Melisma Winter 2021 by Melisma Magazine

STAFF

A LETTER FROM THE EDITORS.. To our beloved music weirdos,

Editors-In-Chief Julia Bernicker Ethan Lam Lola Nedic

Thanks for sticking around. We’re happy to report that we are officially back in the MAB, and that the future of our funny little publication is looking exceedingly bright thanks to an injection of freshmen and sophomores who are freakishly passionate (and annoying) about music.

Managing Editors Michael Cambron Miranda Feinberg

First, jaded-and-too-cool-for-you sophomores Grace Rotermund and Ian Smith In Conversation About How your parents’ music taste affects yours. Spoiler: it does, and way more than you think. Next up, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed first years Isaac Dame and Jake Rubenstein wrote an article about the future of album rollouts. Our resident numbskulls (we love you both, mwah~) Spencer Vernier and Halla Clausi took a deep dive into house shows and the culture surrounding them—including interviews from local artists! Last but not least, sad goth Jason Evers explored the emo genre and how we define it. We’ve also compiled some of our top albums of the year (more on our website!), as well as a list of albums and concerts to look forward to next semester. Of course, we’ve also made a quiz for all you little freaks.

Creative Director Isabel Oberby Press Director Jill Yum Social Media Kayla Avitabile Spencer Vernier Web Design James Morse Editors Ruby Goodman Andrés López Grace Rotermund Ian Smith Staff Writers Halla Clausi Isaac Dame Jason Evers Jake Rubenstein

This issue marks the end of Ethan and Lola’s seemingly eternal reign of terror as editors-in-chief, as well as a pause in Julia’s as she goes abroad. We are so grateful for everybody who comes to our meetings, everybody who goes to shows on our behalf, and everybody who reads the silly articles that we put our whole entire hearts into. We’re heartbroken that our time as editors-in-chief is over, but we are so glad we got to share our work with all of you. Even though we won’t be here as editors-in-chief anymore, we’ll still be looking up at Melisma from the depths of hell, where all college music magazine writers inevitably go (still one circle above Pitchfork writers though!) With love, Julia Bernicker, Ethan Lam, and Lola Nedić

Cover Design Isa Arabia Interested in writing, art, or design? Questions, comments, adulation, spam, scams, or hatemail? Email melismamagazine@gmail.com

MELISMA

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CONTENTS Rise of the Rollout

Emo isn’t dead-- but is gatekeeping killing it?

Joyer, Pulsr, and life as an independent artist in a digital age

Artists to Watch

Photo Spread: Concerts We’ve Been To

The Legacy of Music Taste: A Conversation

Albums of the Year

Spring Preview

Quiz!

Melisma Magazine is a non-profit student publication of Tufts University. The opinions expressed in articles, features, or photos are soly those of the individual author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors or the staff. Tufts University is not responsible for the content of Melisma Magazine. If you would like to submit a letter to Melisma Magazine, please send it to melismamagazine@gmail.com.com. Please limit your letter to four hundred words or less.

Rise Of The Rollout Drop it like it’s hot. by Isaac Dame & Jake Rubenstein

he rollout of a new album is a time of immense importance for music fans. To see your favorite artists enter a new era can be incredibly exciting… or incredibly disappointing. For years, the traditional schedule of a lead single, album announcement, follow up singles, music videos, tour announcement, release, and post-release singles went uncontested. Both the demand for physical copies of an album and the tight control record labels had on the music industry meant that there was little reason for anything to change. The rise of the internet changed everything. In today’s era where artists can self-release albums more easily than ever before and are able to edit their songs minutes before they digitally release, the album cycle has become much more varied, taking on a new dimension that can add to the artistry of a release. As the internet shook up the music industry in the early 2000s, artists started to experiment with different styles of album releases. A notable innovation was the surprise drop, pioneered by Radiohead with 2007’s In Rainbows. It has since become a go-to strategy for industry behemoths like Beyoncé, JAY-Z, Drake, Eminem and Taylor Swift. While the surprise drop might suffer from a lack of promotion and hype that’s built up in advance, it encourages the audience to focus on the music itself rather than the marketing around it. These massive artists can use the surprise drop to affirm their status as commercial giants, being able to top the charts off name power and music quality alone.

MELISMA | WINTER 2021 | 5 Other forms of the album drop include the occasional promotional tie-in. These can vary in quality of execution. U2’s infamous Songs of Innocence release with Apple in 2014 is the most prominent example of this. There’s also the odd publicity stunt meant to drum up hype for a new release; think Aphex Twin flying a blimp around London to promote Syro, or Arcade Fire starting a fake corporation complete with uniforms and parody products before the release of Everything Now. These stunts can end up making the rollout more exciting than the album itself. Prince published copies of 20Ten as a covermount with the Belgian newspapers Het Nieuwsblad & de Gentenaar and the British newspaper Daily Mirror, but did anyone listen to that? Artists have become extremely creative (some might say messy) with their rollouts in recent years. There have been entire alternate reality games created to coincide with the release of an album, like Nine Inch Nails’ Year Zero, Death Grips’ NO LOVE DEEP WEB, or Boards of Canada’s Tomorrow’s Harvest. Some albums like Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! were even handed out as CDs during concerts, leaving the fanbase to put together the pieces and essentially create the album rollout themselves. There are albums that are put out gradually—released piece by piece—like Moses Sumney’s Grae and Denzel Curry’s TA1300. TA1300 was released as three separate EPs on consecutive days, with each piece named for its tone of music as the album shifts from poppier tunes to more intense bangers. This might have weakened the hype around the album, but it gave Curry a way to show his unique artistic vision for the project.

Leak culture has been brought to the forefront with the rise in popularity of unconventional album rollouts, especially in the world of hip hop. Songs or full albums are sold by inside sources to online communities like Twitter and Reddit where they are distributed and make the rounds across the internet. Unreleased music can gain steam in smaller, more niche communities, but also occasionally reach

