Owned since: 2018
Genre: Indie pop? Indie rock? It’s good!
Where I bought it: Pêle-Mêle Brussels
Year: 2018
Label/pressing: New West Records
For sure the most recent record we’ve covered so far, and I think one that has it fans over here. Caroline Rose’s third album saw her leave behind her country roots for a style that is best described as ‘pop music the way by punk’. It’s like Rose herself said, Justin Timberlake through the lens of an early Blondie (she said 70’s punk but still). A very unique sound that makes this such a great record. It feels like an artist that finally found the sound they feel comfortable with and that they can express themselves with. But now, for a nice little side-bar I like to go into where I grabbed this record.
Pêle-Mêle is pretty much an institution in Brussels. A massive store carrying a lot of deadstock, overstock or secondhand records, books, comics, toys and whatever else located just outside the main streets of Brussels’ extremely busy center. It’s always swamped with people inside and its set-up is cramped beyond belief, even if it’s quite big. Over the years, I’ve picked up a fair bunch of records here when I’m visiting friends in Brussels and we get sick of drinking/going to shows. Normally, I tend to get stuck in here on the hottest day of the week and its clammy nature isn’t really made for me, but it leads to the hilarious image of me batting away sweat while going through the record bins.
The store pretty uniquely stocks a lot of deadstock and slight misprints of pretty recent releases, though even these are extremely limited. Most of the time, they just get a bunch of copies they throw in bins that nearly always someone is going through. Sometimes, even releases from the same year for cut prices like the 6 euros(6,82 dollar) I paid for Loner. It’s a lot of digging, and most of the time you will run empty, but it’s the closest to pre-internet record shopping you can get these days I guess. There is always one person that looks like a slight bizarro version of you running around also, confirming all the stereotypes about people who frequent these stores.
Back to the Rose record. I remember when I first heard this early in 2018 after a year I was mostly listening to a lot of experimental music and metal finding(again) myself quite tired with normal indie fare. It was just the right record to get me leaning a bit more to indie(-rock) music again. It’s very punk in a way; Rose sets out against her old country image which she got disillusioned with and plays nearly every instrument on this record. It leads to a sound that recalls early Le Tigre and well pop music, a lot of pop music.
It never really jumps the gun on going all in on that, but songs like Money and Getting To Me aren’t far removed from mainstream radio play while keeping their pretty punchy lyrics about greed and a feeling of isolation. Absolute driving force of it all is the synthesizer organ that pretty much comes up in every song and just gives it all a weird but welcoming 60’s pop edge. Think of Carole King’s Monkees songs played by a damaged post-punk band pretty much and you’re halfway there with a lot of these songs.
Highlight of this record being the wonderful Jeannie Becomes a Mom, where the organ synth takes a rare lead and lyrics that take the form of an unexpected pregnancy and looking forward but also covers the endless running need to fulfill your dreams and how they’re always changing so you never feel like you were 100% in completing a dream life.
Endless running through anxiety to fulfill your goals is a bit of an overarching theme for this record, even more if you take the album cover for granted. The training suits were also used for the live sets and gave it all a very tongue-in-cheek but also fun gimmick that made the band stand out a bit more live. This is a record that really shines in a live setting also, there are tons of videos of Rose touring this record and the infectious energy of her and the band really makes these songs shine even harder then they do already on record.
Rose’s follow up Superstar went more into R&B grounds but also kept a few of the things from this record. It’s also a great record, well worth a listen, and honestly makes me look forward a lot to what she does next. This is for sure one of the most fresh and delightful indie rock records of the last couple years, even 3 years after its release it hasn’t lost a bit of its shine.
Sloo: The plunking sounds of Getting to Me are my shit. Love this album. Fitting for someone who started their career with Americana sounds, this is sort of like if U.S. Girls and Neko Case teamed up while listening to a fuck ton of rockabilly.