The Legacy of Trish Keenan: Curiouser and Curiouser

I’ve mentioned a few times how Broadcast had one of the most satisfying arcs of any band I’m a fan of, which ties into the somewhat nebulous concept of a band “progressing” from album to album. At the root of this desire to evolve as a band, there has to be some element of dissatisfaction with their previous output, even if it is material as good as The Noise Made By People and Haha Sound. Initially, it was jarring to look up old interviews with Trish Keenan around the release of Tender Buttons and see her dismiss albums I think are so great. “We always wear our references too much on our sleeves,” she said prior to the release of this album. “We needed to do something that was more us, other than in the shadow of all the 60s bands.”

On Tender Buttons, Broadcast shed away all of the excess references and inspirations that defined a lot of their previous music and presented the most distilled version of themselves. While minimalist in construction, the new duo set-up brings out more of Keenan herself, and this feels like her most personal work with the most heart of any Broadcast album. It’s also yet another lesson in how simplicity in music can bring out the most complex emotions.

Keenan’s lyrics on the album were the result of “automatic writing,” a supernatural or spiritual concept that I probably wouldn’t believe in if anyone else claimed it was legitimate, but who am I to argue with Trish. “They are my free falling thoughts,” she said of the lyrics. “I believe that words have their own life; that if you throw words together, they naturally make sense. Language just wants to be understood.” The songs fit Keenan’s description and are built around seemingly random phrases and repetition that are left to be figured out by the listener. This style is my favorite part of Tender Buttons; it feels more human and natural than traditional lyricism, which is so often built around artifice in terms of contrived rhyming schemes and ham-fisted “meaning.” It takes a kind of humble brilliance to let the words form their own meaning for the listener organically instead of using your music to tell people how they should feel, and I’m increasingly convinced this is a key part of Broadcast’s timeless appeal.

The automatic writing is part of what makes the album more overtly spooky as Keenan and Cargill became more fascinated with supernatural and ghostly themes that would partially define the band’s later work. “Black Cat” is built around the titular image, which is a staple of scary kid’s stories and superstitions, along with phrases that contain little nuggets of meaning: “curiouser and curiouser,” “awkwardness happening to someone you love,” “shadowing masonic verve.” Keenan’s voice is less sing-songy than before; at times she is closer to speaking than singing, which is part of why the atmosphere is more frigid and unsettling compared to their previous style. I find Tender Buttons to be their most difficult album to get into for that reason, but eventually the humanity and sense of wonder in Broadcast’s music shines through, even in the new setting.

In typical Broadcast fashion, the songs here combine eeriness and warmth in a way that I’m not sure any other artist has done at this level. Some of their most affecting songs are on Tender Buttons: “Tears in the Typing Tool” is a spare ballad Keenan sang for her father, who was dying of a terminal illness. A personal favorite is “Corporeal,” which has an addictive motorik groove and lyrics that connect a lot of Broadcast’s most resonant themes for me, in particular the merging of humanity and technology. I also am always moved by the simple instrumental closing track, “I Found the End,” which has gained a deeper meaning through Keenan’s death and feels like the end of an era for the band as the closing to their last traditional pop album.

While this is nothing close to as playful as Haha Sound, there are some more upbeat tracks on the back half that play off the delightful absurdity of Keenan’s lyrics. “Michael A Grammar” is Broadcast’s version of a danceable pop song; Keenan fittingly sings “my feet are dancing so much and I hate that.” “Goodbye Girls” was inspired by prostitution, but its bouncy sound helps put a positive, empathetic spin on a subject that is rarely portrayed with any depth in art. It’s another small example of how Keenan added so much humanity to these songs.

Tender Buttons, like Haha Sound before it, shows how a band can evolve and grow while still being true to themselves. Even with the sounds changing so much on each album, Keenan’s singing, lyrics, and presence gave the band a foundation that carried through in everything they made. On this album, she proved that she only needed her voice and the most minimal instrumentation to make some of the most creative and enduring pop songs ever made.

The Real Angel Olsen Has Arrived

As someone who does the whole “having critical opinions about music” thing, I often find myself forming backseat ideas of where artists I feel have potential should go with their work. I’m sure all fans do this on some level, where they form expectations for upcoming releases and hope it lives up to them. But I don’t know if people who aren’t deep into this music criticism hole can fully appreciate how satisfying it is when an artist does exactly what you hoped they would.

Angel Olsen has done that on her new single, “All Mirrors,” which is my favorite song of the year by some margin, to the point that I’m listening to it almost non-stop, and when I’m doing anything else I’m thinking “I wish I was listening to ‘All Mirrors’ right now.” This is one of those perfect songs where the artist finally figures out who she is (or at least who I want her to be, which works all the same in my book).

I’m not a big fan of folk/alt country music, so I wasn’t too interested in Olsen’s acclaimed early albums. It wasn’t until her last album, My Woman, that I thought she showed how much talent and charisma she has, particularly on songs like “Shut Up Kiss Me” and its psychedelic centerpiece, “Sister.” On her new single, she’s ditched the guitars entirely and gone full-blown dramatic synth goth. It’s a breathtaking song and video that warrants comparisons to the heavy-hitters of this style of large-scale pop: Kate Bush and Björk (especially the Homogenic and Vulnicura eras). But Olsen’s voice is distinctive enough that it doesn’t feel like she’s copying anyone — this sound is hers more than any of her previous material.

