Our Album of the Month comes courtesy of Joe, who, by the way, is now full-time with us. Yeah!!
Joe was keen to write about a record that means a great deal to him, and one that is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year: Car Seat Headrest's Teens of Denial.
Now, we suspect this may divide opinion amongst our readership. Some of you will know it well; others may never even have heard of the band. But that's precisely why we enjoy sharing our team's musical passions each month. Great music is there to be discovered, regardless of genre, era, or popularity.
So, over to Joe...
Celebrating its 10th anniversary, June’s album of the month is one of the most influential and fun indie-rock albums from the 2010’s - Car Seat Headrest’s “Teens of Denial”.
Car Seat Headrest are a unique band to say the least, even to the point where the term “band” doesn’t give the full story. Singer, guitarist and songwriter Will Toledo is the only permanent member - meaning essentially he is Car Seat Headrest. 2016 release Teens of Denial was undoubtedly the album that launched the band into the public eye.
Before Teens of Denial, Toledo had already released 10 complete albums, only one of which was recorded in an actual studio. The first 9, however, were recorded using his laptop’s built-in microphone in his bedroom or family car (hence the band’s name). The recording quality of these albums can make them a tough listen, but the songwriting quality was always there. Case in point: their 2018 album Twin Fantasy remains their most successful and is simply a studio rerecording of a gritty 2011 project.
After Teens of Denial, the aforementioned successful release of Twin Fantasy - a very dark exploration of loss, depression and sexuality - made it seem as if the band were on their way to exponential growth. At this time, Toledo was moving away from his gritty indie past, adopting a new gas-masked persona known as Trait, leading up to their 2020 synth-heavy release “Making a Door Less Open”. However, this was widely considered as a disappointing and unwanted musical u-turn. The pandemic saw the album un-toured, and Will Toledo unfortunately developed long-covid, leading to a 5-year musical hiatus. These aspects ultimately resulted in attention towards the band's suffering.
This timing between such distinct eras is part of what makes this album special. It truly encapsulates the grit and humour of the early projects, with the glamour of being a more traditional studio album. This combination led to the band’s explosion onto the indie scene, receiving praise from both fans and critics alike. The album was listed as Rolling Stone’s 4th best album of 2016, and remains in their “250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far”.
Toledo’s lyrics are a big contributor to people’s love of the album. He explores the absurdity yet emptiness of teenage life, through a very self-critical and humorous light. Given he wrote the album in his mid-20’s, Toledo was able to look back and ridicule his previous life, which proved to be relatable for many people. Whilst it’s clear the stories and emotions are from his own experience, the album loosely follows a character called Joe (wahey!). For example, on the long-windedly named track - Joe Gets Kicked Out of School for Using Drugs With Friends But Says This Isn’t a Problem, Toledo sings:
I did not transcend, I felt like a walking piece of shit
With a stupid looking jacket
Filled with loathing and religious fervour
I laid on my friend’s bedroom floor for an hour
And tried not to piss my pants
And then I saw Jesus
We are celebrating the album's anniversary with this piece, but the band took a different approach with a bizarre partially rerecorded rerelease. Despite a couple new tracks, they added some arguably unneeded instrumental parts to the 10-year-old tracks, in addition to removing all of the swearing. No one really seems to know why the latter was done, with some people suspecting it to be to do with Toledo’s recent religious awakening. What is known, that in fear of a negative response to the rerelease (akin to their 2020 album), Toledo has locked himself away in an internetless retreat – so he’s in for a little surprise when he sees that people are not taking to it. I suppose it goes to show, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it and Teens Of Denial certainly wasn’t broke!