There isn’t a lot to say about Car Seat Headrest that Pitchfork or Madeline Singh hasn’t already said. Will Toledo writes very vulnerable music despite how pretentious and aloof he can be, and the emotionally charged energy of his music has caught me off guard on many occasions (aka i’ve cried to his songs). I’m not gonna talk about this bands sound or why they are good or why I like them (TL;DR They sound like Guided By Voices + classic rock, Will Toledo writes relatable sad bullshit, and I was sad). Instead, Car Seat Headrest acts as an interesting case study for the classic “Well I like their older stuff more but the new stuff is still good!” that any fan of a band will run into, specifically with Will Toledo’s decision to remake the album that launched him into indie stardom: Twin Fantasy.
Tracking the progression of any bands ability to make good music is a hard thing to pin down. Bands that have very solid early releases can have their reputation crushed by a record with a new sound that isn’t received well. It’s really a tightrope walk; artists want to grow and experiment while also needing keeping some of what hooked their fans in the first place. It also becomes harder to write fast punk songs about love, lust, and friendship when you are 32 and instead you might be much more musically interested in lunar conspiracy theories. While I love making fun of Alex Turner, the question really is Alex Turner owe Arctic Monkeys fans anything? Is he required to just keep releasing albums of the same genre for the rest of his musical career? How much leeway should fans give an artist as far as experimentation goes? Would Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino have been better received if it was released as an Alex Turner record? I would really like an answer to these questions but I think it really comes on a case by case basis. I think I would have minded the sound change for Arctic Monkeys a lot less if Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino was a better record, especially considering AM was pretty different for the band and it wasn’t nearly as poorly received due to its quality.
Car Seat Headrest, conveniently, answered these questions. Will Toledo’s songwriting was heavily impacted by the introduction of additional band members and recently the complete absorption of an entire other band. 5 years ago one would expect a Car Seat Headrest album to entail lo-fi indie rock, but 2016’s Teens of Denial is emotionally tinged hard rock and 2018’s Twin Fantasy (Face to Face) re-writes some of the lo-fi classics from Twin Fantasy as dance infused rock. Even more extreme are the new live arrangements of Twin Fantasy‘s tracks which are straight up disco / dance songs (no hate from me they rip). Will Toledo used the emotionally rawness in the songs he wrote in his formative years and made something that appealed to him musically, much to the disdain of fans who had 7 years to form an emotional connection to the original Twin Fantasy. In spite of outspoken fans of the original, Twin Fantasy (Face to Face) likely introduced a lot of people to both Car Seat Headrest and to Twin Fantasy which wasn’t widely available.
People form strong connections to music that they relate to, and to the time in their life at which that music was important to them. This intimacy fades over time as both the artists and their fans change, and works newer or older than the songs you adore seems incomplete. As much as music journalism can attempt to categorize music into the good and the bad, nothing can account for a certain song hitting a chord with a specific person. Both editions of Twin Fantasy can appeal to different groups. Holding artists accountable for always releasing music that appeals to everyone starts to seem a lot less fair when Car Seat Headrest can release the same album twice and still manage to get flak from hiehards.
THE CLASSIC MONDAY BLOG 