as the album provided variation in sound and rhythm. Magnolia cried out for help, in search of an identity the band would soon find.

Just a few years later, Turnover would spike in popularity with their breakthrough album Peripheral Vision. Growing from their pop-punk phase, the band’s sound matured and slowed down tremendously. They adopted a smooth dream-pop sound with songs like “Humming” and “New Scream,” where extended reverb and lyrics pushed emotional accessibility (“I don’t wanna wake up ‘til the sun is hanging low/ stay up through the night/ sleep away the light/ just another dream I have that’s better than my life”). Bursting through to no. 19 on Billboard’s Alternative Albums chart, Peripheral Vision proved that an identity change and excessive pedal usage occasionally proves successful. They brought emo to the foreground of alternative music once again and gave teens and adults alike a new love for sadness.

Good Nature, their third full-length, piggybacked off of their newfound success. Providing the same smooth and dreamy sound but with arguably more thought and production quality, hits like “Super Natural” transported listeners to the forest, swimming amongst wildlife next to a waterfall with a lover. Their long-time producer Will Yip helped create this album, as well as all other albums prior.

Just this last year, Turnover announced their latest album Altogether, which has been met with criticism over yet another identity crisis after Austin Getz decided to make a cross-country move to the forests of California. Pitchfork describes it as an, “[Evisceration of] any indication of their “emo-ish punk rock” roots, instead opting for a lackadaisical, stoned regurgitation of ‘80s new wave”. They have stayed loyal to their record label, Run For Cover, and their producer Will Yip, but not true to the identity they created for themselves with Peripheral Vision or Good Nature. Its lo-fi and jazzy sound deserves to be played on the fog-lined beaches of Humboldt County from the open window of your forest green Toyota Tacoma pickup. 

Though their tempo has changed dramatically yet again, the romance of Turnover remains unscathed. Listen with your lover under the stars, or by yourself in bed, or even hear it in the background at a coffee shop. They’ve provided nearly everything their listeners have ever wanted, whether we knew we needed it or not. It’s all come at the right time, in the right places, and with the right people. At least for me.

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Week 5: The Beatles

Dubbed the most influential band in the world by multiple publications, The Beatles are a household name that outranks even bands like The Rolling Stones or Fleetwood Mac. Consisting of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, the quartet changed the way the world listened, interacted, and treated music in the age of counterculture, fashion, change, and progress. Through a tumultuous social era, The Beatles proved eye-opening and life-changing to many fans and critics alike.

Originating in Liverpool, England in 1959, it wasn’t until 1963 that the four-piece released their first album, Please Please Me from a single day’s work at Abbey Road Studios. Despite major popularity, the band maintained an irreverent media personality, which was unprecedented at the new age of pop music in Britain. This very quickly began what was known as “Beatlemania,” with fans and reporters alike waiting for hours just to catch a glimpse of the young men. After management legalities, the band had no intention to spread their music to the United States. That is until a bootleg copy of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was played on radio station WWDC by DJ Carroll James, and subsequently was spread all across the nation. Quickly after this Capitol Records released Meet The Beatles! in January 1964. They performed on the Ed Sullivan show to over 73 million viewers (34% of the American Population), and thus the British Invasion began in the United States. 

The band’s social awareness began in 1964, shortly after meeting Bob Dylan and cannabis. Before a Jacksonville, Florida show, the young men were notified it would be a segregated show. They refused to play until it was an integrated show. With every concert contract after this, the band included a clause requiring integration at any live performance. Not a year after these performance changes, Lennon and Harrison were drugged with LSD by their dentist, which we all know, changed the entire direction of the band. Lennon explains his experience, “It was just terrifying, but it was fantastic. I was pretty stunned for a month or two.” These eye-opening experiences for the artists proved influential in their societal roles, fashion, and music. 

