The Beths

it's incredible what they're doing. and their relative profile ... and how big they could get if they get the right breaks. i am already worried about them getting huge and people not knowing i have loved them for years. :)

just realised they're playing here the day after the album's out, hooray

they're in North America right now and just announced they are going to tour it again in March.... and it looks like bigger venues?

siick

i don't know that I've given the last couple songs a real fair hearing yet because I'm obsessed with Silence is Golden

The title track has become a contender for my favorite song of the year. It kinda reminds me of a lyric Robert Pollard might have written at his peak.

So tickets went on sale this morning for a Beths gig in March 2023 at the 1,200 seat 930 Club in W DC @ 10 am this morning et. I signed ono to laptop early and was ready. Got a hold on sit tight message from Ticketmaster. Then tried to sign on from phone. First got same hold message but then got in on my phone, and got 2 tickets. Meanwhile at 10:04 Ticketmaster on my laptop said the show is sold out

You may want to check again, I’m seeing tickets available

I got them on my phone from Ticketmaster but for some weird reason, Ticketmaster on my laptop told me they were gone. Strange.

Album of the year

the real magic happens when they're in that middle gear: "Your Side", the title track, the last few minutes of
"2am".

Agreed. Those are my favourites. 2am is astonishing.

doesn't quite all live up to "silence is golden" but it's still very good

"2am" is really wonderful

The pitchfork review is the variety that focuses mainly on the lyrics (though not exclusively).
Which reminded me how much I wish they'd vary things a bit more, and not make every song a relationship metaphor.

"silence is golden"?

Whoa, Silence Is Golden is totally wonderful, can see why everyone was hyped if this was the first single

Ended up being easily my favourite thing on the album, mind

Well, that and the Head In The Clouds/Best Left centrepiece

i think i am too depressed to listen to the beths. i just gave the new one a good car listens and i feel like i'm 10000 planets away from where it takes place. i don't think it's them, i think i just don't want to hear this kind of music and can't relate to anything. it sounds like it should be the hit music playing in the background of a show about popular young adults

i think, in particular, the "some things are best left to rot" harmonies early on in the chorus of "best left" hit me in a really incompatible place this morning. it was very unwelcome, and felt very much like a late 90s christian band for that moment, which caused me to involuntarily shut the music off and roll down the windows. it smelled like hot tarpits outside, so i rolled the windows back up and drove home in silence after that.

i don't actually think the beths resemble a contemporary christian band, and i don't really know much about that kind of music other than what i heard from passing cars while i was doing laps in the hot tarpits back in the late 90s. this is a sweeping ignorant statement, but maybe the problem with christian music is that they can't let themselves be wrong

Agree that the "some things are best left to rot" shout-along feels like a forced crossover attempt to some other genre that I don't listen to.

But I'm finding a majority of the new songs getting stuck in my head just as much as the debut... when you know, you know.

the best stuff cuts its own swathe but there's slightly still too much of a reliance on cliched chord progressions at times imo

xps On Pitchfork lyrics/breakup focus. Hasn't Elizabeth and the tall fella been together a long while?

I'm pleased to see some less than glowing reactions. I just can't with this band... The grating harmonies, obvious chord progressions (bingo, imago) and dull lyrics rub me the wrong way. I feel like a bad Kiwi every time I hate on The Beths but seriously, I don't see the appeal.

And as for those suggesting AOTY for a catchy but soulless power pop group... in 2022? You've got to be kidding me. To be fair I've only listened to the singles, but not enough has changed to make me like them any better. They still sound like a high school rock band (albeit quite a good one) who just never moved on.

The Weezer comparisons up thread aren't entirely inapt, given Weezer just ripped off The Cars, who were huge in Aotearoa New Zealand, and surely must have influenced The Beths' songwriting. The Cars would have been everywhere on the radio when they were growing up, if their parents listened to one of the rock stations like Radio Hauraki. For some reason our tiny little colonised nation just really loves power pop, and I find it infuriating. (That said, The Cars' first record slays.)

Ok rant over. As you were...

they write good songs and play them very well

imo there’s no such thing as a cliche chord progression but ymmv

I mean, jingle writers write good songs and play them well. So if that's the bar...

is that a controversial opinion? idk, chord progressions are like sentences, they’re just building blocks, a “cliche” chord progression can be elevated by both craft and performance, which the beths have in spades

can jingle writers play their songs well? is a jingle writer as good of a drummer as the drummer for the beths? what a silly response sorry

xp Of course - I'm just saying, when they match those strengths to particularly ear-catching melodies the result is fantastic - my criticism is not meant to be a damming indictment. I enjoyed the album, but I *loved* Silence Is Golden. If I hadn't loved that song I wouldn't have bothered saying anything, just dismissed this as decently-written, technically excellent pop-rock

*damning

I agree in principle, but craft and performance isn't enough for me. There has to be a spark - a bolt of something indefinable (you know it when you hear it) - to elevate a song from competent to great. And I just don't hear that with The Beths. It's too pedestrian, safe, passionless. They're a paint by numbers pop group.

