Indie
Song of the Week: The National Pause the Doomscrolling with “Tropic Morning News”
Song of the Week breaks down and talks about the song we just can’t get out of our head each week. Find these songs and more on our Spotify Top Songs playlist. For our favorite new songs from emerging artists, check out our Spotify New Sounds playlist. This week, The National help us cut through the noise with “Tropic Morning News.” January is unofficially a time to reset. Particularly in recent years, it’s become a month of new routines, setting intentions, and light reinvention — for better or for worse. While many of us are trying to embrace more healthful practices, some habits are harder to break than others: Rolling over, grabbing the phone off the bedside table, and beginning the obligatory morning doomscroll is the focus of “Tropic Morning News,” the new so...
Lava La Rue’s Big Year: How the U.K. Indie Upstart Rendered Their Artistic Vision in ‘Hi-Fidelity’
As 2022 draws to a close, Billboard Pride is taking a look back at some of the queer indie artists who saw their stars rise over the last 12 months. Below, U.K. genre-bender Lava La Rue breaks down their big year. It’s the end of a busy trip to New York for Lava La Rue. The buzzy, much talked-about indie artist from West London has been in and out of studio sessions and supporting their partner’s gigs around the city, but as they log onto a Zoom call from a Brooklyn hotel room, they look mildly bummed. “It’s super rainy and gross,” they say, swiveling their camera around to show a cloud-choked skyline just outside their window. “Normally I get this very cute view of everything corny, like the Empire State. Now, it’s just kind of looking like Gotham.” But ...
Halsey’s 10 Best Songs
There aren’t many self-release success stories quite like that of Halsey. When her original song “Ghost” was released to SoundCloud back in 2014, it instantly began to gain attention. With her very first release, Halsey was already on the map. In the years since, Halsey has become a reliable source of honest lyricism, innovative and creative concept albums, music video and film direction, and a deeply personal form of artistry. Over four full albums — from Badlands to If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power — Halsey has played with genre and self-mythology, constructing and deconstructing narratives as they see fit. It’s hard to narrow down their discography, so diverse in genre, to just ten songs, but we set out to give it a try. Advertisement Check out our list of ten favorite ...
White Lung on the Journey to Their Final Album, Premonition
On Friday (December 2nd), White Lung will make their anticipated return with Premonition. It’s the punk act’s first album since 2016’s Paradise, but the new material comes with bittersweet news for fans: Premonition will be the end of White Lung. Premonition’s journey to see the light of day and the decision for it to be the band’s swan song are years in the making. The writing and recording process started back in 2017, not long after Paradise. But life unfolded, and the original 2020 release date proved to be, we’ll say, less than ideal, resulting in the project getting pushed. The elongated period of time between the album’s conception and its unveiling eventually cemented what the band had already begun to suspect; this is White Lung’s goodbye. “When all this happened with the pan...
Paper Idol’s Debut Album Is a Nostalgic Ode to Childhood: Listen to “The Playground”
Blending dance music and indie-pop to stunning effect, Paper Idol has dropped his debut album, The Playground. Out now via CloudKid, The Playground chronicles the many phases of childhood through eight funky and nostalgic indietronica tracks. “It’s Boyhood the album,” Idol said in a statement. From the grungy guitar riffs of “CNTRL” and the vintage children’s choir in “The Playground” to the cheeky future-funk synths of “Bright Side Baby,” the album takes us through a raw—and electrifying—coming-of-age. “The Playground is about missing the purity of childhood,” Idol added. “It’s so easy to get caught up in status, envy, competition, desire to compare yourself to others. But we often forget there was a time when we were just ‘being,’ soaki...
Song of the Week: Phoebe Bridgers Delivers the Christmas Gift of Seasonal Affective Disorder on “So Much Wine”
Song of the Week breaks down and talks about the song we just can’t get out of our head each week. Find these songs and more on our Spotify Top Songs playlist. For our favorite new songs from emerging artists, check out our Spotify New Sounds playlist. This week, Phoebe Bridgers leads us into the holiday season. Many people will tell you that the holiday season officially begins on Black Friday, which ushers in a frenzy of consumerism and renewed debate about whether Love Actually is a good or bad movie (it’s the latter) in an eggnog-soaked sprint to December 25th. Those people are lying to you. The holiday season officially begins whenever Phoebe Bridgers says it does. Advertisement With “So Much Wine,” Bridgers adds a new entry to her annual tradition of releasin...
