There are inspirational figures like Russell Wilson and Kevin Gates that claim they have “no time to sleep” and that they “don’t get tired.” Me? I get tired. I’m tired all the fucking time. In fact, last Wednesday, I was both bored and tired. As I often do, I sought solace in music. I wanted some kind of immediately gratifying rock music, but not something I’ve heard a thousand times in the past month. Couldn’t think of anything. Sat there on the curb, choked down a turkey sandwich. I never put on enough mustard.
And then a raspy, threadbare voice: “Speedy Ortiz, Max. Listen to the band called Speedy Ortiz.”
Don’t get me wrong. People have recommended Speedy Ortiz to me before. So many times it’s made me nervous. It’s totally my thing on paper: awesome female vocals, a tantalizing mix of layered guitars and just-barely-catchy song structures, a super short debut album. They seem so cool. The Fader says they’re the best band in Boston! I listened to that debut album, Major Arcana, more than few times when it came out in 2013, and never really bought in. It felt like their music was intentionally just slightly unapproachable, like they thought critics wouldn’t take them seriously unless they sounded more like Sonic Youth.
If that was the thought process, they were probably right, but also if you just calm the fuck down and listen to Major Arcana a bunch of times, it turns out it’s really good. Like anything that’s crafted with a close attention to detail, you keep finding cool and interesting things the more you engage with it. You appreciate the dissonances and the moments where the songs don’t build up to typical climaxes, but do something odd instead. If this all sounds a bit pretentious, it is! But like, if you’ve ever tried an even moderately expensive wine with a crowd of early twenty-somethings, you might also be sick of that simultaneously self-deprecating/self-congratulatory shtick of emphasizing that it all tastes pretty much the same, yeah?
So anyways, if Speedy Ortiz will still have me, I’m in. And you can be too! They even have a new album, out tomorrow or something. They’re not going to stand out on a Spotify playlist with a hundred other bands. But if you can pretend you don’t have other options, your questionable faith will be rewarded. As a great man once said, it only gets inconvenient when you wanna get high alone.
its a thing 