the masses—think Pissy Pamper (Kid Cudi) by Playboi Carti. The buildup to Carti’s most recent album Whole Lotta Red was almost entirely built off more than two years of unreleased songs (see Carti’s surprise as the crowd sang the lyrics of an unreleased song back to him at a festival). Artists as big as Kanye West have adopted these attention-garnering methods of releasing an album, most notably in the past three years. West announced multiple release dates for the unreleased album Yandhi that eventually became a very different album, Jesus Is King. He would do the same with Donda, this time releasing the album in a similar form to what was teased, even after years of delay. Between his incredible fame, very public mental illness struggles, and his perfectionism, it’s hard to attribute Kanye’s unique rollouts as being something indicative of a broader strategy and not just impulsive, chaotic decisions. The album rollout has evolved in the mainstream as well. Rising pop star Lil Nas X promoted his album MONTERO this year by mixing a typical series of singles, music videos, and announcements with very modern promotion strategies on Twitter and TikTok. Single selection is another way in which artists have evolved—singles are usually selected for a combination of how much the label and artist think they could chart and how well it reflects the sound of the overall project. Not every single will be a smash hit, but previewing the whole sound of the album is relatively rare, an approach fully embraced by artists like Tyler, the Creator and The Strokes. The emergence of social media platforms as major vehicles for song discovery and music promotion has changed the industry too. Has the rise of TikTok and 10 second song snippets made the album rollout process less important? Albums might cause a stir with an unconventional rollout, but the quality of the music often determines how they will be remembered. A surprise drop does not guarantee an enhanced listening experience. An artist’s choice to forgo the traditions of an album release can easily be seen as an attempt to cover up a rushed or poorly made body of music. With the fall in popularity of physical music media, there are less incentives for an artist to follow a more traditional rollout routine since they aren’t inclined to sell 45s off of record store shelves. Streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music aren’t going anywhere—the world is the artists’ oyster for switching up their album releases.

emo isn’t dead

henever I see genre discussion online, or overhear it in person, I find that there’s often no greater dissonance in taste and opinion than in is gatekeeping killing it? by jason evers everyone’s least favorite genre (other than country, apparently): emo. What the hell even is emo, anyway? In one of my first college classes, I was talking to a girl about her schedule, and she told me how she missed registration for a class she really wanted to take, and how she was so emo about it. If I felt like being an emo know-it-all, I’d probably mention something about how there’s plenty of happy emo songs, and that sadness is just one emotion on the emo spectrum, just like any other genre. Luckily, I didn’t do this, firstly because it would’ve been insufferable, and secondly because she probably didn’t even think of music at all when “emo” left her mouth. To her, it just meant “sad.” Why, though, in her mind, does “emo” connote “sadness?” If I had to guess, it’s because of the old internet stereotype of bright-haired scene kids, angsty and whining about high school, where offensive jokes about self-harm abound. Maybe it has something to do with South Park’s morose troupe of goth kids, who sullenly listen to Sunny Day Real Estate. Wikihow.com, in its tutorial for how to be emo, instructs readers to grow bangs over their eyebrows and to consider getting snake bites and septum piercings. Whatever it is, I don’t see emo as a particularly sad type of music; in fact, I think it’s quite the opposite. The genre’s long and complex history may hold the answers to the dissonance in opinion between listeners and non-listeners. Genre is an ever-changing facet of music; however, in most genres, it’s hard to disagree on why an artist has claimed the genre of music they make. If you ask any random person what genre Kanye West’s music is, you’ll undoubtedly be told he’s either a rapper or a hip-hop artist. Anyone who knows Mingus knows he’s a jazz musician. However, depending on who you ask, My Chemical Romance could be an emo band, or they might not be. While highly reputable and totally unbiased source isthisbandemo.com outright declares “MCR is not an emo band,” several Tufts students told me that they absolutely were—one even describing them as “peak emo.” When I asked random students about what bands characterized their “emo phase” (if they were unfortunate enough to have one), I heard names like Fall Out Boy, Twenty One Pilots, and Blink-182. When seeking out genre essentials online, however, names like these rarely, if ever, come up in the discussion. Music cataloguing site Rate Your Music lists The Brave Little Abacus, American Football, and Orchid as some of the best emo bands of all time. The only aforementioned “fake emo” band that appears in the top 100 emo releases is My Chemical Romance’s Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, appearing at #22. Good for Gerard Way. My go-to emo bands fall much more in line with the supposed “real emo” than the “fake emo.” American Football and Rainer Maria’s somber, longing anthems characterized my homecomings and proms, and by my senior year of high school, I would hide the wire of my earbuds within my sweater so that I could secretly listen to the clamor of Snowing and Algernon Cadwallader during physics class. Of course, this meant that I had a brief annoying phase where I took it upon myself to be the crusader against “fake emo”—how dare you call Lil Peep and Panic! at the

MELISMA | WINTER 2021 | 7 Disco by that name—but I was quick to understand that no one really cared if their favorite artist was emo or not. They just wanted to listen to their favorite artist. Funnily enough, even I—a former crusader against “fake emo”—was on at least two occasions labeled a fake emo myself. The first occurred at a basement show, where an avid Pageninetynine fan scoffed when I told him that The Hotelier and Mineral are two of my favorite emo bands. The second occurred online, where I first learned of the infamous “real emo” copypasta, which I imagine that snarky Pageninetynine fan really wholeheartedly believes in. The angry 155 word diatribe denounces Sunny Day Real Estate and American Football as fake emo, claiming that “real emo sounds ENERGETIC, POWERFUL, and somewhat HATEFUL. Fake emo is weak, self pity and a failed attempt to direct energy and emotion into music.” That line always makes me laugh. I can only imagine the kind of genre crusader who would write something like that, and I hope I never meet him. I guess, then, that there’s essentially three groups of emos: emos who think Fall Out Boy is real emo, emos who think American Football is real emo, and anti-fun keyboard warriors who think that the only real emo bands are those few early hardcore offshoots from the 80s. Even then, Ian MacKaye, who was seminal to the formation of emo in the mid-80s, hated the term “emo.” When the January 1986 issue of Thrasher magazine labelled MacKaye’s band Embrace “emo-core” (the first use of the term), MacKaye quickly rebutted the notion, stating “‘emo-core’ must be the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life . . . Emotional hardcore. As if hardcore wasn’t emotional to begin with.” He’s right, though. Hardcore was an emotional form of music even before Thrasher coined emo-core. What isn’t emo, then? I’d argue that any music genre is, at its core, emotional, because music is a very emotional form of art. Most things that people do are dictated by emotions, really. How could something be “fake emo” if it truly is rooted in and driven by emotion? It’s clear that even within the genre, there is much dissonance about what even constitutes “real” emo. And, with the addition of new emo offshoots like Pinegrove’s emo-country and GothBoiClique’s emo rap, it’s hard to tell what even grants an artist that “emo” label anymore. Highly-independent lo-fi artists like Weatherday and Your Arms Are My Cocoon are pioneering a new wave of bedroom emo. Perhaps, just like how emo began as emotion-

