TV Girl - "Who Really Cares" (2016)

 

Continuing on with the Primavera line-up, another artist I've gone back to a few times is TV Girl. The band are fairly high up on the poster and have a couple of songs with over a billion streams on Spotify, so I'm surprised that I haven't really heard anything about them before. From their Wikipedia page, they're Californian and blew up on bandcamp, and still to this day entirely independent. Not much else on them is readily available. I've listened to a couple of their records, and this is the one that has those big streaming songs - and therefore the one I've pain the most attention to.

Who Really Cares is best described as an indie pop record that draws from a lot of 90's alternative scenes, a bit of neo-psychedelia, a bit of alt dance, a bit of trip hop and electronica. What results is a very light and summery sounding album that's very easy on the ears when I've had it on in the background while working or out on a walk in the sunshine. However, when listening to it with a bit more attention in order to talk about it here, the cracks have really started to show for me.

While the genres that TV Girl are calling back to are all ones that I'm a big fan off, they don't really do all that much with these styles other than the surface level basics, making the whole aesthetic of the album feel rather derivative and half baked. I don't think this would be quite as notable if it was a crop of really well written and engaging songs, but the tunes are really just not there. The songwriting is pretty basic and very much relying on the tropes of the genres being called back to to give them some personality that wouldn't be there otherwise. I think what has really soured my opinion of the record was paying more attention to the lyrics. They basically read as a shitty guy being bitter and jealous of an ex. There's no story or interesting angle here, and the whole thing comes off pretty immature and just rubs me wrong way.

The songs I like the most on the record are the ones that lean into the looser and dancier neo-psych and alt dance genres. Opener Taking What's Not Yours is build around a jazzy horn sample and a breakbeat loop, and features some of the better lyrics on the record about the stuff left behind at an ex partners place after a breakup, with a reference to an unread copy Gravity's Rainbow to highlight the protagonists pretentiousness. (Do The) Act Like You've Never Met Me has a textbook jangly baggy/Madchester groove that I can find myself getting into (even if it is the most by the numbers version of it possible). The layered up synths, gentle breakbeat and warbly sampled background vocals sound straight out of an Ibiza chillout room.

Who Really Cares is an album of diminishing returns. On first listen when not paying to much attention, I liked the dreamy and chilled out vibe. On the second, I noticed the stylistic derivativeness. On my most recent listens while writing this, I've grown tired of the unimaginative songwriting and the boring and kind of shitty lyrical content. Maybe TV Girls stuff will hit a little more after a few pints in the sun, but on tape it really struggles to make an impression.

Top Tracks: Taking What's Not Yours

4/10

Declan McKenna - "What Happened to the Beach?" (2024)

Declan McKenna's first two records were albums that showed promise, with a handful of impeccable songs on each, but were contained within messy records that felt less than the sum of their parts overall. I liked him enough that I was always going to check out his third record, but I am pleasantly surprised by how into it I am, and how frequently I have been giving it a spin in the months since its release.

On What Happened to the Beach?, Declan has ditched a lot of the glam rock aesthetics that characterised his previous release, Zeros; replacing them with influences of 60's psychedelic pop and sunshine pop, alongside more modern neo-pysche and hypnagogic pop. I can here shades of The Kinks, The Beatles, MGMT and a whole host of others on the these tracks, and I think this vibe suits Declan's persona much better. On WHTTB? Declan comes across like some weird Hollywood old-timer, who's spent a little too much time in the sun and is just on a planet of his own. He sells this subtle off-kilter weirdness so much more easily than the ostentatious glam rockstar he was playing on Zeros. Similarly, the hit or miss social commentary of Declan's previous work is largely absent, replaced with more personal and introspective lyrics mostly focusing on the social disconnect and pressure of expectations that come with fame. All of this together creates a woozy and hazy vibe, like some sort of summer malaise.

The record opens with the worbly and distorted intro track, WOBBLE, where the album title is repeated again and again, before launching into the breezy but moody Elevator Hum. This track, alongside Mullholland's Dinner and Wine capture this summery yet melancholic vibe perfectly. Both have this feeling of existential longing to them, and are the best tracks on the album. On Elevator Hum. glistening synths are set against a trip-hoppy breakbeat and faint distorted horns that finally poke through the mix towards the end of the track. Mullholland's Dinner and Wine similarly fuses a chill synth-funk bassline with woozy distorted horns and some really existential lyrics where Declan describes all of the things fame has given him but how he's still not satisfied.

There are some other great moments on the first half of the record. I Write The News starts off as a Lennon-esque acoustic guitar cut with lyrics that in typical Lennon fashion appear to be profound on the surface, but are actually just nonsense upon closer inspection. The track then flips on its head, with the guitar swapped out for bouncy psychedelic synths. Nothing Works is a catchy indie pop rock tune, with fuzzed out and noisy production that gives it a real sense of energy that matches some of Declan's biggest hits. This is followed by the raucous The Phantom Buzz (Kick In), which is about the last remnant of the glam rock aesthetic of Zeros. The guitars roar and Declan Howls on the mic.

Not everything on the record lands as well as these moments. Lead single Sympathy is such a straightforward sunshine pop tune, it feels kind of derivative and lacks any of the genuine oddball energy that permeates the best of the record. It just sounds like a Kinks pastiche in all honesty. Breath of Light feels like an attempt at the weirder, uncommercial side of MGMT's music, and is fine but nothing particularly interesting. Honest Test is a crooning lounge pop song that reminds me of Arctic Monkey's excursions into the genre, although I'd say its closer to one of the duds on The Car than the genuinely interestingly written stuff on Tranquillity Base. 

The record comes to quite a sleepy and uneventful close, although the final couple of songs have grown on me to an extent. The gentle acoustic guitars and simple vocal melodies of Mezzanine have such a low-key summery vibe, and the subtle swelling of horns and electric guitar as the song progresses is actually really nice. The penultimate track, It's An Act, is in effect the closer, as the final track is essentially just a short little coda, and is perfectly serviceable, although pretty uneventful and unimpactful.

I feel like Declan has found a sound that really fits him on this record, and has produced his most consistently enjoyable album thus far. Not every song hits as hard as others, and there are points that feel a little derivative, but its a good time with more wins than losses.

Top Tracks: Elevator Hum, I Write The News, Mullholland's Dinner and Wine, Nothing Works, The Phantom Buzz

7/10