Despite The Beatle’s worldwide success and popularity, the band decided that their 1966 tour would be their last. The audio technology and equipment available at the time simply wasn’t powerful enough to be heard over thousands of screaming fans in giant venues across the world. This end to touring though provided a huge opportunity for the band to spend extensive hours in the studio to create cohesive and beautiful albums such as Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart’s Club Band, Rubber Soul, and Magical Mystery Tour. 

The Beatles, informally known as The White Album, was the beginning of the end for the quartet. Through hundreds of tense hours in the studio, the men began to resent each other. Most notably, Lennon’s preoccupation with Yoko Ono proved burdensome due to her attending studio sessions despite the age-old rule that partners may not, under any circumstances, join. Many fans later would blame Ono for the breakup of the band. Their last album, Let It Be, was released in May 1970, and was the band’s only album that received poor reviews despite a handful of classic singles.

The Beatles have proved profoundly important to culture as it is today. Words cannot express how significant the band was and continues to be, for people all around the world. Their beginnings, their career, and their demise created an outline that many musicians would follow. They created rock music as we know it. They changed the world with their music. They changed lives, including mine. We can do nothing but thank the men for what they gave to history, and never forget their names or their music.

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Week 4: PUP

Hailing from Toronto, Ontario, PUP combines the energy of hardcore with the empathy of pop punk to create easy singalong vibes and one of my favorite bands of all time. Knowing each other throughout their childhoods and early adulthood, the four-piece never played in a band together or even spoke to each other. That is until lead singer Stefan Babcock enlisted bassist Nestor Chumak to help record a song he created for a college project. From there the duo combined with guitarist Steve Sladkowski and drummer Zack Mykula to create Topanga, a punk rock band that performed in small settings until their demo attracted the attention of producer Dave Schiffman (Anti-Flag, Weezer, Rage Against the Machine). Before the release of their first studio album, the band decided to change their name to PUP, an acronym for “Pathetic Use of Potential,” a quote from Babcock’s grandmother. 

PUP released their self-titled freshman album in April 2014 under OneSideDummy Records. Met with critical success, the band spent the next two years touring and promoting their album, iconically with the Zolas, at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, and at Reading and Leeds Festival in England. Most Notably, the band toured with Modern Baseball on their winter 2015 US tour. 

In May 2016 the band released their second studio album The Dream is Over, which includes singles such as “DVP” and their music video “Sleep In The Heat,” known for starring Stranger Things actor Finn Wolfard. The album was titled after the news from a doctor about Babcock’s strained vocal cords. The phrase seemed appropriate as a title for their sophomore LP, which spends 30 minutes singing about growing up and the realization that adulthood isn’t as idyllic as your childhood portrays it as. Though the title sounds somber, the album itself sings of the best things to come of life and to be appreciative of all of the luck in the world.

Their third LP, titled Morbid Stuff, was promoted with help from the bands’ diy roots in the form of zines. Inside the zines were copies of their single “Kids” along with photos, diary entries, and comics depicting the journey of recording the album. Though the songs may sound sad and empathetic, the album is everything but. Rather than attempting to fix the anxieties and worries of everyday life, or even from the world at large, Babcock strongly promotes his love and affection. “I don’t care about nothing/ I don’t care about nothing but you.” The juxtaposition PUP attempts to make is a difficult one, with an acceptance of anger and furiosity while also glorifying unhealthy coping habits. “Well have you been drinking?/ Well of course I have!” They provide a safe space for their listeners while also showing that being anxious, depressed, sad, or angry “doesn’t make you special at all”.

Coming into my life at a crucial time, PUP showed me that I’m allowed to be angry and sad, but also aggressively thankful and appreciative of everything I have. Moving by myself across the world proved incredibly difficult and at times I thought it was the wrong move, but PUP almost always pulled me out of my pity party and made me realize that I live in one of the most beautiful cities in the entire world and that I will always be thankful of it. Sure, sadness is an inevitability, but my life is great, and “It’s pretty good to feel something”.