It’s funny that this comes on the heels of that Sleater-Kinney song, where the band went synth and it didn’t fit any of them and made no sense. Whereas on this song, Olsen is exactly where she should be. Her voice sounds better than it ever has in this setting and her lyrics are actually more impactful when surrounded by the cinematic synths, beats, and strings. I’m not one to comment on artists’ appearances much, but I also feel a certain journalistic responsibility to point out that she looks like a god in this video, which has kind of a Sunset Boulevard vibe when combined with the lyrics about “losing beauty.” Every element of this just fits and if this represents the direction of her next album, I am very excited.

Something that has always bothered me about the discourse surrounding folk music is this assumption that artists who only play a guitar and whisper in their songs convey more authenticity and emotion than artists who go for bigger, more dramatic sounds. There are already plenty of counterpoints to that, but this song proves that Olsen’s music is more powerful and real than ever, even as she leaves that style in the dust.

Sarah McLachlan is Cool

I have a bit of an affinity for artists who are uncool, which might be why I’ve been thinking about Sarah McLachlan lately. McLachlan meets almost all the criteria required to be a vastly uncool artist: she’s a woman who sings slow, serious, feelingsy music that sounds like something your mom would listen to, she’s popular even though it’s impossible to find anyone who owns her albums, and her all-women’s festival from the late-90s, Lilith Fair, is now associated more with embarrassing Clinton-era white feminism than the current hip progressive movement. I’m guessing most people my age know her most for her appearance in those viewer-shaming ASPCA ads where her extremely sappy song “Angel” plays to shots of depressed dogs.

Due to that uncoolness, I don’t think I’ve seen a single artist I listen to mention McLachlan as an inspiration for their work, even though a lot of current indie music has more in common with her than they want to admit. I started thinking about this when I was really into Emma Ruth Rundle’s Marked For Death album in 2016. When trying to think of who Rundle reminded me of, for some reason McLachlan’s name popped in my mind. They probably have nearly no similarities in terms of background or actual influence, but I thought Rundle’s slow-burn balladry wasn’t too far off from something McLachlan would have made if she had been into metal.

From there, I began to connect McLachlan’s reputation as a punch-line to other albums I felt were overlooked for committing similar crimes in terms of being earnest, feminine, and unexciting. Albums like Bat For Lashes’ The Bride and Mary Timony’s Mountains suddenly started to feel more closely linked to McLachlan than I would have guessed. And I began to wonder if, beyond all the cultural baggage, there was something worth exploring here, which led me to try actually listening to more of her music than just the three or four songs everyone knows from the radio.

Listening to her two most popular albums, 1993’s Fumbling Towards Ecstasy and 1997’s Surfacing, confirmed a lot of what I suspected. It’s not amazing music to me by any means because sonically it’s about as adventurous as a trip to the post office. But there were also some surprises: for one, McLachlan has more of an edge than I assumed from just hearing songs like “Angel” and “I Will Remember You.” Her lyrics are smart and have an actual bite to them a lot of the time, and while her songs skew towards ballads, there was also a lot that didn’t sound too different from current indie folk. She was also capable of writing undeniable singles like “Possession” and one of the biggest jams of the 90s, “Building a Mystery.”

What stuck out most, though, was just the way McLachlan sings, with so much sincerity, emotion and conviction. Obviously it can be considered sappy or maudlin, but I found there to be a genuineness in her songs and their construction compared to most music at similar levels of popularity. Its commercial viability seems more like a coincidence than anything — the feeling I got was that McLachlan just made her music and it happened to connect with listeners. It doesn’t have the sense of calculation that ruins so much poppy music for me.

Obviously McLachlan didn’t invent being a woman who sings about feelings, but I think the success of her music and the concept of Lilith Fair helped make it feel more normal. When I grew up, I just heard songs by McLachlan on the radio without ever seeking them out. I’m guessing a lot of current artists also did, and even if they’re not actively listening to McLachlan and citing her as an influence, her mere existence probably paved the way for many who grew up hearing that voice playing on the radio or in supermarkets.

One of the best developments in the last few years of indie has been a boom in women singer-songwriters, who are getting more acclaim and support than ever before. The funny thing is that a ton of them sing like McLachlan, and some even make music that overtly sounds like hers. An artist like Weyes Blood, whose excellent album Titanic Rising is the most acclaimed of the year thus far, is basically making adult contemporary for the indie set. Maybe McLachlan’s style has finally come around to being cool.

There is some comedic value in reading artists and writers totally dance around mentioning McLachlan because her music is so associated with being lame. I’m as guilty of it as anyone: if I saw an artist on Bandcamp saying they were influenced by McLachlan, I’d probably assume it was some soft pop nonsense that’s “not for me.” But then I’ll write about artists like Weyes Blood and how amazing they are without even considering the hypocrisy.

This all leads me to believe that McLachlan is the victim of typical garbage narratives surrounding gender and coolness. Similar to how many dismiss “chick flicks,” this music gets a bad rap because it has an appeal to an audience that has been deemed to be less worthy or important. Meanwhile, the same people who scoff at her are probably listening to man-in-a-cabin folk and indie-approved feminine soft pop without even realizing the similarities. With so many acclaimed artists working in a similar space, McLachlan is overdue for some credit.