Tegan + Sara -- s/d

but they have really shitty attitudes

Where does this come from? They didn't seem *that* annoying on the So Jealous documentary.

I LIKE HOW ALL THEIR SONGS ARE ABOUT WHAT FUCKUPS THEY ARE W GIRLS

the last album (the con) is like fucking aural crack, it's all I've probably listened to it 100 times in the past month (it helps that it's really short and I've been working around the clock). I'm sure it's have a really horrible effect on me, it remains to be seen what that will be.

wow that sentence was incomprehensible. sorry i've had 3 hours of sleep in two days

For about two weeks when Walking With A Ghost came out, I thought that it was Ween making fun of someone I couldn't identify.

4 T&S threads but this one mentions 'The Con', which I quite like

ONLY this one

i listen to that album all the time. someone else somewhere on ILX said they listen to them way more than is healthy and I am probably in this same demographic. I certainly think of that quote every time I listen to them (which, lately, is every time I'm in the car).

I picked up "If It Was You" a couple years ago (from the dollar bin), and it kind of sat there for a long time. Recently I got stuck in a CD-only situation for quite awhile, and now I'm addicted to this CD.

I still want them to go back and de-compress "So Jealous" thereby undoing the only flaw in an otherwise amazing album.

Anyway...new album "Sainthood" is out, and man they're getting awfully consistantly good, to the point where it's easy to overlook them. My favorite thing at the moment is "The Cure" which makes me think that someone's been listening to "Oh Your City Lies In Dust." Pretty amazing production on this one as well...sometimes I'd swear that Eno (like AGW Eno) was behind some of the textures.

love the new one, yeah

... even if they're just Dancing in the Dark

this is great! they are a great band. there's almost a pretenders or, uh, pat benatar feel to some of them (good thing).

i don't have the album in front of me; the ones that really impress me are the slow-burn, low-slung repetitive ones. the pop-punk songs i like a lot less.

the song they are playing a lot on the current is pretty dope

i'm with you guys - it didn't grab me immediately, but on second and third listen i think it's a terrific batch of tunes. they don't sound anything like sleater-kinney, of course, but sometimes some of the vocals put me in the mind of The Girl Banned

i think the new single is terrific and lol the production/instrumentation reminds me of perfume

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7MNGPmrlW0

Newer new track "I Was a Fool" would feel at home on a Fleetwood Mac album with different production and Stevie and/or Christine singing. http://soundcloud.com/teganandsara/i-was-a-fool/s-h5FKe

It's great! Copying my comment on the Pop thread:

Never cared much for Tegan and Sara, but The Line Of Best Fit's plug of the new single, deeming it "an epic Taylor Swift covering Kate Bush pop ballad", worked like a charm for me (even if I don't agree with the KB-part of that statement). Lovely song:

http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/new-music/blog/listen-tegan-and-sara-i-was-a-fool-116066

The sound reminds me of the Young Galaxy production from Lissvik (who are also coming with a new albums soon!)

another new one: http://stereogum.com/1237151/tegan-sara-now-im-all-messed-up-stereogum-premiere/mp3s/

devastating imo

ruining the song i posted tbh

Loving this Heartthrob album to bits.

album of the year so far (i know) (but)

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/tegan-and-sara-continue-pop-evolution-on-heartthrob-album-premiere-20130124

album of the year so far (i know) (but)

I feel comfortable in co-signing this opinion.

boy "Closer" is a textbook great album opener innit

This album is fucking incredible. Ten hit songs, no exception, sprawling production and a themed break-up album no less. Mind = blown.

I think....I agree.

"I never walked the party line/Doesn't mean that I was never afraid"

devastating lyric after devastating lyric on this thing

yup

can't even really listen to it this month tbh maybe next month

no wait i've listened to it six times in two days

More acts need to realize that with music this dense and sugar-packed abjuring metaphors for declarative sentences is the way to go.

is anything else they've ever done on this level? Never listened to em before and kinda love this, just a really tight pop record.

so jealous is good but v. v. different

sainthood is closer to this, but like.

they were lesbian indie folk power pop for a v. long time, kind of lilith fair.

then they were produced by the death cab guy for two albums and were poppier but not as shimmery as this. sainthood is p. decent.

they've always had hooks but kurstin is putting the hooks front and centre and keeping the interesting nooks and crannies of their voices while smoothing down the most abrasive bits and it works REALLY well.

lol this is a huge shameless sellout of an album, awesome

every album is different and better than the previous

I'm already infatuated with this album the way I've been infatuated with albums from the past several years that I still listen to frequently. In other words, a keeper.