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Week 3: Fleetwood Mac

When the name Fleetwood Mac comes up in conversation, most people immediately associate the brand name with Stevie Nicks, “The Chain,” Rumours, etc. Though these are all pivotal moments in the band’s career, they are not everything they have to offer. Organizing originally in 1967 in London, England, Peter Green and Mick Fleetwood coordinated with a handful of guitarists and bassists until Danny Kirwan and John McVie finally decided to become permanent members. Soon after, their first self-titled studio-length album hit the shelves as a no-nonsense blues album. The band continued as such for many years and through many successful tours as a top-grossing blues group.

In 1974, the band was introduced to Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks in a Los Angeles Studio. The addition of a female vocalist and frontwoman provided the band with new energy and a heartier pop influence. Rumours was released in the United States in 1977 and proved immensely successful with 4 singles and a slot in the top American music charts for 31 straight weeks. Though the album itself is beautifully cohesive and memorable, the band went through romantic turmoil during the recording process, coming to a head and eventually being a major factor in the departure of Buckingham from the band nearly a decade later in 1987.

After a few more LP releases in the 1990s and early 2000s, Fleetwood Mac continues to tour to this day, and remains a household name. The death of Danny Kirwan in 2018 from pneumonia sparked sympathy from bands and fans everywhere. As an ode to the icon, Fleetwood Mac included Kirwan’s song “Tell Me All The Things You Do” from Kiln House (1970) in their 2018-19 tour “An Evening With Fleetwood Mac.” 

Though Stevie Nicks focuses mainly on her solo career nowadays, she is still a participating member of Fleetwood Mac. In 2019 she became the first female artist to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, once as Fleetwood Mac and once as a solo artist. She has also performed on television in shows such as American Horror Story and The Voice. Nicks has created a name for herself, and with complete validity and support from her fans.

To be honest, it was quite difficult for me to get into Fleetwood Mac as a listener. Not only was I distracted this week personally, but I also found it quite difficult to bob my head to their tunes. Whether I was listening to the top singles or some of their less popular songs, I couldn’t find the enjoyment in listening as effortlessly as I wished I could. Some artists flow through your brain with ease and unfortunately, Fleetwood Mac wasn’t one of them. Not to say their influence on modern music isn’t apparent and of the utmost importance! Perhaps at a different time and place, I will finally feel what it is that everyone else feels when listening to such an important band.

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Week 2: The Growlers

The Growlers are one of the most classic modern surf rock bands of our generation. With eight full-length albums and a number of EPs, they have been making music since their conception in 2009 in Dana Point, California. Lead singer Brooks Nielsen and guitarist Matt Taylor first met in high school in Dana Point and quickly bonded over surfing, skateboarding, and classic southern California shenanigans. After asking to perform at a friend’s house party, the duo managed to scrape together a six-song set to perform and then never slowed down. Since handing out a succession of hand-made mix CDs and cassettes to friends, the band released their first full-length LP Are You In or Out?, with 18 tracks, under Everloving Records in 2009. 

As a classic southern California surf rock band, the instrumentals are kept rather basic with a simple guitar-bass-drumset combination and unique vocals to accompany them. Brooks Nielsen’s gristly and sometimes monotone voice combined with a 4/4 tempo band may occasionally sound repetitive and lack a certain diversity, but that doesn’t mean the music itself is boring. Lyrically, the band has come a very long way since their first album. From “drip drop dripped, I’m on an acid rain trip” to more complex (yet still quite surface-level) interactions, The Growlers have grown immensely as a band. On their hit song “Going Gets Tuff” from Chinese Fountain (2014), Nielsen laments of everyday worries of the everyday person. But not to worry, because “Still always remembering... when the going gets tuff… that the labor of our love… will reward us soon enough.”