al hardcore—hardcore that was more emotional in tone—emotional country or emotional rap will be the new version of emo-core. It may sound, as MacKaye would put it, like the “stupidest fucking thing you’ve ever heard in your entire life,” but perhaps, in time, artists like these will just be strictly considered a part of emo, rather than a derivative. At some point, though, we have to ask ourselves what role genre plays in music discourse and acknowledge how much power it holds over the discussion. Genre is an incredible way of classifying music that sounds similar, this much is true, and it allows people to discover more of what they enjoy, leading to a more fulfilling, holistic music experience. However, incessant reverence for maintaining genre purity in music discourse can ultimately lead to a way of discussing music that is off-putting and wards off newcomers to certain genres. Emo is a prime example of this phenomenon. To be berated for attempting to interact with a genre, simply for misclassifying a band’s place within that genre—the terms, definitions, and sound of that genre constantly unclear and in flux—would most surely scare off potential listeners seeking to join a new community. What is emo, then? Is it the visceral, sweat-soaked screams of the 80s hardcore scene? Is it the mathy Midwest riffs of the 90s? Is it the snappy lyrics and song structures of 2000s pop-punk? Or, is it something else? The throughline that ties these wildly different eras together is their subject matter: being in touch with one’s own emotions. It’s very possible that “real emo” and “fake emo” is a false dichotomy. Sure, to me, emo might sound like American Football or Rainer Maria, but to someone else it could sound like Panic! or Blink-182—if that’s the music that’s in touch with their own emotions, who is anyone to call that fake emo? A genre can only grow and evolve as new ideas approach from outside influences. By branding anything outside of a strict emo canon as “fake emo,” the genre won’t be able to adapt. It’ll become stale. Gatekeeping “real emo” isn’t going to help it grow—it’s only going to scare off new listeners and make the genre more niche than it already is. If moshing to D.C. hardcore feels emo to you, let it be. If sweater vests and math rock feel emo to you, let them be. If pop punk and guyliner feel emo to you, let them be. The term “fake emo” was never meant to be, and it’s time to put it to rest.

JOYER, PULSR AND LIFE AS AN INDEPENDENT ARTIST IN A DIGITAL AGE Halla Clausi & Spencer Vernier

Walk by, and it appears as nothing more than another Boston brownstone. On a day-to-day basis, that’s exactly what The Kennel in Allston is. On occasion, however, this semi-suburban home is host to an assortment of college students, twenty-somethings and relatively unknown bands. All this, of course, takes place in a basement with a smell that’s difficult to identify, but falls somewhere in between sweaty bodies and shockingly thick dust. In the mildly warm air of a night at The Kennel in early October, alongside a rare solo acoustic performance from Strange Mangers, the lineup included Connecticut three-piece Pulsr and slowcore merchants Joyer. If you’ve not heard a single one of those names, fear not—you’ve not suddenly fallen behind in your oh-so-vast musical knowledge. All acts are effectively unheard of outside select spheres, their notoriety restrained to those who know of them within the independent, do-it-yourself music scenes of Boston, Philadelphia, New York City, and various other east-coast destinations. This was all of little importance to anyone attending that evening—the music spoke for itself. Following the quiet, subdued Strange Mangers set, when Pulsr hit the stage with blaring guitars and crashing drums the crowd erupted. The group gathered in the Allston basement held that energy throughout their set and continued it as Joyer arrived, with their striking riffs and waves of ear-wrenching noise. The pure, untamed enthusiasm of the crowd fueled both performances, and as Jake of Pulsr told me, “...when there are a lot of people there and they’re digging our stuff, that leads to a good performance for me, and tonight, it felt like that, and it felt really good,” a consensus shared by his bandmates Josh and Drew. Shows like these are essential for a band’s

confidence, chemistry, and for establishing their name in local and regional scenes. In the past, though, they weren’t just essential, they were everything—by far the determining factor of a band’s success. However, with the arrival of MTV, and even more impactfully that of the internet and music streaming services, the world of music consumption was permanently altered. It’s now easier than ever to form a band, make and record music, and publish that music for the entire world to hear with ease. At the same time, as independent artists unable to subsist on music, bands like Joyer and Pulsr find life as an obstacle, a hurdle to overcome, rather than a vehicle for creative processes and making music. Nick and Shane Sullivan of Joyer live in different states, Nick at home in New Jersey and Shane in Boston, studying at Emerson, and with Pulsr, Jake and Drew both work full-time while Josh is a student at Wesleyan. For Joyer, living apart from one another hasn’t just caused the band to exist in a state of constant transformation, but has meant fully attended pre-show practices are a rare occurrence. There’s uncertainty in bringing together all the necessary pieces for a show, each set as unpredictable as ever. Engaging in the creative process while being a full-time student has been a struggle facing Shane in particular, who said, “...it’s definitely harder to work on music during the semester. I wish I had more time to write, or even just to play.” Nonetheless, there is a silver lining: “...once the semester is over, everything just spews out and I’ll have these really productive periods,” and fortunately, it’s easy nowadays to bring together all the elements for a track through the magic of the internet. Pulsr have dealt with similar complications in their own journey as a band, all attempting to

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give everything they can to their music while balancing it with the more day-to-day. While not as physically distant as the brothers behind Joyer, obligations to their jobs and studies create a sort of tug-of-war, with their musical passions taking one end of the rope and the pursuits typically deemed as “real life” on the other. Despite the insanity of it all, it’s abundantly clear all those involved in both bands wouldn’t have things any other way. When I asked Joyer about the necessity of music in their lives, Shane told me “it’s the only thing I really care about,” and Nick affirmed that, saying, “I couldn’t imagine what I would do if I didn’t have music.” Loving, creating and playing music has been a bond between the brothers as long as they can remember, and the near-exact alignment of their musical interests has made working together a natural outcome. With music at the heart of their lives and their brotherhood, it is irrefutably a shared lifeblood coursing through them. Pulsr finds meaning and connection in their music too, priding themselves on playing as a tight, collective unit, holding a deep appreciation for one another, and finding, as Jake put it, that music “is the most purposeful thing” in their lives, despite “how small and insignificant it is.” The joy they found in sharing the same stage and spending time together was glaringly obvious, and in discussing their chemistry, Josh emphasized how crucial “being locked with both [of his bandmates]” is to the band. There’s a gratitude, mutual appreciation and love of the craft that underlies everything they do, exemplified by moments from our interview like Drew’s excitement about Jake “completely transforming the whole direction and vision” of a song they’ve been working on. The optimistic nature that exudes from the band is inescapable and infectious. Maybe it isn’t so insane to relish in these

lifestyles. While Joyer and Pulsr are living in a mad world for musicians, surely there’s something to be said for the beauty of what both are doing. Anyone who picked up their first instrument with the intention of accumulating riches and fame was doing it wrong. Sure, there’s the hellishness of attempting to balance a career or an education with being a musician, but at the same time, the current digital age of music has inspired completely new sounds, enabled previously impossible collaboration and broadened the scope of what music can look like. Genuinely, there’s never been a better age in which to be an independent artist. Creativity and innovation abound in a world where there are no bounds, where the development of music technology is accelerating at an unheard of pace and where all previous musical divides have disintegrated. Even with all the drastic changes in the appearance of independent music we bear witness to today, the DIY free-spiritedness of its roots holds fast. Jake encapsulated it best when he said, “We’re doing everything ourselves, and it’s just focusing on having fun with each other and trying to do something new and understanding every part of the process, and it’s really amazing to meet people that connect with it.” There’s a true, unbreakable fascination with and love of music at the heart of both bands, one that brings with it a sense of fulfillment unlike any other. That’s what we’re all aiming for, isn’t it? You can find Joyer’s music here: @Joyerband “Joyer,” on all streaming platforms. And Pulsr’s music here: @Pulsr_ “Pulsr,” on all streaming platforms.