I'm already anticipating nights dancing to this

also, the two bonus tracks are pretty great.

they were on the low quality leak but not on the new 320 kbps one i guess?

so crazy about the "stay / please stay" backup vocals intertwined w the giant "GO IF YOU WANT / I CAN'T STOP YOU" at the end of "now i'm all messed up" (not to mention I'M SICK AND TIRED WONDERING WHERE / WHERE YOU'RE LEAVING YOUR MAKEUP ... / I'M SICK AND TIRED WONDERING WHO / WHOSE LIFE YOU'RE MAKING WORTHWHILE twinkle twinkle glow buzz boom)

^^^ the backup vocals are GREAT

also love how matter of fact leaving yr makeup is and how much it still feels like a normal pop song?

i.e. obviously their queerness was/is a big deal for me, but i was singing along to the song for ages before my brain went DUH MAKEUP = LADIES = LADIES SINGING COMPLEX EMOTIONAL SEX RELATIONSHIP SONGS TO LADIES

and i kind of dig that?

like it just /is/

Yeah, it's refreshing. I usually don't pay attention to lyrics—ambiguous or otherwise—but that stuck out and made me smile.

album on repeat 4ever maybe

Surprised everybody is so excited about this one. The production and polish flatters them, but after a few listens, the songs aren't really sticking for me. Most likely I just miss the drama.

love the really specific perspective of "i was a fool," someone proud of themselves for having given as much of themselves as possible to something broken

i think "love they say" is the only song i can't totally stan for, the melody's kind of limited

otherwise i think these are their stickiest songs.

This is really good. I think it's key that the pair has had so much experience as writers and performers. Some shy indie waif vocalist newcomer wouldn't sell these hooks the way they deserve to be sold.

what i heard of this this morning on my way to work was so gorgeously amazingly 80s. bonnie tyler ahoy!

i hope they are wearing white pant suits in all their videos for this era

also i guess "closer" is an older song but the vocal tics on it really remind me a lot of haim's "don't save me"

otherwise the closest comparison i can think for this record is the carly rae jepsen one, honestly

i was just having a fight w someone yesterday about whether or not this was better than the carly rae jepsen album (yes) (way)

new album so good

don't know if I like it as much as so jealous or sainthood but I'll give it a little mroe time. the hooks on sainthood seemed more immediate and the songs on so jealous were catchier too, to me.

shit I'm gonna have to get this one huh

You're in luck! It came out today.

I totally get why the new one is big, and I also see why the So Jealous>>>Sainthood trio gets a lot of attention as the build-up. Anyway, have to say that I went back to "If It Was You" and it's still a seriously strong album. I don't remember exactly why I first checked it out, but I do remember being struck by this track. I don't know that it'll necessarily appeal to fans of the new one, but T&S have been really strong for a very long time. Feel like (like Bowie) they're awfully good at adapting to varying production styles without losing their center. The electric guitar on this is very much "someone's been listening to the rockier stuff on Another Green World" which I wasn't expecting from a band that was billed as Lilith Fair at the time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQPiXUW8LRk

I don't remember exactly why I first checked it out

This was the first one I heard, and I'll tell you why I checked it out: hot twins on the cover. Didn't know about their sexuality until later, but that cover was some fantastic window dressing.

if it was you definitely has some strong stuff on there. living room is the obvious choice, but i always liked underwater the most.

and the new album is really wonderful.

You know, for a band I've only casually followed, I have a pretty clear (and positive) recollection of the first time I saw them. It was opening for Rufus Wainwright after his first album came out, which would have been back in ... 98? 99? Something like that. I don't know if their first album had come out, but since I remember knowing they had signed to Neil Young's label Vapor, maybe it was a little later. Anyway, I can't recall if it was just the two of them or if they had a band (I think it was the former), but I remember them being really good, and really funny.