The band has used its popularity to create a southern California music festival called Beach Goth. The first Beach Goth was in 2012 and had performances by bands such as Tijuana Panthers, Cosmonauts, and The Abigails. Since then the festival has hosted a number of bands, genres, costume contests, and activities at a number of locations, such as The Observatory, Oak Canyon Park, and Los Angeles State Park. 

As an attendee of Beach Goth 2016, I can personally amount to the success of this once small-town lo-fi rock band. Swaths of teenage hipsters with their transparent backpacks and sugar-skull facepaint swarmed Oak Canyon Park despite torrential rains and resultant street flooding. Plastic poncho-bearing fans lept over creeks that formed in front of the stage, and The Growlers had to postpone their night one performance due to equipment damage. Though strenuous, the festival was deemed a success and (from my perspective) everyone involved had a wonderous time relishing in the imperfect, muddy conditions.

Though The Growlers are not a band who forces listeners to dig into their brains for hidden analogies, their importance is nonetheless apparent. Nielsen’s unique vocals and the unapologetically surfy sounds give off the classic lackadaisical vibes of southern California. Whether they’re played on the way to the beach or in between college classes, The Growlers ease the monotony of everyday normalcy and release tension from shoulders everywhere. Keep doing exactly what you’re doing, boys, it’s sounding great.

[52weeksofmusic]

Week 1: The Rolling Stones

With 30 studio albums spanning from the mid-1960s until the present day, one can unabashedly assume that The Rolling Stones are the most important, influential blues-rock bands of our time. Their insurmountable popularity throughout their entire career has proven time and time again that they are a household name. The band has seen musicians come and go, but the core base, and arguably the faces of the band, continue to be guitarist Keith Richards and singer Mick Jagger. With some of the most iconic songs, album covers, and live recordings in music history, The Rolling Stones have aged like a fine wine and will continue to be relevant (hopefully) for the rest of time.

The band was conceived in 1962, with a UK tour quickly following. During this tour, the band gained immediate success with their Chicago blues style of music, previously unexplored in the UK. The use of slide guitar was uncommon at the time, which was another factor separating them from their counterpart in the British Invasion, The Beatles. With a whirlwind of popularity and production between 1962 and 1980, the band released an album nearly every year. Except for a brief experimentation with psychedelic rock in the mid-1960s (what band didn’t at the time?), the band has maintained a very steady relationship with their rhythm-and-blues roots. 

Releasing singles such as “Play with Fire,” “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” and “Paint It Black,” the Stones produces some of their most timeless hits at the beginning of their career. The 1980s brought forth a few underwhelming albums and few tours. That is until the release of Steel Wheels in 1989 and it’s accompanying stadium tour which lasted into the 1990s. Since then, new music has come less frequently, but this didn’t stop them from existing in their never-ending whirlwind of fame.

The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989 and has been named endlessly in “top 100 bands of all time” lists by various publications. Along with these accomplishments, The Rolling Stones have won dozens of awards for diverse achievements from various notable organizations, including NME, Billboard, the Grammys, and ECHO.  They still choose to go on tours today, just finishing their No Filter Tour in 2019. 

The Rolling Stones, unlike many other bands, have lasted for so long because of their secure and unwavering blues-rock style of music. Pop artists gain and lose popularity quickly, while rhythm and blues endure through any era, any generation, or any listener. Jagger and Richards have provided a service with their art, and deserve the fame and fortune for how many joyous memories they’ve created and enhanced. Though their popularity is not as prominent in the modern generations, they are still played on the radio, in living rooms, and at events with millions still listening religiously. They are a household name, a logo on a T-shirt, and a karaoke classic, and we all hope they will stay that way.

[52weeksofmusic]

Week 1: The Rolling Stones

I can’t lie, I’ve never habitually listened to The Rolling Stones, despite the fact that they are one of the most influential rock bands of all time. They are the band on the T-shirts that are sold at H&M or Zara, yet I can assume many people from my generation have never given them a chance. I’m excited about this first choice!