ARTISTS TO WATCH MOMMA

Momma aren’t necessarily new to the LA indie rock scene, but they’ve still got a lot to offer. With tracks like “Double Dare” and “Biohazard,” Momma boasts a quintessential indie sound complete with soothing guitars, clever hooks, and the drawling voice of singer Allegra Washington. Inspired by artists like Elliott Smith and Kim Deal, Momma’s music has everything it takes to become pulp monoliths. Check out their new single “Medicine” at the Spotify code below.

- LOLA NEDIC

SOGONE SOFLEXY

Corpus Christi rapper and recent signee to BROCKHAMPTON members Kevin Abstract and Romil Hemnani’s label Video Store, SoGone SoFlexy brings a distinctive and grimy southern sound to the rap scene. Flowing over instrumentals with strong Texas rap and chopped and screwed influences, Flexy’s deep voice has a strong presence on every track he is on. With two features on BROCKHAMPTON’s latest album, ROADRUNNER, SoGone SoFlexy will be a name to look out for if he continues his upward trajectory.

- ANDRÉS LOPEZ

HATCHIE

Every song from Harriette Pilbeam’s dream-pop project “Hatchie” sonically evokes a sweet rush of hedonism through her jangly guitars and hazy vocals. Reminiscent of ethereal ‘90s melodies, the singer-songwriter’s debut 2018 EP “Sugar & Spice” launched her music into Spotify’s indie hits playlists. Hatchie’s 2019 follow-up and debut album Keepsake—filled with similar heart-wrenching lyrics about breakup— blends fiery surf-rock guitars with shimmery synths and punchy, danceable beats in songs like “Obsessed” and “Stay With Me.” With her newest 2021 single “This Enchanted” taking on more lush, energetic, layered synths, Hatchie plans for a sequel-record release in 2022.

- IAN GLASSMAN

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FAMOUS

Following in the freshly-laid footsteps of contemporaries such as Black Midi, Squid, and Black Country, New Road, London-based band Famous are poised to be the next big British postpunk group. Vocalist Jack Merrett speak-sings for the most part, but his voice can curl into a manic and gritty snarl without warning. The band’s lyrics are a splash darker, visceral, absurdist, and violent than those of their peers – on “Modern Times” from The Valley, Merrett abruptly spirals into a frenzied yelp: “Don’t ever look the other way, don’t ignore me! Oh California, here we come! And I’m thinking about fucking in a car and shooting heroin!” If that sounds too intense though, songs like “Forever,” “I Want To Crawl Inside of You,” and “Surf ’s Up!” are more accessible, but still retain the band’s anxious energy. If you want to get in on the new wave of British postpunk bands, Famous are definitely ones to watch.

Based in Austin, Texas, Hey Cowboy! is a three-piece synthy bedroom-pop/rock group that will charm its way into your heart and Spotify library. 2018’s The Soft Kind was a comfort to me during quarantine, with sprawling tracks like “Cowboy” and “Spicy Tuna” leaning into echoing lyrics and bouncy breakdowns. If you’re looking for a place to start listening, look no further than the introspective optimism of “Cherry Jerry Citrus,” the band’s most popular track off of 2020’s Get In My Fanny Pack and Let’s Go. Hey Cowboy! recently released their most recent single, “Not 4 U,” and an accompanying music video this November, and lucky fans like myself anticipate another album release sometime in 2022.

- ETHAN LAM

- GEORGIA MOORE

HEY COWBOY!

CHRISTELLE BOFALE

Hailing from Austin, Texas, singer-songwriter Christelle Bofale’s intricate and unwinding folk music should be on your radar. EP Swim Team, showcases Bofale’s immense talent. “U Ouchea” is a sprawling 7-minute journey into Bofale’s psyche, its jazzy guitar licks and gently unpredictable vocals setting Bofale apart from peers. “Origami Dreams” is a jangly breakup jam proving that Bofale can write a hook-laden indie rock single with the best of ‘em. Bofale’s body of work is simultaneously immediately accessible and rewarding to those willing to truly give the music the time, space, and vulnerability it asks for. If you’re willing to unfurl alongside it, you’re in for a treat.

- MICHAEL CAMBRON

L’Rain by Georgia Moore Samia by Ian Smith Julien Baker by Miranda Feinberg

Sylvan Esso by Julia Bernicker Lucy Dacus by Ian Smith Faye Webster by Julia Bernicker

Japanese Breakfast by Ethan Lam Half Waif by Ethan Lam CHVRCHES by Ethan Lam

concerts!

The Front Bottoms by Lola Nedic City Morgue by Andrés López

Indigo de Souza by Georgia Moore Isaiah Rashad by Ethan Lam

DAYGLOW by Georgia Moore MUNA by Ethan Lam

IDLES by James Morse Savannah Conley by Ian Smith

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The Legacy Of Music Taste: A Conversation By Grace Rotermund (‘24) and Ian Smith (‘24) How do our parents influence our music taste, if at all? Grace and Ian sat down with Tufts Professors Dr. Aniruddh Patel and Dr. Tali Ditman to answer this question. Grace: If I ever complain to you about sound quality in earbuds or a room’s speaker system, know that it comes from my dad. He’s been an audiophile since the age of 15 (his own words) and insists that our living room sound system include a 3-cubic-foot bass booster and 4-foot speakers. Interestingly enough, the music that comes out of the speakers when he’s got AUX is a mix of hair metal and modern-day bubblegum pop. It is not uncommon to hear Def Leppard and Sabrina Carpenter within the same half-hour. This seems to have spread to my own music taste, with Blondie and Machine Gun Kelly being frequent neighbors on my Spotify playlist. Ian: While my dad isn’t an audiophile like Grace’s, I can definitely relate to my dad having an eclectic music taste. He’s the one that got me into Vampire Weekend, MGMT, the XX, Coldplay, and all the big-name indie hitters who gained popularity when I was in elementary school. He would play a lot of 80’s new wave and 90’s indie rock while driving my sister and I around, and his stories of going to see The Cocteau Twins, The Smiths, and Siouxsie and the Banshees in concert have captured my imagination since a young age. I even remember once when I borrowed his iPod so I could listen to some music on a family vacation, and I listened to Björk’s Vespertine for the first time while watching the snow-capped Colorado mountains move past my window at the ripe age of 10. G: With our parents having wildly diverse music tastes that have impacted our own pretty strongly, we were wondering if there was a psychological explanation behind this ~magical phenomenon~. Could it be that there’s some legitimate reasoning behind how I still listen to my dad’s Pat Benetar faves (nostalgia aside, of course), or are our parents’ music tastes just based?

