Beach House

yep

they are both really fucking good

I saw them live last night in Montréal. They were wonderful. I had no idea her voice would be that good. I love their songs, their arrangements and their melodies, but Victoria's voice was the star of the show.

Don't you disappear in the mirror againnnn

I've been racking my brain all week trying to figure out who Victoria Legrand sounds like and now I'm a little disappointed to finally figure out that it's Martha Davis from the Motels. Hrmph.

totally, a lot of their aesthetic comes straight from the Motels

Not really, just her voice.

noooooooo

i do not really hear it

it's there, you just need to open your heart. Suddenly Last Summer could easily be a Beach House jam.

There is a mournful catch in Legrand's more emotive lines which sounds like Davis (and that catch was pretty much the entire appeal of the Motels for me). But Legrand brings a lot more to the table. At times I think of them as Cocteau Twins doing a David Lynch soundtrack.

Speaking of which, have you heard Lera Lynn? Her aesthetic is 100% Lynch soundtrack, and there's definitely some crossover with Beach House.

Referring above to Lynn's current album Resistor. There's earlier work that's more trad Americana.

interviewing this band in a couple weeks and i have zero idea what to ask them. they're the greatest boring / most boring great band on the planet, right? what do you ask a band that has written and recorded one glorious song dozens of times over a decade or so?

Speaking as a relative newcomer to their music, the things that I'd be most interested in hearing about would be their beginnings, what they consider to be their biggest influences and what prompted them to release two separate albums pretty much back to back last year.

ask them about their development as a live band, because as i've noted previously, they're a really really good one these days.

I'm curious about the name. Wikipedia says the name "just seemed perfect" to them, but the associations of protected privilege threatened by climate change seem almost implicit. (A lot of the music conveys this sense of waiting to be inevitably overcome by something; they recorded their last two albums in Louisiana.) So, I dunno, you might ask them what their experience with beach houses was, as actual places or as images, before settling upon the name? Maybe they get asked that all the time.

https://charlierose.com/video/player/28556

xpost

ask them about the obvious difficulties that come from their name being mixed up with "beech house"

i haven't watched the charlie rose interview so it's possible he may have already asked them about it

That is one boring interview. Rose throws out what you would expect and the responses are just typical collegiate artistic drivel. Better to just put their music on.

agreed that the responses were boring, but I thought Rose did try to push them - asking pointed questions about the creative process and getting fluffy answers.

but the thing is, I think their responses are the honest truth. i don't think their sound could come out of an intentional, deliberate method of songwriting.

Yeah. They're just a lot less thoughtful than their music lets on.

Which is cool! Their music is great!

You can ask if their aesthetic is so set that if they came up with something different and cool they discard it as being off-form. You could ask them if they think of louder faster songs as a sell-out move, or just something to keep in their back pocket if they ever hit a wall. You could ask about the attentiveness of audiences as they've gained more and more fans, or newer fans. You could ask them if beauty in and of itself is enough, and you could ask them if that is super cynical to even ask. You could ask them how Low has managed to release album after album of mostly slow, mostly great stuff that has showed significant evolution without losing its innate Low-ness, though that question might be better suited to Low.

touché

geez

Haha, the last one was a joke, but I was serious about the other ones! I like Beach House fine, and some of their stuff is really pretty.

why would anyone want more variety and surprise in the age of mass uncertainty and diversion?

neue jesse is right that you need to ask them about their name. also, i would be interested in hearing about their lyric writing process, specifically for the song "elegy to the void."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgR-PUXv98k

yussssss

Equal Mind is really something. These guys are damn prolific. One of those "samey" sounding bands I can't quite get bored with.

They do one thing very well and that's about as much as you can ask of anything

this is gorgeous stuff

I've only heard bits of this so far but I've been listening to a lot of Beach House lately. I've always found it tough to rank their albums, but right now it would go something like this.

Bloom (the one that got me into them)
Depression Cherry (didn't rate this at first, huge grower)
Teen Dream
Beach House
Devotion (this one doesn't seem that essential to their back catalogue, more of a bridge between the first and third albums)
Thank Your Lucky Stars (Majorette and The Traveller are the only ones I really love on here)

my personal ranking:

depression cherry
teen dream
beach house
devotion
thank your lucky stars
bloom

note that this is all on a rating scale of like, 9.3-8.8

They do one thing very well and that's about as much as you can ask of anything

yea i love this band

really happy to see all the DC love

beyond love is a beautiful track

and this album nails that anodyne vibe

I think Bloom will always be my favourite but Depression Cherry is comfortably in second place now. It's one the biggest U-turns I've done on an album in recent years.

Finally got round to giving the compilation a listen. It is indeed great and probably a better listen than maybe three of their albums.

my feeling is that depression cherry will age the best out of all their work so far

Looking forward to hearing DC,never listened. First I want more time with this tho, it's nice.

been listening to these guys a ton lately, here's my ranking:

bloom
depression cherry
teen dream = thank your lucky stars
devotion

haven't listened to the self titled yet

i'm glad everyone mentioned depression cherry. i liked it when it came out but haven't revisited it in a really long time. when i put it on again each song sounded so warmly familiar, even though i had probably only listened to each track a couple times.

"Sparks" is such an amazing song and I wish they'd do more in that vein.

I am surprised I thought Teen Dream would be the popular favourite if LPs being ranked.

i've never heard DC until this week, and i didn't even know TYLS existed- and i listened to bloom and teen dream a lot in their times, devotion only some. TYLS started playing on youtube without me being aware it was not DC. it's wonderfully direct imo. loving the hell out of one thing right now.

not at all surprising to me that bloom would be the favorite. like they said in the interviews before the album dropped, it feels like their definitive statement that they've been working up to until that point. i resisted for a while but i had to admit that it stands apart from the rest of their excellent discography

never change, beach house

Depression Cherry is has been a wonderful, much-repeated listening experience since i read this thread.

i have since fallen head over heels for teen dream, so it is now tied for second with depression cherry in my power ranking

depression cherry is so good

how are they live? they are coming to lovely Southern California this month and thinking about catching the show, especially since it will be on a Friday night.