Nostalgia is a disease. Constantly lingering in the past is the easiest way to never move forward, and assuming things used to be better often prevents people from enjoying greatness that is right in front of them. That being said: the 90s were pretty awesome, weren’t they? It was definitely the best decade, and I’m not just saying this because it was when I was a child who easily made friends and had no responsibilities.
This band, Blushing, really likes the 90s. They have a song on their new album, Sugarcoat, called “Tamogotchi.” Their sugary bubble-grunge sound is the product of a group of people who believe that the music industry and the world was a better place when Letters to Cleo was a prominent band (they may be right). There is an oddly endearing shamelessness to this whole endeavor — a lot of the presentation and style borders on feeling cynical in its Millennial pandering, but the songs also have a certain charm that makes them feel convincingly sincere.
On the surface, Sugarcoat is a straight-forward pop-rock album that isn’t particularly interested in probing deep into questions about the human condition. There’s not much to say about the individual songs except that there are a lot of bright, catchy melodies, and everything is executed sharply in terms of what the band is trying to do. If you enjoy relatively mindless, fun guitar pop, you will like this album. So instead of focusing on that, indulge me while I overanalyze the nostalgic aspect of this thing.
Because what is most interesting about Sugarcoat is how it (maybe intentionally) functions as a critique of itself. Nostalgia is primarily a result of how our minds remember all the good times and forget the bad ones, and that is also what is happening on this album in all facets from the sound to the packaging. It’s a constant sugar rush of bright colorful hooks and sweet vocals, and it’s all so on-the-nose (again, they called a song “Tamagotchi”) that a sense of darkness creeps in, as the band starts to resemble one of those groups that is a little too happy and you start to think they’re a cult.
What’s really being sold here is a kind of escapism, a retreat for some listeners into the carefree days of childhood. But it’s also a fantasy that at times feels hollow, because listening to this, you’d think nothing bad ever happened in the 90s and everyone was living in some kind of ultra-colorful music video. So there is this constant tension on the album between the pleasurable sounds and the slightly gross way it insists on looking backwards through the most rose-colored glasses imaginable. The funny thing is, this ambivalence is what ultimately makes me want to recommend the album: it has all these catchy songs, and — whether intended or not — there are elements in the music that raise these questions and make it surprisingly thought-provoking.
The Noise Made By People 