I: Personally, we both hold the opinion that playing music around developing kids will influence them heavily, and while your music taste grows on its own, ultimately it stems from your parents. Sociologically, your parents are one of the biggest influences on you when you’re growing up since you’re around them all the time. It only makes sense that music taste is one of the things they have an impact on. G: As it turns out, we weren’t the first people to think of this possible connection! Research from 2011 and 2019 (Derbaix, 2019, and ter Bogt, 2011) points to active AND passive sharing of musical taste. This happens both through imitation, like what happens when you look up a song your mom played on the drive home, and conscious parental imparting, like when your parents take you to a Coldplay concert when they’ve been the specified favorite parental band for years. Additionally, according to Derbaix, a professor at the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium, there are a few different ways taste can be shared: “inculcation”, or direct training/socialization (“I am showing you this song right now, listen to it”), “impregnation”, or indirect socialization (blasting music while cooking dinner), and “mutual training” (“let’s look at pictures from our Coldplay concert last week.”) I: On the other hand, it’s possible that you learn what you don’t like and thus listen to music that is the furthest from what your parents listened to. For example, my mom listens to a lot of Top 40 radio hits, and while I do enjoy some popular songs, I stay away from them for the most part. Tom ter Bogt, a professor of social and behavioral sciences at Utrecht University, found that kids like to rebel against parental authority. By turning to different or so-called “deviant” music, these young people gain

MELISMA | WINTER 2021 | 15 a sense of independence from their parents. G: We also wanted to talk to somebody face to face about this in order to get a personalized expert opinion. Dr. Aniruddh Patel of the Tufts Psychology Department specializes in the cognitive neuroscience of music and was nice enough to sit down with us for a chat. Here’s what he had to say: DA: Yeah, there is some research about when you ask people about the music they like as adults, there’s a lot of emphasis on the stuff they heard as adolescents - not only their own music that they sought out and found on their own, but also the music their parents would play when they were adolescents. It’s kind of like this critical period, almost, during your formation of your identity. There’s some research on… the reminiscence bump, in music, or cascading reminiscence bumps, and there’s this whole link between music and autobiographical memory, so music taking you back to important times in your life when you were listening to that music.

Could it be that there’s some legitimate reasoning behind why I still listen to my dad’s Pat Benetar faves (nostalgia aside, of course), or are our parents’ music tastes just based? I: Dr. Patel pointed us in the direction of these “cascading reminiscence bumps” - defined as the phenomenon in which music and music taste is transmitted from generation to generation, and thus shapes memories, preferences, and emotional responses. To further explain this phenomenon, a study was conducted by Cornell University in which two Billboard Top 100 songs from the past 5 decades were played for a group of college students, and they were asked to rate the songs based on recognition, emotional connection, personal memories associated with the song, and who they listened to the song with. They found that recent music sparked emotions, nostalgia, and personal memories, but they also found that the songs from 20 and 40

years ago did the same, which is when our parents were forming their own music taste. It only makes sense that our parents would then pass it down to us. G: Dr. Tali Ditman, also of the Psych Department here at Tufts, was also willing to give us some psychological explanations as to the prevalence of parent-child music influence, with her perspective being more from the biological side. DT: A lot of different factors can influence our musical taste. There is some research that suggests that musical preference is related to personality, age, education, and sex. We’re also influenced by the music our friends and family listen to. For example, we might be more inclined to like certain music that our friends listen to, or music our parents listened to when we were children. A 2015 study by Dr. Greenberg and colleagues found that musical preference may even be linked to cognitive styles. These researchers found that people who were classified as empathizers preferred music that had low arousal and negative valence, whereas people who were classified as systemizers preferred high arousal music with positive valence. G: For context, “valence” means the positivity of music, while “arousal” essentially is excitement gained post-listen. So the systemizers in Dr. Ditman’s example might listen to music like Doja Cat, whereas empathizers are more likely to prefer Mitski. So, essentially, we were right! My mom’s Go-Go’s CDs on road trips were not wasted, and it is psychologically proven that you get (at least some) of your music taste from your parents. The next time you see them, make sure to 1) thank them for giving you such great listening options and 2) remind them about those pesky cascading reminiscence bumps. They will, obviously, be extremely familiar with the concept. I: So Grace, I have a question for you: how many artists from your Spotify Wrapped were from your parents? G: Well, you see, Ian, I’m not like other girls, so only one.

Parental Supervision You’ve read about the theory - now what about in practice? We asked both of our parents to sum up their music tastes in 3 sentences or less to see if we could spot any trends. “When I was in college, a guy I worked with told me that, in his experience, people tend to freeze their musical tastes at a certain point in their life and never progress past that or try new genres. I didn’t want to do that, so while these days I’m all about Peach Pit. My playlists include Rob Zombie, Johnny Cash, the Cranberries, Weezer, Waterparks, and Lord Huron.” - Chris Rotermund, Grace’s mom “Growing up in a small town, radio stations played either top 40 or heavy metal, nothing in between. I wasn’t passionate about [either type of] music at all. Our TV at the time had 100 channels and being a bored teen I would go through each one from time to time, comprised of mostly static and an occasional scrambled picture. But one lucky day, August 1, 1981, MTV was born. I watched it the very first day it aired. Channel 87 on our television. Of the few videos that they played, the one that stuck out to me the most was Flock of Seagulls’ “I Ran”. It got me hooked on alternative music, and I never went back.” - Steve Smith, Ian’s dad “My music tastes are pretty basic, I enjoy listening to top 40 hits and pop music. I did not have cable growing up, so I never watched MTV. I listened to whatever was popular on the radio. Also, I used to watch a show called “Solid Gold”, it was a weekly tv show with dancers counting down the current hits. My mom listened to salsa and merengue, and my dad listened to what is now referred to as classic rock, like The Eagles, Led Zepplin, Boston, Steve Miller Band, Electric Light Orchesta to name a few.” - Brenda Smith, Ian’s mom “I was always into records when I was young. Lots of Alan Parsons Project, my sisters would play albums around me and I got into music through them. Started burning CD playlists pretty young, but now you’ve influenced me more than the other way around à la CHVRCHES. Hell, I stole two of your Taylor Swift CDs and have her in three compilations. ” - Jon Rotermund, Grace’s dad