Suki Waterhouse on Her “Surreal” 2022 and What’s in Store for Her First Headlining Tour
For actress, model and singer-songwriter Suki Waterhouse, 2022 can be best summed up in one word: busy. Between the release of her debut album I Can’t Let Go back in May, touring at iconic North American venues with Father John Misty, and releasing a music video for her single “Nostalgia,” Waterhouse has made the most of her year thus far. Speaking by Zoom, Waterhouse tells Consequence that 2022 has been “an incredible whirlwind,” with these last few months featuring some of her “most surreal experiences” of her life. After going from shows with a capacity of 200 to doing sound check at Radio City Music Hall, this year has seen the multi-talented Waterhouse become a star in yet another medium beyond acting and modeling. But the year isn’t finished yet, nor is Waterhouse, who is based in Lo...
Behind the Boards with John Congleton: Producer Talks St. Vincent, Angel Olsen, Tegan and Sara and More
Behind the Boards is a series where we spotlight some of the biggest producers in the industry and dig into some of their favorite projects. Here, we sit down with John Congleton to discuss his production work with St. Vincent, The Walkmen, Tegan and Sara, and more. When an indie band wants to level up, they work with John Congleton. The Texas-based songwriter and producer has been instrumental in helming records for some of the biggest indie artists of the last decade, from St. Vincent and Angel Olsen to The War on Drugs and David Byrne. He’s been particularly busy in 2022, with his hands on some significant releases: Tegan and Sara’s new album Crybaby, Death Cab for Cutie’s Asphalt Meadows, and Whitney’s Spark. But one thing that Congleton’s productions all have in common is his ability ...
Song of the Week: The 1975 Make Romantic Desperation Sound Fun on “Oh Caroline”
Song of the Week breaks down and talks about the song we just can’t get out of our head each week. Find these songs and more on our Spotify Top Songs playlist. For our favorite new songs from emerging artists, check out our Spotify New Sounds playlist. This week, The 1975 unravel the messiness of love with “Oh Caroline.” “I’ve been suicidal” is a hell of a way to open a song, but Matty Healy and The 1975 have never shied away from blunt honesty. It’s present in the group’s 2016 track “She’s American” (“If she says I’ve got to fix my teeth, then she’s so American”); it’s all over 2018’s “Be My Mistake” (“The smell of your hair reminds me of her feet”); and it’s tucked into various corners of the band’s latest album, Being Funny In A Foreign Language. The album is refresh...
NNAMDÏ’s Not Weird — He’s Wonderfully, Amazingly, Authentically Himself
On Friday (October 7th), pop experimentalist extraordinaire NNAMDÏ will unleash his newest album, Please Have A Seat. The record, his debut for Secretly Canadian, features some of his poppiest, most ear-worm tunes to date while remaining within the weird, outsider approach NNAMDÏ has become known for. But, is it really that weird? For years NNAMDÏ himself would say so, prefacing his music with a quick “it’s kind of weird” whenever sharing it. He even named his 2014 release Feckin Weirdo, and the branding stuck. The word would pop up in interviews and reviews, following the Chicago artist as he continued to make art that was true to himself. “It was kind of like, not a palate cleanser, but something preemptively being like, ‘Okay, it’s weird,’” he tells Consequence. “Just so they go in and ...
Pixies’ Black Francis Talks New Album Doggerel, Why The Velvet Underground and Grateful Dead Are Similar, and Much More
Pixies are back with their eighth album, Doggerel, which finds the legendary alt-rock band exploring new sonic landscapes. With the album set for release on Friday (September 30th), Consequence caught up with frontman Black Francis to discuss the LP and more. Doggerel was recorded during the pandemic, with Francis having written 40 new songs heading into the sessions. The album also features the first writing credits from guitarist Joey Santiago, who co-penned the music for the single “Dregs of the Wine” as well as a few lyrics for the title track. With Doggerel, Pixies have now released as many albums (four) in their current era as they did in their initial run from the late ’80s to the early ’90s, during which they released four classic LPs in four years — including 1989’s Doolittle, whi...
Song of the Week: Phoenix and Ezra Koenig Hearken Back to the Golden Age of Indie-Pop with “Tonight”
Song of the Week breaks down and talks about the song we just can’t get out of our head each week. Find these songs and more on our Spotify Top Songs playlist. For our favorite new songs from emerging artists, check out our Spotify New Sounds playlist. This week, Phoenix and Ezra Koenig unleash a delightful collab. Phoenix hearken back to the golden age of indie pop — an era they helped define in 2009 with their groundbreaking fourth album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix — on their new song, “Tonight,” the second single from their upcoming album Alpha Zulu (out November 4th). “Tonight” not only features fellow indie icon Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend, but some signature Phoenix moves; the rousing hi-hat and tom drum line from “Lasso” returns, the escalating synths of “1901” ...
