Best Coast

feels underwhelming to me but I shd prob get stoned and listen to it w/ my cat before passing judgment

I mean I also wish I had a talking cat

the production on the songs i've heard is really just right, lovesongs for the underdogs is a great analog. don't know if the songs are there

I've been putting off listening to this new one based on the last one being a bit disappointing but if it sounds like Lovesongs For Underdogs I'm sold already.

(for references that producer is wally gagel, also notable for not being jon brion)

I really like this album.

Like many others I loved the debut but really didn't like the second album at all. I've only heard the title track so far which I thought was great. Looking forward to giving the album a go.

i'd argue that this is the strongest collection of songwriting they've put out to date, especially compared to the last record

lol "songwriting"

also if this is the kind of music you want to listen to when you "get stoned" I think you may need a new dealer

J.D.: Harshing mellows and killing buzzes in 2015

I loved the debut so much. I hated polished follow-up even more. The middle ground EP was a nice rebound.

Where does this fall? Anything even vaguely "mature" is a death knell for this band. She should stay in bed and smoke pot with her cats all day.

I have to agree with myself from 2012...
Anticipation for this record is bringing out my inner Mike Love. I don't want them to fuck with the formula. There better be plenty of cat and weed references and at least 8 combined minutes of OOOOOOOOO.

this falls somewhere around this year's colleen green record (which this also reminds me of)

High praise to compare her to Colleen Green. That's one of my favorites of the year.

And Colleen Green will never stop smoking weed.

I was jamming California Nights while driving around L.A. the other evening. It's really, really good. And super slept on. The thread about Belly reminded of this, bc katherine up yonder compared it to Tanya Donelly, which got me to listen to her solo work.

I was really into the first album for a while, or at least some tracks on it. Never listened to anything else, maybe I should take another look.

https://www.stereogum.com/2245286/bethany-cosentino-is-so-disappointed-with-her-solo-album-launch/news/

That's rough, but at least her ego is in good shape.

I read that story. And the comments. I think the following is true:

- there is a sorta-playbook for "putting out a debut album in your teens/20s and finding success with it", although less than 1% of people who put out albums find any general success at all

- there is not-really a playbook for "putting out your third/fourth album in your late 20s/early 30s and finding success with it", of that aforementioned <1%, a further <1% of artists who got some attention for their debut find that a recording/touring career is tenable once they hit... 28 or so. You kind of have to bottle the lightning twice, and there's less of a roadmap, the second time around.

- there is not-really a playbook for "putting out your sixth/seventh album in your late 30s/early 40s" etc. etc. etc.

I remember speaking to an older-than-me very-established extremely-famous musician about my own "ugh every album release feels like I'm starting from scratch" feelings, and (despite their enormous success and visibility), they said they always felt the same way, that it was always like starting again, having to invent a new magic trick, that it was incredibly daunting, every time.

More than any other creative discipline, music listeners are drawn to "the new", they want new sounds made by new players more than they are interested in third-to-tenth albums made by established artists. One could argue that this is a "youth bias", but I don't think it's just that, I think there is something incredibly attractive about emerging artists. Once an artist has established their voice, it just becomes far less-interesting to hear what they do with it; generally. This just isn't the case with... authors, directors, actors, playwrights, visual artists, etc. Or at least, it applies far-more to musicians. The arc of one's musical career is, in the vast majority of cases, extremely front-loaded.

Artists who can sustain a recording/touring career into even early-middle age are the rarest of rarities; citing individuals like Stephen Malkmus (as certain commenters did), this is a 1 in a million occurrence. Even the flagship biggest-artists-in-the-world (Taylor Swift, Beyoncé) had growing-pains moments as they approached their 30s.

Everything I've typed might be obvious to everyone, but I think it's the most salient reason as to "why nobody gave a shit about Bethany Cosentino's solo album in 2023".