MELISMA | WINTER 2021 | 17

albums of the year what we listened to in 2021

Japanese Breakfast: Jubilee Above all else, Jubilee is a grand embrace of warmth, joy, and the sweetness that living has to offer. Emerging from the overarching theme of grief that defined her first two albums, Michelle Zauner (for the most part) steps into the sunshine and delivers an ode to life itself – “Oh, it’s a rush!” Jubilee is packed full of sweeping, lush, euphoric instrumentation – proud horns, upbeat synths, rich violin arrangements, exuberant sax solos – even if the lyrics may occasionally betray their sun-kissed glow. Highlights include “Be Sweet,” the best unabashedly ‘80s synthpop track of the year, “Posing for Cars,” a jaw droppingly powerful slow burner, and “Savage Good Boy,” a bizarre exploration of the apocalypse written from the perspective of the super-rich. The people closest to me know that I am a chronic overthinker. That I am constantly psyching myself out, operating under the assumption that the worst case scenario is bound to occur. But in 2021, as the world slowly began to reemerge from its shell, it was my turn to feel. To throw myself at new people, new experiences, and the world, despite not being entirely sure of how things might end. Throughout it all, Jubilee was my soundtrack – a reminder of how vital it is to feel with the entirety of your being – to give yourself over to life in full. How could you ever not? - Ethan Lam

Kero Kero Bonito: Civilisation On their fourth studio LP, Kero Kero Bonito fleshes out a more sophisticated version of their signature bouncy pop sound. Don’t get me wrong—the album is still recognizably Kero Kero Bonito. It still boasts the same twirling synths and Sarah Bonito’s cartoonishly high voice but unlike the band’s previous albums, Civilisation pairs much darker themes with a familiar sound. And though the album is a lot more pessimistic than KKB’s previous works, I can’t help but admire how well-timed the release of this record was. Civilisation is apocalypse-core at its finest—tracks like “When the Fires Come” and “Well Rested” dive deep into climate change and the human condition, while “The River” praises mother earth. The album is also an experiment in storytelling, with “The Princess and the Clock” telling a uniquely captivating fairytale. Civilisation is paradoxical in and of itself—it’s lighthearted yet apocalyptic, poetic yet daft. The audience is blessed with upbeat, twisty beats, then immediately snapped back into reality with macabre lines like “I see blood in my dreams” and “humanity is not worth existence.” It’s simultaneously defeatist and hopeful, the perfect album to come out of the hellscape that was 2021. - Lola Nedic

Navy Blue: Navy’s Reprise

On Navy’s Reprise, Sage Elsesser, better known as Navy Blue, reaches the culmination of what he had been building up to on Àdá Irin and Song of Sage: Post Panic!, his excellent 2020 releases. A sixteen-song LP with a runtime of a little over 39 minutes, his 2021 album is a pure stunner. Listening to Elsesser, it feels as if the words are all falling out of him effortlessly, his flows holding both the gentle and the devastating. With instrumentals that provide a gorgeous complement to Navy’s rhymes, Navy’s Reprise is all-consuming, absorbing the listener in its contemplative, uncertain, and immensely human story. “Damn the heroism Navy just another soul / A special spirit, blessings near wherever he go / My memory froze carve the tap of the stone / Charms a marrowless bone, scorn to reap what I’ve sown / There’s more of me to atone,” he raps on “God’s Magnetic Pull.” On this endlessly praise-worthy release, Elsesser bares all, making Navy’s Reprise an utterly personal experience that balances triumph and suffering in the perfect revelation. - Spencer Vernier

Lucy Dacus: Home Video

Lucy Dacus’ sophomore album, Home Video, is aptly titled, as Dacus’ songs paint a palpable portrait of childhood nostalgia. The track titles “Cartwheel,” “Partner in Crime,” and “Triple Dog Dare” bring me right back to my elementary school playground. Enveloped in comforting instrumentals, Dacus’ lyrics create more nostalgic images: “screened in door” (“First Time”), “cracked blacktop curling up,” (“Cartwheel”), “locking lips and braces brackets” (“Going, Going, Gone”), “eating cherries on the bridge” (“Partner in Crime”). In “Hot & Heavy,” she sings about the stifling yet familiar feeling of revisiting an old place and an old relationship: “It’s bittersweet to see you again.” An aspect of Home Video that tugs at my heart is the sweet platonic love that saturates Dacus’ songs. She sings about the little moments with her friends, a sleepy head on her shoulder in “Christine,” a hand grasped tightly in “Thumbs.” In these two songs in particular, along with “Please Stay,” Dacus shares the intense care she has for her friends with the listener. Every time I hear Dacus’ voice, I imagine what an incredible friend she must be, how I want someone like her in my life, and how I would like to be that person for someone else. Especially since entering college, I have met so many people that have suffered unimaginable hardships, and like Lucy Dacus, I wish I could take their pain away. - Olivia Bello

Black Country, New Road: For the first time

2021 has been an undeniably fantastic year for the surging post-punk genre, with bands such as Squid and Shame producing strong album of the year contenders. However, none struck me as more innovative or moving as For the first time by Black Country, New Road. BCNR are grounded in other post-punk bands that incorporate prog and jazz, such as Slint and black midi (a fact lead singer Isaac Wood openly references in his lyrics.) However, to dismiss this septet as ripoffs would be to dismiss their incredible talent, which is constantly on display on their debut project. While it is easy to focus on Wood’s dramatic and energetic displays as the heart of the band, the instrumental backdrops are what makes BCNR special. Each piece is noticeable, noisy, and fast, but they all fit within their roles and contribute to one cohesive whole, as best shown on the intro track “Instrumental” and the last minute of “Athens, France.” This cohesive whole is not a calming steady force but more of a constantly shifting, frenetic entity, always anxiously building to an eruption. This year was one where I had to deal with a lot of new beginnings and uncertainties of my own, many not seeming to make sense. For the first time reflected my anxiety back in an honest and beautiful form. - Isaac Dame

MELISMA | WINTER 2021 | 19

Taylor Swift: Red (Taylor’s Version) At around 12:30 AM on November 12th, 2021 I realized Red (Taylor’s Version) had been released. I got ready for bed, laid down, and started listening to the album in order. By the time I got to “I Knew You Were Trouble” I couldn’t hold myself back from listening to the 10 minute version of “All Too Well.” I was blown away. In my opinion folklore and evermore exemplified Swifts ability to tell stories through her lyrics, however “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (Taylor’s Version) (From The Vault)” and its accompanying short film proves that she has held those impressive songwriting skills since 2012. If a song can hold my full undivided attention for 10 minutes straight while prompting thoughts like “wow I really hope I have a whirlwind romance that ends in me being brutally dumped so that I can relate to lyrics like ‘you kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath’ and ‘just between us, did the love affair maim you all too well?’ with a real passion,” I feel that it deserves some praise. I might not have classified the original Red as my album of 2012, but now that the lyrics have the power to hit me like a ton of bricks, Red (Taylor’s Version) has quickly become my favorite sad girl album of 2021. - Katelyn Desjardins

Sweet Trip: A Tiny House...

