#16 Favorite Album of 2024
Girl - Coco & Clair Clair (Connor's #16) / Wild God - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (Hadley's #16)
Girl - Coco & Clair Clair
Genre: Pop rap, cloud rap
General Vibe: Irreverently braggadocious, DIY diss tracks, secretly sincere. A text exchange with a best friend that’s just a string of hype-up compliments.
Key Track: “Graceland”
Listen If You Like: Charli XCX (Brat), Bladee (Cold Visions), Joey Valence and Brae (No Hands)
The internet age of music, even though we’re almost three decades in at this point, feels so surreal still: with basic production tools available on almost every laptop, social media a platform anyone can share their work on, and an increasingly agnostic perspective about the need for record deals and label representation, there’s so much music available across the web it feels particularly intimidating. SoundCloud, one of the earliest platforms for music sharing alongside MySpace and Tumblr, codified not only release strategies and DIY projects but also a particular attitude and sonic aesthetic, vaporwave and hypnagogic pop and, most prominently, cloud rap defined by dreamy atmospheres and lo-fi soundscapes and somewhat off-the-cuff lyricism, giving some of the artists able to breakthrough a too-cool-for-you mystique, even at their most irreverent. Underneath that mystique, though, is an earnestness that frequently shines through in these projects: after all, these are people making music for the sake of making music in their own vision, fuck a label or not (even if some are able to secure a record deal). Take, for example, Atlanta based duo Taylor Nave and Clair Toothill, who perform as the duo Coco & Clair Clair, who became famous for their playful, bubblegum-chewing and eyerolling cloud pop rap, which is both sweet and sour and just downright fun, vapidness as a strength rather than weakness. On an early favorite single, “Crushcrushcrush”, bolstered by a vintage house piano and mall-pop sugariness, the duo sing and rap about falling for someone who they “think he’s cute, but my friends think I’m nuts”, the rush of watching movies with him even if he “looks like motherfuckin’ Zoboomafoo” (Purple Rain and Kangaroo Jack name checked for those curious about their top four on Letterboxd), and the sighed confession that he’s “kind of ugly, but love is blind”. Irreverently honest rather than mean-spirited, Coco & Clair Clair’s catalogue feels exactly like the duo’s DIY origins, two women navigating their 20s, alternately swooning over men or detesting them, exhausted of all the shit talk while they’re also gossiping, all while their hanging around an apartment scrolling their phones and showing each other memes that will make the other laugh.
On the duo’s sophomore record Girl, Coco & Clair Clair come into complete and total focus, a significant step forward from their 2022 debut Sexy, humorous but elevated and relying on their own punchlines instead of entirely referential jokes, more sonically cohesive while going in entirely new directions from their past discography, and surprisingly vulnerable behind all the dissing and the posturing. Make no mistake, Girl is still resplendent with classic Coco & Clair Clair oneliners that will leave you laughing while also dancing in front of your mirror before a night out with a group of friends, so much so I’m going to list a few favorites:
“Write a hit song then I read a big book / I’m all about the lovin’, you can call me bell hooks” (“Kate Spade”)
“Pandemic and recession, but the dumb bitch economy is booming/ [...] Got a hunty that’s a Gleek and they think you’re a freak” (“Bitches Pt. 2”)
“You’re smelling like an issue, don’t even like you a little bit / Thanks to your bullshit, my girl and I just made a hit” (“My Girl”)
“Got more money than your favorite indie band / never signed a deal, don’t need label contrabands” (“Graceland”)
Coco & Clair Clair’s perceived initial priority is still being the chillest, most disaffected, and enviable women at a house party, decked out in vintage store finds and nails they did themselves (thank you very much), out on the back patio drinking their own cocktails and smoking the best pre-rolls, shutting down any loser men trying to hit on them with just a raised eyebrow and a pointed “anyways”; Girl’s integration of drum & bass, G-funk, ‘90s alternative rock, and ‘00s grimy electronica gives their signature cloud rap a new scope for them to explore these takedowns and “it girl” anthems, an eclectic moodboard brought to life with an effortlessness that makes their confidence feel accessible rather than self-aggrandizing. “Did you miss me? Back in the city with my bestie” Clair Clair singsongs on the hook to “Graceland”, the kind of track that feels like the fur coat she wears on the cover, luxurious but passed around between a circle of friends, comfortable and maybe still smelling a bit like the last wearer’s perfume.