I never liked Best Coast but I will always give full-throated support to this kind of honesty

^ I love you for that post, Whiney

her new album sounds okay tbh. but ditching the best coast brand name (even though it was basically always a solo project?) and pivoting to country-tinged pop rock is an obviously risky (crazy?) career move. i feel like us girls is a decent counterfactual here, in terms of an artist that had some indie cred/buzz in 2008-10 and then evolved to something more pop while keeping momentum building (tho the arc is different since us girls came out of the noise scene which had a lot less buzz than chillwave)

also indie hipsters are the least loyal fan bases of all genres. like a pop punk or metal band with a few popular albums can count on steady touring income no matter the quantity or quality of subsequent output. i was surprised when she said she wasn't even able to tour on the new album

well she got me to listen to it, this is not exceptional in anyway, not unpleasant or anything

I don't think it's about loyalty, it's a general psychological side-effect of why-we-listen-to-music-in-the-first-place. It's about the "potential energy" that is present when artists are emerging, I like to describe it as "the thrill of an unstruck match"

xp

She concedes that ditching the Best Coast name was probably a bad idea, but something she felt she had to do. Which I respect! But which also came with a lot of risks. On the plus side, now she can reunite Best Coast.

The most obvious analog btw, and maybe her goal, was the Jenny Lewis model. But Lewis's own career seems to have ebbed and flowed dramatically, afaict. She's 10 years older than Cosentino, hopefully Cosentino finds better footing of her own in the future.

xp- you don't have to call it loyalty (and tbh it's not a value judgment; i count myself a very disloyal fan to m/l all the artists i listen to) but i do think it varies across genres and scenes so it can't be entirely explained by the universal human instinct to be delighted by new sounds. why don't the middle aged dudes filling nofx concerts at 1k capacity venues in 2023 want new sounds too? at the very least hip indie music somehow selects for people attracted to novelty

I think even the exceptions mentioned so far struggle a lot... Malkmus has given several interviews about Groove Denied where he says the Matador folks were kinda fighting him a lot about it, asking him to not release it. I think there was even a mention of them visiting in Portland out of nowhere and him thinking 'Oh god, they're gonna drop me from the label'.

and I'm not gonna defend Groove Denied. It IS a bad album. but that's not the point

Best Coast had some pleasant tunes but they're a near-perfect example of a band that got fleeting interest before that era of scenester moved on to the next thing. They weren't Spoon or The National or The New Pornographers. Many of them had far less longevity and fan loyalty than the pop artists that indie used to be an alternative to. If there's any nostalgia for that time period I don't think it's come around yet.

this album's songwriting is not near the level of jenny lewis's best songs

well she got me to listen to it, this is not exceptional in anyway, not unpleasant or anything

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, December 14, 2023 1:48 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

A "solid" album of pleasant pop music without a unique approach, by a person from a buzz band from 10+ years ago, using their regular name and image (not a problem just not eye catching amongst the sea of new releases competing for people's attention)... this is unfortunately a recipe for quick transition to bargain bins. Speaking from a marketing perspective here not saying anything about the quality of the music itself.

Cynically one could theorize that her posting the rant on social media with the arguably cliche "So I’ve debated having this conversation with you for a really long time. And you know what? I’ve decided I’m having the conversation. Let’s go." lead-in is her best marketing-in-2023 instinct (especially in hindsight cause people are writing whole articles around it) regardless of any intentions she had to post it in the first place.

i'm not even sure how much of a distinction there is b/w her tik tok post as "content" and her music as "content"

She should strike while the iron is hot, break up her solo career, and form a *new* band. Maybe call it The Cosentinos.

I think an established artist's 30s-60s are much more difficult years to navigate than their 20s or even their 70s. It's like you're a novelty or a living legend and not many people care about what happens in between

I agree this phenomenon does seem to disproportionately affect indie music, though

More than any other creative discipline, music listeners are drawn to "the new"

I'm glad that there are enough listeners who feel this way to support (at least a modicum of) new musicians. I listen to a lot of music that is new to me but I'm mostly drawn to "did I read something intriguing about this act in a dusty library book thirty-five years ago".