I got into Sweet Trip at the start of the pandemic last March. Valerie Cooper’s ethereal whispers over Roby Burgos’ mysterious digital soundscapes provided comfort during one of the most uncomfortable periods of my life. I felt pretty lucky to have gotten into Sweet Trip when I did, because it seemed as though the group was just about ready to make a comeback right when I started listening to them. I was lucky enough to not have to suffer through the decade-long wait for a new Sweet Trip album; I was dropped in at the perfect time to become a new fan. A Tiny House... feels like a perfect mix between Sweet Trip’s two seminal releases: some tracks boast the glitchy static-shock of Velocity: Design: Comfort, while others preserve the playful pop structures of You Will Never Know Why, with many blending the best elements of both. My favorite track off of A Tiny House... is one that, I think, doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. “In Sound, We Found Each Other” serves not only as a life-loving, impassioned bridge between Sweet Trip’s electronic and indie pop styles, but also a look into the core of why the duo exists at all. Roby Burgos and Valerie Cooper found each other in their shared love of music, and their relationship has conjured swathes of new music lovers who got into music through Sweet Trip. - Jason Evers

Black Dresses: Forever In Your Heart

The noise-pop duo Black Dresses emerged, after having broken up mid2020, in February of this year to drop Forever In Your Heart, an album which takes the bottomless misery of the COVID era and asks, on its opening track, whether we can “make something beautiful with no hope.” The answer, if the album is to be taken as evidence, would seem to be a resounding yes. On this record, Black Dresses crank up the hysteria and use imagery of literal, earth-on-fire apocalypse alongside lockdown neuroticism, which synthesize together to form a profound figuration of the cloistered terror of life under late-disaster-capitalism. Buried amid all this violence, however, is a great deal of beauty and hope. Even as the album’s title serves as double entendre, framed as long-COVID nightmare by the lyric “it could live forever in your heart,” there is heart to be found here, and the album’s search for beauty, even in a world which seems supernaturally keen on stamping it out, is deeply affecting. Even as the closing track “(Can’t) Keep It Together” ends the album’s search for a meaningful existence under late capitalism in emotional collapse, there is peace and beauty to be found in having collapsed, and Black Dresses’ apocalypse-bricolage is one of the finest expressions of that beauty made. - Leo I.M

Schwey: Schwey 2: Cyber Soul I know what you’re thinking: “I wanna go on a flying boat ride through a colorful tunnel while receiving occasional slaps in the face with shiny and hefty cylinders! And I want it NOW!” Well, boy do I have the album for you, pal. Look no further than Schwey’s 2021 release Schwey 2: Cyber Soul! With this album, Schwey serves up a delectable concoction of funk, soul, and house that WILL compel you to move around in spontaneous and unreasonable ways. It scratches a lot of itches. It snaps! It crackles! It pops! Hell, I’d even go so far as to describe it as hoinky-zoinky, which means EXACTLY what it SOUNDS like it means, damnit!!! “Who Says” is a highlight of this lazy river-esque beginning of the album. Right past the halfway point is one of my favorite songs from the album, “Something I Know’s I’ve Got to Change” which starts out like a gentle breeze and gradually picks up the pace as it morphs into a layered and danceable journey. It makes you feel like Remi in that scene in Ratatouille when he eats a strawberry with cheese simultaneously, and then a bunch of colorful light patterns appear in his mind. My favorite part is the outro, in which the bass line takes on a heavy, dense and shifting texture, mixing with a percussion rhythm that will make you jump both up AND down! Repeatedly! If social conventions prevent you from jumping up and down physically, you WILL do so in the spiritual realm. - Donovan Menard

MELISMA | WINTER 2021 | 21

Shame: Drunk Tank Pink

Post punk is my favorite music genre, but I really have no clue what it is. Sure, I have a general idea, and I know what it isn’t, but the parameters are loose at best. Shame’s 2021 release Drunk Tank Pink is so much of what I love most about this genre I can only kind of explain. Explained in one word, this album is misanthropic. It’s a deep dive of anger and self-pity and angst, completed with loud enraged vocals and sharp guitar riffs. However, it’s never excessive in its misanthropic qualities, nor does it ever feel too angsty. It feels very earnest and surprisingly personal for something so seemingly angry. The album title itself is a reference to the name of the color that shame’s frontman Charlie Steen painted his room, a shade of pink known to reduce aggressive behavior. In that same sense, I see this album in the same light: it’s not necessarily meant to exacerbate anger and self-pity and all these negative qualities, but in creating this honest display of emotion, it’s meant to be weirdly calming and cathartic I still don’t know how to define post-punk. When I’m trying to make it easiest for people completely unfamiliar with the genre, I usually point them in the direction of a Joy Division or Gang of Four album. But the next time I’m asked, I may just have to include Drunk Tank Pink in that line up. - Lucy Millman

Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, London Symphony Orchestra:

Promises

It’s easy to wax poetic about Promises. Floating Points, the album’s composer, builds a mesmeric foundation with the London Symphony Orchestra and his own electronic instrumentation, ebbing with silence and sublime production. Pharoah Sanders, a monolith of the free jazz movement in the 1960s, adds to that structure with masterfully restrained yet soulful improvisations. Built from a single motif, the album’s nine movements flow effortlessly in an ambient, dream-like trance of serenity and drama, as minimal as it is explosive. There’s a timelessness to the music, perhaps due to the artist’s disparate backgrounds, where a mutual understanding is found in their commitment to crafting and expressing sheer beauty. The sparkling, surprisingly catchy theme played wwwwhroughout by Shepherd feels very much like “floating points” itself, met with supreme saxophone playing by Sanders and ineffable grandeur of the orchestra. This music is transcendent, revelatory, cinematic, spiritual, seamless, meditative, cosmic, mutating, formless, weightless, mercurial, and majestic; There are so many words including these to describe the loveliness of this album that all of them feel arbitrary. Promises mutates and transcends as though it were alive, filled with a life eternal. And based on what you’ve just read, I think I should amend my previous statement. It’s very easy to wax poetic about Promises. - Jackson Rhodes

Mia Ariannaa:I’m A Good Girl... Do You Believe Me?