After two times through, I like the new one a lot. So far maybe 6 of the 10 tracks have really stuck with me, but the others sound good too. One thing I've never bothered to look up: Is one or the other of them more the main singer and/or songwriter?

I totally get why the new one is big, and I also see why the So Jealous>>>Sainthood trio gets a lot of attention as the build-up

i've only listened to it once, and I did enjoy it more as it went on, but i'm a little skeptical of the idea that So Jealous thru Sainthood is the "build-up" to this album, because it felt a lot less unique than the previous trio. It's cool they're trying to open up their sound, but there's already a robyn, a chairlift, a katy perry. while i'm guessing the songs will hook in further and offer rewards, i did miss the more claustrophobic qualities of their music.

think those are still there but it's mostly in their vocal melodies

In case anyone missed it, good RS interview from last month:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/q-a-tegan-and-sara-on-sibling-rivalry-leaving-the-indie-world-behind-20130111

this shitty album made me actually draw up a list of People To Remember Not To Trust When They Hype Music

uh oh, long list I guess

lollllllllllllllllll

fucking lex stop coming in threads just to say how something sucks. i love but that shit is so lame

i love you*

i don't intend to go on about it but people go into threads to react to new music both +vely and -vely all the time here, and always have done

also you all made me waste 40 mins of my life so you can deal with one negative post in this thread

hehe

What if you interviewed them and they told you what a good interviewer you were?

;)

I took about a week off from listening to this and then came back to it last night and found it was even better than before.

I took about a week off from listening to this and then came back to it last night and found it was even better than before.

yep

lex do you hate their voices or something bc like someone else said upthread the appeal of this record is v similar to the crj record imo

not especially i just thought it was horribly produced (like...too little space everywhere), the melodies were disgustingly perky and twee (if CRJ is also guilty of this at times she at least has some lightness of touch to balance it out) and the lack of variation was wearing, it was just this awful solid lump of stale bread

tbh neither of them (both? dunno who sings, don't care) have the slightest bit of character in their voice so it's kinda hard to even remember what they sounded like

also i can't disagree more that this has any resemblance to CRJ, or at least CRJ did not once cross my mind while enduring it

can't really get with any of those impressions except for the lack of space (which i like actually, the crowdedness of it, like a mind populated with anxious thoughts but less chaotic, arranged into this brightened, icy narrative). their voices are pretty weird imo. i don't find the melodies particularly twee and the sad and worried lyrical content allows for a vertiginous effect anyway.

but i still totally get where you're coming from. i just honestly thought you might dig this record a little. ah well.

also idk i feel a lot of space in stuff like "shock to your system" but maybe that's just an impression of the song's structure that has nothing to do with the actual effect of the production and mastering.

lex, i don't care about you not liking albums. it's more the blithe dismissal of all of our taste in all kinds of music ever, as though none of us have ever hyped albums that you love.

i know you often don't mean it but it just comes across as...idk.

otm. I know him well enough to see his tongue in cheek but, jeez, quite a few of us are far more restrained than he about lauding our faves.

this shitty album made me actually draw up a list of People To Remember Not To Trust When They Hype Music

― lex pretend, Tuesday, February 5, 2013 11:48 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

like i mean... i know you well enough to know when to hype music TO you and when you probably won't like something? saying "I really like this" isn't the same thing as saying "i think you will really like this" and... anyway. whatever. this is silly and not worth it and i don't want to turn this into a thing.

i just got home from class and need to go to the gym and if this is coming off catty or nasty i'm really sorry. :(

I love Lexerbole
Until it turns to descriptions of actual violence

lex pretend's taste is one of the most difficult things to parse that i've come across

His likes are typically good. I understand why they're likeable. His hates are where the confusion comes in.

Except for "Wut," which...idgi.

New one sounds like Pink covering Phoenix.
First track nice.

"wut" being the girl unit track?

i like this quite a bit on the first few listens but i can kind of get why lex doesn't. the production sometimes gives me the feeling of being translated-into-pop and not pop itself.

ie it's an indie record, still. fine with me, but...

Revisiting the older albums, they all sound so DEAD compared to this new one. So little energy. They're all lifeless and soured. It's like someone came in with Heartthrob and turned on the lights.

i came into this record as a fan of Greg Kurstin and not really knowing their stuff, and i think they work pretty well together on it.