I saw Best Coast live 8 years ago and don't remember anything, they certainly didn't go for drama.

Yeah, my observations are in no way a value-judgement. And these observations (mostly) apply to genres of music that exist firmly within the mechanics of "the culture industry"-- pop, rap, r&b, rock, indie, commercial punk. (Jazz, experimental and chamber music composers, it doesn't apply so much). In myself I have observed a distinct lack-of-interest toward pretty much all "culture industry" acts, after their zeitgeist-grab; the number of such artists I would blindly pre-order their fifth or tenth album is limited to... ten, maybe? Erykah Badu is the only one I could name off the top of my head. Any artist who can sustain my attention, have me genuinely excited for every-new-thing-they-put-out, to me it feels like they've hacked my programming.

Insofar as examples like NOFX, these are legacy acts; my experience with legacy artists is that the method of consumption changes, people engage with them in pursuit of a nostalgic experience; or, if you're too young to have been there the first time, a proxy-nostalgia experience. I think of myself watching Fleetwood Mac, or Zombies, or Bryan Ferry, too young to have seen them in their prime but getting a taste of what it might've been like.

As far as Best Coast is concerned, I think it's a testament that the band has any staying power at-all that this article exists, and generated attention. I won't name the twenty-other of Best Coast's contemporaries that have faded more-quickly into obscurity so as to barely exist at all in 2023

haven't heard this new one or the last best coast album, still love Cali Nights. she's been thru the wringer a bit to some extent, def think she caught vv targeted flak from some corners that was perhaps a bit misogynist in retrospect (more than a bit perhaps) and i don't doubt it affected her moving forward. she seems vv resilient however, she's managed to stick around for a long time.

Maybe call it The Cosentinos.

If she were to start a band called The Beffanies I'd buy a ticket

maybe just the Beffs for short

Best Coast had some pleasant tunes but they're a near-perfect example of a band that got fleeting interest before that era of scenester moved on to the next thing. They weren't Spoon or The National or The New Pornographers. Many of them had far less longevity and fan loyalty than the pop artists that indie used to be an alternative to. If there's any nostalgia for that time period I don't think it's come around yet.

― Chris L, Thursday, 14 December 2023 19:17 (one hour ago) link

otm, straight-ahead indie rock that broke around 2010 is almost entirely consigned to the dustbin of history for whatever reason. doesn't necessarily invalidate anything she said but there is very little interest in that era

My only thought on the Best Coast thing is that it’s part of a bigger story about musicians, writers and other industry folks who experienced the Peak Indie era adjusting to a new reality. If you were there and are still trying to do your thing, you can probably empathize.

— Ian Cohen (@en_cohen) December 12, 2023

My interest in Best Coast declined in concert with the amount of background noise in their recordings. Just not a very interesting band without the cassette deck Phil Spector thing happening.

I don’t think any of the recent indie gone pop moves have been good, though.

I liked California Nights, which felt like an interesting move toward a more polished alt-rock sound, but I recall finding Always Tomorrow kind of dull.

I really liked Best Coast when they first came out, but something happened to her singing voice, maybe she got lessons or something, after the first few singles she started enunciating in a really annoying way where every vowel she would sing ooh-wah. I think I gave up them about 10 years ago tbh - yeah just checked I basically only like their first album. California Nights was better than the album before which I thought was dreadful and I haven't listened to anything since then.

Polished is a great word for where I think they go wrong - polish without strong pop sensibilities/songwriting ends up sounding like background music.

i checked out best coast - i'd heard songs here and there but never listened to an album - i guess "slight" is the word i would use.

I love "The Sun Was High (So Was I)" but 'watched the cars go by/The sun was high/So was I' doesn't point to a successful singer-songwriter transition down the road.

then Alvvays came along and kind of did it better anyway