Alli's Articles
INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS, CULTURE PIECES, MUSICAL RAMBLINGS.
The Looked-Over Legends of Mid-Noughties Indie: Los Campesinos! and Architecture in Helsinki7/30/2019 Picture this: It's 2009. Vampire Weekend and Phoenix are killing the scene with the releases of two genre-defining albums, VW's self-titled, and Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, just taking place shortly before. Everything in the alternative world seems to be happy, joyful, and rightfully experimental in those two moods. MGMT follows this trend, with their hits "Kids" and "Electric Feel" carrying a similar energy. All of this seems to be a huge change from all the post-punk gloom that rough rock acts such as The Killers, Interpol, and Arctic Monkeys brought in the early 2000s. Below all of this, there lays two bands in the bedrock that are looked over constantly when thinking about this positivity wave. Both are mega-collectives with more than 5 members, one being a sexually-cynical Welsh outfit, and the other being a quirky Australian group with a specialty in weird, funny voices. I've always been a tiny fan of Los Campesinos!, exclamation point and all, but truly started exploring their discography very recently. They came together in 2006, but their first full album Hold On Now, Youngster dropped in 2008, smack dab in the middle of this peppy indie gold rush. They managed to reach the mainstream with this release, with the 7 minute-long track "You! Me! Dancing!" achieving commercial success in an advertisement for Budweiser. It's painfully obvious that this colossal anthem is their most well-known, since it has over 4 million more plays than their second most streamed song on Spotify. The lack of a radio edit for this tune reflects LC!'s unique and unapologetic approach to their music; The only version is the one that preserves all of its glory, with nothing missing. The video that accompanies it (below) is pretty iconic, too, with its quirky animation and the flashy, colorful lights that cover up the overall semi-depressing message. It has over 7 million views on YouTube to it's name. By taking a quick gander at the comment section of this video, its easy to see how much this song has impacted the teens of this time. "Take me back to my high school indie phase," reads one of the top comments. "14 year old me, we meet again," reflects another. This single song seems to have impacted a generation of young, melodramatic romantic wallflowers, yet the rest of the band's discography remains a hidden gem yet to be uncovered by the majority. One-hit-wonders like this are not uncommon in the indie community, but for a band with the talent and range as Los Campesinos! and the show-stopping track that is "You! Me! Dancing!," you would think that more people would get curious. I'm making it seem like this single song is the only song that LC! has made that people have listened to, but it couldn't be further than the truth. Tracks like "Death to Los Campesinos!," "By Your Side," and "Avocado, Baby" (the latter two from later albums) have seen some success. Their streams on Spotify are all well-over a million, but none of them have seemed to have the cultural impact that "Y!M!D!" has had. After listening to their debut in full, I decided that there are songs that are, not better than this one per se, but deserve the spotlight for sure. Los Campesinos! is made up of seven people, so obviously, this calls for a lot of different voices, instruments, and sounds. There's guitars, drums, xylophones, and even some violin action in all of their music, plus much much more. The group has released 6 albums, and each one has a different explosion of sounds than the previous. They were and continue to be a powerful collective filled with experimental melodies, soulful duets and trios, and thought-provoking beautifully said lyrical monologues. A lot of the band's subject matter has to do with a pessimistic view on love and dating as a whole, as easily seen in my personal favorite song by them, "Romance is Boring." "Y!M!D" has elements of this, too, which makes the fixation from a good number of sad indie kids understandable. Fortunately, LC! seems to still be thriving these days. They just wrapped up a 4-show US tour, one of them being sold out. Despite this well-deserved fanbase that this band seems to have earned, I still believe that they are absolutely underrated in the mainstream and should be appreciated way more. ~~~~~ Let's move across continents and on to our next band, amazing Aussie outfit Architecture in Helsinki. Their claim to fame is tragic, because they don't even receive the immediate credit for it. When you hear the song title "Heart It Races," your mind probably goes to the Dr. Dog tune by the name, which isn't even the original. The two versions have extreme variations of sound, instruments, and general moods, but many people seem to prefer Dr.'s more easygoing and classic cover. To back this up, one can compare the 30 million Spotify plays of this version to AIH's original, which just makes 3 million. Personally, I enjoy both of these versions, but I must admit, I feel as though the original captures the silly, lighthearted, and quirky feelings of falling for someone that the lyrics seem to get across. Similar to Los Campesinos!, the effect of the varying voices in the background adds a much more soulful dimension to the song. For the average listener that doesn't know much about AIH, it could seem a little weird and strange at first, while Dr. Dog is more inviting and familiar to the masses. Even the comment section of this video seems to be an endless continuation of this argument, the two sides being "hilarious and passionate" vs. "laid-back and breezy." In the end it comes down to personal taste it seems, but I still stand by the fact that the original version is paid dust compared to the other. Intrigued by this situation, I listened to the entirety of Places Like This, Architecture's 2007 sophomore effort, to see what the rest of this band had to offer. Intertwined in this album I found unique techniques in vocality, instrumentals, and lyrical content. The vocals are spastic in the best way, and are very very playful. The songs seem to be about a variety of things, but are all very honest and real. My favorite track has to be "Lazy (Lazy)," which I'm going to use as a catch-all for this album when I reference the blend between acoustics and electro-pop. They seem to do that effortlessly throughout the album, with some songs having just a little more than the other, and vice versa. I also love the use of percussion in PLT, and the little explosions of sound that each song seems to have near the end. Similar to what the album art conveys, this album seems to be it's own weird little world. A couple years after this album dropped, Architecture seemed to find a jolt of success with their 2011 release Moment Bends, which included hit singles "Contact High" and "Escapee." Thankfully, they never abandoned their fun trademark sound, and only expanded it. Their latest album was released in 2014, and the last time they were seen on a live stage was in 2018. The only thing that came up when I googled recent news about them was some pretty structures in the beautiful capital of Finland, so who knows what this now-six-person-collective is cooking up for us under the radar? Luckily, they have four albums for us to delve into while we wait.
Late 00s indie is a wonderful thing, and the majority of indie fans seem to agree on that. Unbeknownst to more of those fans, if you dive past the Passion Pit and really delve deep, there's so many other acts that have yet to be discovered. My hope with this article is to win some new lovers over for these two genre-changing groups, because most of their work for the scene has gone under-appreciated for too long. If this article intrigued you into checking these two bands, or maybe even more underground indie artists that I haven't mentioned here yet, my work here is done. Definitely let me know if this article inspired you, and if you have any thoughts or other bands, spill them in an e-mail or in the comments! As always, thank you for reading this, and I hope you have a day filled with dancing.
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