Greg Kurstin makes good pop songs ("Radioactive" by Rita Ora was one of my favorites last year). Does he still release music on his own, or is he just a behind the scenes guy now?

ie it's an indie record, still. fine with me, but...

otm. To those of us who like indie-pop as well as capital-P Pop, it sounds like a nice merger of the two. But if you don't have an indie-pop bone in yr body, it could be a harder sell.

his group The Bird & The Bee hasn't made a record in a minute but they're supposedly doing a new one soon. and yeah "Radioactive" is dope. i may make a Kurstin poll thread, i don't think people realize yet how many jams he's done.

Oh, ha! I'd forgotten he was half of The Bird & The Bee. I was wondering how long it's been since Geggy Tah broke up.

unterberger did a good interview w/ him the other day: http://popdust.com/2013/02/08/from-geggy-tah-to-the-grammys-the-wild-ride-of-pop-impersario-greg-kurstin/

cool interview

It would be funny if he and Linda Perry and Gregg Alexander and Dan Semisonic all started their own little Brill Building.

and then the Mark McGrath cruise ship crashes into it

Especially after revisiting the old albums for fresher perspective, the reviews of Heartthrob on RYM are an even funnier bit of schadenfreude.

WAH sold out
WAH where are the guitars
WAH where are the good lyrics
WAH sara hates this album and it was all tegan's idea (huh?)

Really, really liking this record after being kinda meh on the last two, where the shift from that kind of New Pornographers-y raggedness to a more "mainstream indie" sound was a letdown. The slickness of this record works because it forces the hooks a bit more, and I've already had a number of these songs stuck in my head over the last week or so. "I'm Not Your Hero" is particularly devastating, and I kinda love them for sticking something so confessional and personal on what is meant to be their big crossover record.

Also, this record >>>> CRJ's. Need I remind y'all that Owl City makes no appearance on this one?

I live in a city with two alternative rock stations and never heard "Closer" once. Wonder why they didn't pick it up.

would you really say "closer" is alternative rock?

ppl keep recommending this to me (even tho i don't know any of their previous work) so maybe i will actually listen to it soon

(even tho i don't know any of their previous work)

Not a prerequisite imo.

the airplay "Closer" has gotten has been mainly on rock/alt stations, hasn't really broken through to US pop radio (although it's their first top 40 hit in Canada, apparently).

Come to think of it, I'm not sure I've heard them on alt-rock radio since "Walking with the Ghost," so there's precedent involved with their last few albums. Considering it as something along the lines of "Pink covering Phoenix," though, it makes me wonder if its the Pink factor that's excluding them this time.

i fell asleep at the wheel while driving listening to this record. not because the album is boring, because I was sleepy. but still now I don't think I will ever be able to listen to it again since I almost killed myself.

yikes! glad you're ok

I had a wreck perfectly soundtracked to "Wrong" by Archers of Loaf once and I still love that song and love them. You'll move past this.

(Likewise, glad you're okay)

Only accident I've ever been in was a biking accident (got scratched up pretty bad, though), and that was while listening to Over The Rhine.

I bought a used copy of their first one a couple of years ago, played it once, put it away. Took it out for a drive downtown today, and I'd agree with the first post on this thread: pretty good but very generic. But I like this one a lot (even better as soundtrack music with Spanish subtitles):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6YZAWnKyTs

their new album is good

i wanna hear a country version of "fool for love"

er shit "i was a fool"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZHGeg_0Rlo

Is there a secret to tell who's Tegan and who's Sara?

It's tattooed on the back of their neck.

(sry, Monty Python joeks)

Ah, just watched a current video interview. Tegan has the curls, Sara has the straight hair.

Vocally, Tegan's a little throatier, Sara's more nasal.

let's make lots of money

Yeah, I've picked up on that (based on the song Sara did with Theophilus London sans Tegan), but those qualities in their voices aren't always front and center.

also, tegan has a labret piercing and sara doesn't (though that's not always super visible)

i was a fooooool

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/tegan-and-sara-embrace-aa98-s-on-shudder-to-think-song-premiere-20131015

This track from the Dallas Buyers Club soundtrack is pretty scrumptious.

https://instagram.com/p/BDkDFtUmFX_/

here 4 heartthrob part 2

same

Yeah, I'm looking forward to this. Still playing Heartthrob a lot.