I have a theory that melodic preferences are hard-coded into us all and that they shape our musical opinions way more than anything else. I like my melodies baroque and twisty, and if not that then at least...tangy, y'know. So the main melody of say the title-track falls flat for me whereas for someone else it might be transcendent given the excellent pacing of the song (and there are a few interesting counterpoints in the second half, so I'm not ruling out it growing on me)

You may have a point imago. For me, it's harmonies. There are certain harmonies I find transcendent, and others that make me want to rip my ears off. I guess The Beths fall into the latter category for me with their vocal harmonies.

Well, as a Beths centrist, I'd say you could easily cobble together an album from their 3 records so far that I'd really like, but they're yet to quite do it in one. The musicianship alone, in a pop-rock context, will keep me trying

can jingle writers play their songs well? is a jingle writer as good of a drummer as the drummer for the beths? what a silly response sorry

― flamenco drop (BradNelson)

My point is that we expect more than just 'good songs played well' from the music we love. We want to be moved in some way. Good songs played well isn't enough. I can name so many songs that are catchy and well produced that either do nothing for me, or annoy the hell out of me. Technical competence in both songwriting and performance just isn't the bar for me.

Glad I brought some silliness to your day though ;)

I also don't feel the spark, and I find the lead vocals to be actively not-good/unpleasant (even in an "indie rock" context) - but that's obv a big YMMV.

That said, the above-discussed chorus harmonies on "Best Left" are one of the few aspects that DO connect w/me – so I'm clearly coming from a different place here

idk i’m v moved by the title track from the previous record, “jump rope gazers,” and i think this whole nebulous notion of “spark,” “being moved,” etc. is contained within my use of “craft”

i shouldn’t be surprised that there’s someone out there who thinks the beths are overrated but literally everything about your critique smacks of overstatement to me, like your problem is with power pop as a genre or something and not the band itself. they’re clearly better than a high school band

The chorus vocals in Best Left are very Trail Of Dead if anything, which I approve of

(obviously TOD are informed by religious upbringings so Christian rock is probably a mixed-feelings touchstone - whether it is here too I have no idea)

Those choruses remind me a little of one of my favorite early-2010s bands, which I think no one else here likes (but I wish they did!):

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

the title track and "2am" are wonderful. I was always meh on this band but those tracks are pretty undeniable imo

literally everything about your critique smacks of overstatement to me, like your problem is with power pop as a genre or something and not the band itself. they’re clearly better than a high school band

― flamenco drop (BradNelson)

I get that you don't like my rhetorical choices, and that's fine. I did say they sound like quite a good high school band, though! And I agree their musicianship and songwriting are very solid (perhaps not lyrically, but def musically). They just don't seem to have a broad range, like they're stuck listening to the same records they loved since they were 13.

I like me some power pop just fine. One of my favourite Kiwi acts is The Mint Chicks, who wrote some incredible power pop songs with a clear debt to The Buzzcocks (another band I enjoy, along with The Cars, Ramones and others). Is it my favourite genre? No, and mainly because it's fairly limited and thus hard to innovate in. I'm not saying innovation is the be all and end all, but little surprises certainly do help my enjoyment of music. There's not enough little surprises in The Beths to captivate me.

Silence is Golden is a pretty good tune, I'll admit.

the idea that a band that has put out tracks like "silence is golden" and "out of sight" is just making passionless paint-by-numbers power pop is ridiculous

of course they're not doing anything particularly new but the sheer craft is on another level compared to most in the genre, even contemporary indie rock more broadly

& do not at all understand where any of the complaints about the vocals are coming from

Good to see some dissenting opinions in a thread that had started to become a bit of an echo chamber for us stans.

I do agree with Brad that a lot of these critiques sound like complaints about the genre as much as complaints this specific band. Power pop isn't really a hotbed of innovation - it definitely places more value of good execution of ideas that have already been done to death. It's comfort food.

I have a hard time describing this band to ppl bcz on paper they DO seem sort of paint-by-numbers but there is a je ne sais quoi about them, the harmonies are so perfect, the melodies are so perfect, they make so many smart and efficient decisions in their songwriting and instrument playing. They’re kind of like The New Pornographers where they do something seemingly simple but they do it so fucking well that when you step back and go “wait, surely there are tons of other bands that sound like this but WHO?” you can’t come up with anything bcz no one is doing it nearly as well as they are.

otm damn

this band is the epitome of a bolt of something indefinable that elevates songs from competent to great

lol just the other day I described this band to a friend with the exact words “new zealand new pornographers”

I’m not necessarily the world’s biggest New Pornographers fan, but I’ve always thought of their songwriting as fairly sui generis.