Welcome to FRONTSEAT! This newsletter is an ongoing commentary on pop music, pop culture, and, oftentimes, a real-time unraveling of my own psyche. If you find yourself enjoying this, I would love it if you sent it to someone you think would, too!
IN MASSACHUSETTS ONLY THIRTY MINUTES FROM ALEWIFE
If this header ^ makes you cry/scream/throw up/lactate, it’s because you, too, are deeply and woefully and psychotically connected to Clairo’s debut album Immunity.
Yes, it’s true, I have started Immunity season early. It’s low 70s in NYC (but 60s when I go on my morning walk!!!) and very nearly October, which is close enough. I was a bit wine drunk Wednesday night after dinner at a friend’s and I decided to have Immunity soundtrack my subway ride home that evening, and the rule in my book is the first time you listen to it fully through after Labor Day marks the commencement of Immunity season.
My thoughts on Immunity season starting:
It goes without saying, probably, that this is one of my favorite albums ever. It offers a sadness, a melancholy, a stomach-lurching yearning that is so readily accessible from the very beginning of the very first track that it’s almost funny. Not much work is required — simply press play and dissociate immediately.
‘Alewife’ is a gut-punch album starter, covering Claire’s near-suicide attempt in eighth grade, an ode to her friend who helped her from taking her life. It makes me feel like someone is squeezing my heart until the juices start to bleed, slowly, out into my body’s internal cavity. So… yeah.
The following ten tracks build out an emotional landscape that knocks me out of my head and into some liminal, otherworldly space every single time. It’s just that effective.
‘Bags’ is a perfect song — and one of my favorite songs ever. ‘Sinking’ was the #2 song on my Spotify Wrapped 2020 because I used it so frequently to lull me to sleep. ‘Closer To You’ makes me actually want to hurl, in all of its haunted withdrawal.
As someone who famously only recently began to pay attention to lyrics, the feeling of this album is enough on its own to lobotomize me in the most cathartic way. The fuzzy guitars, muffled choruses — Claire’s whisper of a voice. I’m listening to ‘North’ right now and without even realizing it, I have a lump in my throat.
This is the album that inspired a Karl adage, which is as follows:
There is nothing quite like the psychological experience of taking the Metro North train in New England fall, sitting in the window seat, and listening to quiet, sad music as you gaze out at blank fields under gray skies.
Like, sorry, but there is probably nothing in my entire life that has felt more emotionally WILD and PALPABLE than listening to this album in 2019 as I took a train from New York City to Connecticut to visit a few friends at Wesleyan, a year after I’d graduated. The psychosis of going back to Wesleyan mixed with the wildly moody November air & overcast sky mixed with this album mixed with the post-grad existentialism I was already subjected to… I am not exaggerating when I say that the entire train ride I floated outside of my body and was merely an observer to whoever this Karl Ortegon guy was.
Being emo in New England during autumn while in transit is an EXPERIENCE!
This is all to say… I’m not sure exactly. The more I write this newsletter and include personal stories, the more I realize how careful I am when I convey my perspective, my thoughts, my life. I am terrified of how I come across because of a huge fear of being misunderstood! This is why I write everything out, and even when I write and write and write it can still feel like it’s not nearly enough.
But I wanted to share some thoughts about this album, which is truly a quintessential part of my fall music canon, and I know some of you share a deep passion for this record.
And — it’s just utterly astounding to me that music can have such a staggering effect on the psyche! I am a person who is often unimpressed by the world and my own life, and I am a person with expectations that are often set by some dream I had five years ago. Not to be like “i’m different” Jughead from Riverdale vibes, but I just find many things very silly and very uneventful. And I have insane expectations for everyone and everything, even when I realize how unrealistic and unfair they are.
But this album! It affects me so deeply and viscerally that I am sitting here trying to explain it to you, even though I hardly understand it myself, and yet I’m still hell-bent on trying to convey it all to you. What does that mean about me? What does that mean about newsletters? I don’t know!!!
Do you have an album that is, with or without explanation, inextricably tied to the season of fall? Share with the class:
GOING BACK: THE MOST UNDERRATED SONG ON ‘PLASTIC HEARTS’
Miley Cyrus’s latest album was solid — it didn’t GIVEEEE necessarily, but I really enjoyed it.
I recently was doing my daily labor (checking Spotify streaming numbers for various pop stars to see what number they’re at for no real reason) and I noticed that my favorite song on the album is the third-least streamed on the entire thing?! I’m talking about ‘Hate Me,’ of course.
For someone whose side hustle is feeling bad about himself, the song’s title alone is enough to perk my ears up. But Miley’s voice wails most pleasingly, most defeatedly, filled with anguish and scorn as she wonders into the void: would anybody care if I died? Will my love ever be requited?
It’s embarrassing, because surely life isn’t THAT dramatic… But, we’ve all felt like this — even when we know that it’s just in our heads. And if you’ve never felt like this, fuck off!!! I don’t believe you.
Of course, we all have lots of love in our life! It’s just easier for some of us (or just me lol) to forget.
Anyways, ‘Hate Me’ is so, so satisfying, chord-wise. I would urge you to listen especially to the part at 2:06, where the instrumental fades out and her voice just smacks you across the face. BAM!!! So good.
A TWEET THAT I’M MAD I DIDN’T TWOTE
Fomo IS so hard, and Tinashe IS so amazing. I could’ve texted this string of messages!!!