I was making a list of my fav rock LPs of this century, b/c everybody else was on Twitter, and I wanted to put Sainthood on it until I realized that was an '09 album. That one has reallllly held up for me. I think it's my fav of theirs.

Did you then realize that you were confusing decade and century?

yeah i meant decade sorry

Excited!

They are literally the only band that I have ever championed from (relative) obscurity to stardom, despite being a music fan for nearly forty years. I sometimes wonder why it wasn't Small Factory instead. Anyway, I'd love to see The Con part 2, but I'll take whatever they put out. I still have a soft spot for If It Was You.

These girls are so talented, can anyone explain why they've been stuck in the indie ghetto for so many years and aren't as popular as, say, Jackson Browne?

god heartthrob was really a while ago huh. turned out to be quite an influential album

They got more Spotify plays than Jackson Browne.

Who doesn't

Not to trump dlp's "I knew them when" (especially since I never listened to any of their records until So Jealous), but back in '99 or 2000, they performed an in-store at the record shop I was working in at the time. We had caught a shoplifter just before they arrived and there was a hilariously awkward half hour or so where they were sitting in our stock room next to this 15-year-old hoodlum, who we had to keep there until the cops arrived.

Sounds like Rex Manning Day

Had to look that up--wow! I've never seen that flick, but I'm assuming it had a lot less painfully awkward silence than the real life version.

I couldn't take the Chvrches' last album seriously because Hearthrob already existed.

I'm glad they aren't backing down any from the sound they staked out on Heartthrob. Boyfriend clip sounds cool imo.

god heartthrob was really a while ago huh. turned out to be quite an influential album

― art baengels (monotony), Wednesday, March 30, 2016 8:34 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

These girls are so talented, can anyone explain why they've been stuck in the indie ghetto for so many years and aren't as popular as, say, Jackson Browne?

― Josefa, Wednesday, March 30, 2016 8:27 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

last album debuted at #3 US and had a single go gold. they're still a cult act in certain ways, but I feel like heartthrob was a breakout record for them

Seemed like one of the most successful crossover attempts in a while. It didn't do Katy Perry numbers or anything but it grew their audience without alienating the one they had. Seemed like the band overplayed what a departure it was (I saw them around the time and they kept almost kind of apologizing for going so all out poppy); it really seemed like a logical extension of their last few records to me.

feels like ages since the last album. I've liked everything they've done, including the pop move.

http://pitchfork.com/news/64567-listen-to-tegan-and-saras-new-single-boyfriend/

feeling this

love the way the chorus drifts into the verse

That one and "U-Turn" are on Spotify.

"U-turn" SO GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh hell yes! I was a little cool on Boyfriend, but U-turn is spectacular!

Both of the new tracks are fantastic.

I'll have to think about Boyfriend a bit, but wow, U-Turn is exactly what I want them to be doing as pop stars. I already feel like I've been listening to it on the radio for several decades.

"Boyfriend" reminds me of Kylie's "Love at First Sight"

not as good

100% agreed

https://youtu.be/1XEkXvUp8VM this one's ok if a bit slight

so far all the new songs are good, but not as good as most of heartthrob

cute dogs

Caught their show at Le Poisson Rouge tonight (West Village, NYC). Very enjoyable! I was probably the oldest person in the room aside from their parents (I'm presuming) in the VIP area. The backing instrumentation was interesting - just drums and keyboard, no bass or electric guitar (T&S alternated on acoustic gtr at the start and finale of the show). Some older songs were rearranged with keys in place of guitar and I heard one girl in the crowd yell, "More guitar, less synth!" Anyway now I know which songs Tegan sings and which Sara does.

They said they're performing "Boyfriend" on Jimmy Fallon tomorrow night. Would rather they do "U-turn," personally.

Very tidy little album - "Stop Desire" is the ~one~ I think on first listen

Unimpressed so far -- too tidy.

yeah i will need more time to tell if there's as much magic in the writing as there was with the previous album

Starts strong with the first two, ends strong with the last two. Stop Desire is the tentpole in the middle.