Relaxing in my backyard under the summer sun, I had the idea to do something I’d never done before – listen to an album recommended to me by Spotify’s algorithm, with no prior knowledge of the album or artist. As soon as the first song started, I had the simple thought, “I need to do this more often.” Mia Ariannaa’s I’m A Good Girl… Do You Believe Me? is as bold and racy as its title suggests. Ariannaa’s debut EP explores the realities of fake friends (“F.A.B.”), regrettable exes (“What Was I Thinking?”), sexual fantasies (“T.A.G.”), and jealousy so intense it becomes violent (“S.T.M.F.U.”). Clearly, Mia doesn’t hold back. She cleverly utilizes her ability to go back and forth between singing (with harmonies and a smoothness reminiscent of Summer Walker) and rapping to help express a range of emotion and intensity in her songs. This album is upbeat and fiery enough to blast in the car and shout along to, but also easy enough on the ears that it can be the perfect soundtrack for your backyard summer relaxing. - Daniel Schwartz

spring preview Upcoming Albums 1/14/22 Cordae - From a Birds Eye View 1/21/22 King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard - Butterfly 3001 Aurora - The Gods We Can Touch Band Of Horses - Things Are Great 1/28/22 Eels - Extreme Witchcraft 2/4/22 Mitski - Laurel Hell Saba - Few Good Things Black Country, New Road - Ants from Up There Animal Collective - Time Skiffs

2/11/22 Spoon - Lucifer on the Sofa Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You 2/18/22 Beach House - Once Twice Melody Khruangbin & Leon Bridges - Texas Moon - EP 2/25/22 Spiritualized - Everything Was Beautiful 3/18/22 Charli XCX - CRASH 4/8/22 Let’s Eat Grandma - Two Ribbons

Upcoming Concerts Cat Power 1/18/22 @ Paradise Rock Club The Beths 1/23/22 @ The Sinclair Best Coast 1/24/22 @ Royale Samia 1/25/22 @ Paradise Rock Club Ezra Furman 1/27/22 @ Crystal Ballroom Kacey Musgraves, King Princess & MUNA 1/27/22 @ TD Garden Courtney Barnett and Shamir 2/8/22 @ Boch Center Wang Theatre The War on Drugs 1/31/22 2/1/22 @ House of Blues Still Woozy 2/8/22 Squirrel Flower 2/10/22 @ Sinclair CHAI 2/11/22 @ Sinclair Dorian Electra 2/12/22 @ Royale IAN SWEET 2/12/22 @ Brighton Music Hall Pinegrove 2/16/22 @ House of Blues serpentwithfeet 2/17/22 @ Crystal Ballroom Black Country, New Road 2/19/22 @ Sinclair The Avalanches 2/20/22 @ Paradise Rock Club Sleigh Bells 2/24/22 @ Paradise Rock Club illuminati hotties & fenne lily 2/25/22 @ Sinclair Clairo & Arlo Parks 2/27/22 @ House of Blues Faye Webster 2/28/22 @ Royale Aminé 3/4/22 @ House of Blues Iceage and Sloppy Jane 3/7/22 @ Sinclair

BADBADNOTGOOD 3/14/22 @ Royale Animal Collective @ 3/15/22 @ Paradise Rock Club Tank and the Bangas 3/16/22 Sports 3/17/22 @ Brighton Music Hall Khruangbin 3/17//3/18 @ Roadrunner Just Friends 3/20/22 @ Crystal Ballroom Mitski 3/21/22 @ Roadrunner Chelsea Cutler 3/26//3/27 @ Roadrunner Car Seat Headrest 3/26 @ House of Blues Perfume Genius 4/5/22 @ Royale Hurray for the Riff Raff & Anjimile 4/13/22 Paradise Rock Club Big Thief 4/13/22 @ Roadrunner alt-J 4/14/22 @ Agganis Arena Charli XCX 4/20/22 @ House of Blues Porches 4/21/22 @ Paradise Rock Club Homeshake 4/18/22 @ Royale Saba 4/29/22 @ Paradise Rock Club Rina Sawayama 5/5/22 @ Royale Destroyer 5/8/22 @ Sinclair PUP 5/10/22 @ House of Blues Omar Apollo 5/11 @ Big Night Live Beach Bunny 5/12/22 @ House of Blues Built to Spill 5/14/22 @ Paradise Rock Club Little Simz 5/19/22 @ Sinclair

THE INDIE ICEBERG... shazaming at a concert

level 1

“my life is a movie” playlists

likes “bangers” that “slap” owns band shirts crosley record player

youtube playlists listens to discover weekly skullcandy

who is morissey?

level 2 SXSW

wired earbuds

koss porta pros on music tiktok

level 3 /mu/

theneedledrop

pitchfork

hates morissey

topsters

makes spotify playlist for crush

stalking on spotify

shazams at a DJ set hates morissey

went for the opener, left before the headliner

burns CD for crush has a rym account last.fm

level 4 soulseek and musicbee cassettes only

favorite band is not on spotify

hates morissey flaming lips zaireeka

headphones stay on during sex kid A pitchfork review is on ur tombstone understands cocteau twins

“breaks in” headphones

dedicates soundcloud EP to crush faye wong cocteau twins shazams songs to scrobble them

top 0.05% listener for box fan white noise loves morissey

the abyss

has been blocked by their favorite artist

no crush can compete with the power of true indie music

3215 albums reviews on rym

ARE YOU A MUSIC FAN?? ADD ‘EM UP AND SEE... level 1 = 1 point each level 2 = 2 points each level 3 = 3 points each level 4 = 4 points each the abyss = 10 points each ...YOUR RESULTS!! 0-5 points: lol normie. you picked up this magazine thinking it was the observer. 6-15 points: not bad. ur jeans are cuffed a little tight, but ur head is in the indie game. probably a phoebe bridgers fan. 16-30 points: just indie enough to be annoying, not quite pretentious. you definitely liked it “before it was cool,” but is it even cool now? 31-59 points: the internet was a mistake. u are probably on melisma staff. 60+ points: music itself was a mistake. you are the music enjoyer we all know and fear. use ur cred wisely...

...OR A MUSIC ENJOYER??