I may eventually like the other five songs, but right now I'm not sure I do.

very little stands out either for good or bad which i suppose ends up being a negative. it feels so tightly focused that there's not much exciting about it unfortunately

i love "white knuckles" and "dying to know"

it is basically heartthrob all over again but i'm sort of into how it doubles down on the aesthetic, even if the songs are potentially less immediate this time

wait "stop desire" just hit me, holy shit

New album's cover art is very reminiscent of David Bowie though he always had a mouth in photos, I think. I haven't seen many reviews that mention T&S along with him (I have seen a very few random references, often mullet-related) as far as their ability to flourish while working under all sorts of stylistic circumstances, as well as career path from acoustic troubadour to mainstream success. I actually like this one more than Heartthrob.

Really like this album. Surprised to see people have been saying it's a slight disappointment. There's nothing as amazing as Closer but it doesn't seem like a drop off to me.

Nothing's grabbed me yet. I'm sure like Heartthrob it'll grow on me, but I think it's funny that their pop albums are less immediate than the records they used to make

At the end of the day I liked them better from If It Was You through Sainthood, but the Lex's of the world have declared that Heartthrob is the way of the future, and I'm not one to stand in the way of that.

"U-Turn" is the instant standout for me. A couple others ("Stop Desire," "BWU") sound like songs I might soon come to like a lot, but I'm still waiting for the album as a whole to click with me.

the Lex's of the world have declared that Heartthrob is the way of the future

lol he doesn't even like that album iirc

That is lol.

But thanks for letting me know about what goes on in threads about the band that I've been pushing on ILM for the last 12 years...

you have never not been yourself

It is kind of interesting that their whole take-off here starts with a SFJ review, which was pretty much the first time that I recall a mainstream critic not sneering at them. I haven't read everything, so there may have been exceptions. They were artistically mature by 2002 at the very least.

I think I first got into them for the simple reason that they were originally signed to Neil Young's label, and I took it as an endorsement of sorts. So I'd kept following them over the years, with varying degrees of interest, but it was with the full shift into insane greatness with Heartthrob that I really fell for them myself.

LYTD reminds me in some ways of the second Bloc Party album. All the elements of the magical thing that was the prior album are still present, but the core seems hollow somehow? I dunno. But I can't remember the last time I listened to the second BP album.

Is their drummer until recently, Adam Christgau, Robert's son, or is that a bizarre last name coincidence?

Christgau has a daughter, nos ongs.

sons

This is quickly growing on me. Still feels like the songwriting is less sharp than usual, and there's parts that seem unusually tacky, and it's not nearly the big leap forward each of their records had been until this point. But it's catchy and effervescent and feels good to listen to. Good summer listening if nothing else.

Laura Snapes' review of that Con covers album from the other month is such a great read. Necessary corrective to some of the downright hateful coverage this band used to receive; I'd forgotten how badly the music press used to beat up these two.

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/tegan-and-sara-the-con-x-covers/

This is one of my favorite albums ever and somehow I love it even more than I did 10 years ago.

What era of the band did they receive their harshest criticism in, though? Like, I don't know if their pre-So Jealous work circulated much outside of Canada, but I remember thinking when they first came out with This Business of Art that this is what Ani DiFranco must sound like to people who hate Ani DiFranco.

Probably the So Jealous era, just when they were big enough to get some mainstream recognition, but when music coverage was still unabashedly misogynistic. There's some threads about them on ilx that are pretty bad, and Pitchfork's early coverage of them was very patronizing.

Right. One thing I had forgotten until just now was that, circa 2005, we were still in the kind of environment where, when Jack White covered "Walking With a Ghost," there were actually people who were like "ok, NOW its okay to like this."

From the Pitchfork So Jealous review :|

There's really no reason why these identical twins shouldn't be huge. Their songs fuse Ashlee Simpson mall-punk with the retro 80s fetish of former tourmate Ryan Adams' recent high-profile stinker.

Still, I can't spare So Jealous the critical scalpel just because it's inexplicably below the mainstream radar. Co-producers John Collins (New Pornographers) and David Carswell (Smugglers) are no excuse, either. Collins and Carswell helped turn Tegan and Sara's early Lilith Fair folk into Alanis Morissette-style pop/rock on 2002's If It Was You...

Band wrote about it in this Instagram post, which is heartbreaking:

These reviews barely scratch the surface of the sexism and homophobia that were in every review, article and comment about our band for the first ten years of our career. The less reputable press and websites were much harsher and I can still tap into the shame and anger that was on constant feedback loop in my body during those years. Our band and managers and record label would say "don't read it" or "Fuck them!" or "don't say anything it will just make it worse" and maybe most frustrating of all "besides those parts it's actually a positive review". Everyone fumbled through that era trying to support us but it was profoundly isolating. What I grieve the most is the lost opportunity to learn from a balanced critique. I had to shut off and stopped reading or absorbing anything anyone said about us during that album cycle. It took another ten years to undue my deepest fears and insecurities that we were the awful things people said about us. I'm so glad its different now.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BW0p-WWlq6J/?hl=en&taken-by=teganandsara

new album is out in september - Hey, I'm Just Like You - with first single "I'll Be Back Someday" out v soon.

1. Hold My Breath Until I Die
2. Hey, I'm Just Like You
3. I'll Be Back Someday
4. Don't Believe the Things They Tell You (They Lie)
5. Hello, I'm Right Here
6. I Don't Owe You Anything
7. I Know I'm Not the Only One
8. Please Help Me
9. Keep Them Close 'Cause They Will Fuck You Too
10. We Don't Have Fun When We're Together Anymore
11. You Go Away and I Don't Mind
12. All I Have to Give the World is Me

oh hell yeah

they're going on tour as a duo to support a book they have coming out as well. Looking forward to that, as I've never seen them; and while I like the last few albums well enough, I'd be happy to see a scaled down show; bummed I missed the Con anniversary shows.

those are the most tegan and sara-y song titles one could imagine.

they sound like the chapters of a self-help book - is that what they've written?

It's a memoir called "HIgh School"

https://teganandsara.com/highschool/

"“High School provides a purview of the queer adolescent experience. It is a story of two resilient young women who found their voices through authenticity, connection to others, music, and apparently a lot of experimentation with psychedelics.” - Mom"

the songs are all based on demos they recorded in high school too, but i think they've been rearranged and reassembled to some extent (there was mention of some that were edited together from pieces of multiple different demos)

I get why they would do this -- I'm pretty intrigued to hear the rest of it and how it all plays out

new album is awesome, best since heartthrob and... i may like it better who knows

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeF6Woh8xF8

this is so good, it's like the glitchier songwriting of sainthood slipped into their pop production

Just saw that there is a TV adaptation of their memoir. Anyone watched it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_School_(2022_TV_series)

That's right, this also came out today, damn. I will get around to this.

I haven’t been a big fan of new electro pop T&S; sainthood was the last album that registered with me and that I go back to. Is this an entire album of stuff that sounds like the LEGO song?

no

well, I gave it a shot last night and couldn't make it past the first three songs. I'll attempt again tonight.

Good stuff:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_KGGTOqIpQ

"Knockin' on Heaven's Door" chords work every time.

My one time through this album so far it hit me a bit like the Taylor album — fine but familiar-seeming work from people who've done work I like more. But I allow that both may grow on me.

i felt you in my legs
before i even met you

I LIKE HOW ALL THEIR SONGS ARE ABOUT WHAT FUCKUPS THEY ARE W GIRLS

― President Evil, Thursday, July 5, 2007 6:13 AM (sixteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

okay this is a less frightening T&S thread the other one that i opened up. i just never listened to them and for some reason i watched that scary documentary last night. i don't mind their voices! they are weird in a cool way. for some reason i had the mistaken impression that they did the old crone hat voice. but they don't. sorry, T&S. didn't mean to lump you in with the dreaded Cocorosie.

Yeah the documentary is a hell of an unsettled watch. The more so because it provides no final resolution.

its sad! that doc. and scary. but i mostly just felt bad for everyone. the price of having large open forums for fans? i mean obviously tons of people made lifelong friends on T&S sites/socials/etc. and that shouldn't be overlooked. it isn't quite as simple as INTERNET BAD. because obviously you don't have to be famous to have your life/info/money stolen from you online or even offline. just crazy how one person (i'm guessing it was one person) could be THAT active in messaging/texting people for so long to keep it all going. yeesh.