Yet, just like at those aforementioned house parties, there’s maybe a moment where you step onto that back patio and the chillest, most disaffected, and enviable women at the function invite you to enter their dream blunt rotation, and for the intoxicating stretch of the conversation, the personas and oneliners fall away to reveal something underneath, no more or no less real than that brandished confidence, but a bit sad and a bit hopeful. Maybe it’s because they’re falling in love and they can’t help it anymore, like on “Gorgeous International Really Lucky” (“Do you see me how I want you to see me? / Do you think I’m cool if I watch this movie?”); maybe they’re talking about their rad house they’ve finally got set up (the shouldn’t-work-but-does cover of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young’s “Our House”). Or maybe it’s the core sentiment of closer “Aggy”, the saddest song on Girl, with a chorus that goes: “You bring the boys, I’ll bring the girls / have another drink, forget about the world / All I know is I don’t want to miss you anymore.” Behind the diss tracks, the oneliners, the charismatic confidence, Coco & Clair Clair are just like everyone else at that party. They just manage to make it look a whole lot cooler than you.
Wild God - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Genre: Rock / Chamber Pop
General Vibe: Epic parables of life and death, A really great fantasy novel. A conversation with a relative that got unexpectedly deep.
Key Track: “Conversion”
Listen If You Like: Tom Waits (Rain Dogs), Joanna Newsom (Ys), The National (Trouble Will Find Me)
Clock the inconsistency from my previous reviews, but I’m switching to first person perspective to write about Nick Cave. The reason for this is primarily that I’m no expert when it comes to the (does a quick google search) Australian icon. I had heard his music frequently and I love a lot of the music he has inspired, but it wasn’t until this year that Cave’s music really clicked. His catalog has forever felt impenetrable to me. When I asked my Cave-head (spelunker?) friends about which album to start with, I got different answers every time. Your Funeral… My Trial was a popular option, but wait what about Let Love In? Yes, oh my god. 90s Nick Cave is where it’s at, but I prefer Murder Ballads. Ok, but it would be a crime to leave Boatman’s Call out of the conversation. Somewhere around this point, I would get overloaded and mentally check out.
What’s funny is that I started with 2016’s Skeleton Tree, which is possibly one of his most emotionally challenging albums to date. And it might be, but I was still pulled into the orbit of its austere devastation. I’m a sad boy when it comes to music, and maybe I needed to feel something the day I turned it on. Well, I did and ended up listening to three more Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds albums back to back after that one. I listened to so much Nick Cave this year, that he showed up third on my Spotify Wrapped artist list. So, by the time their new one named Wild God dropped in August, I was familiar enough with the lore to feel like I understood what this chapter meant for the band and for the fans who have been following their music for much much longer than myself. And despite being a new fan to their music, I felt goosebumps and got teary eyed myself while blasting it in my car on the first listen.
It was the song “Joy” that broke me first. From what I can tell, the word “joy” is not how anyone would have previously described Nick Cave. The timbre of his voice suits the dirge-like folk power balladry that the band has been consistently delivering since the beginning. Output from 2016 on had also been forever changed, since the recording of Skeleton Tree was interrupted by the death of Cave’s 15 year old son. Yet only two weeks after the tragedy, Cave committed to finishing the album with new lyrics that described his current emotional state. 2019’s Ghosteen was also written in the aftermath of this time. So, to hear a song called “Joy” almost ten years later holds incredible power. The song describes Nick Cave being haunted by the ghost of a boy who delivers the message "We’ve all had too much sorrow, now is the time for joy.” Immediately after the line the instruments all come crashing in like a freezing cold tidal wave.
It’s at this point of the album that I was really fucking getting into it on my drive from Ames to Des Moines. Thankfully, the album’s certified banger “Conversion” was only a few tracks away. By the end of the song I was joining in with the chanting gospel choir as they repeated “Touched by the spirit, touched by the flame!” Is it happening? On a song called “Conversion?” Am I now a member of the Church of The Bad Seeds? By the time I arrived at my destination to grab brunch with some friends, I had felt changed. There was no way for me to tell them the religious experience I had just had in the car, because they had no clue who Nick Cave was or what he now meant to me. And it was actually THAT moment when I knew that I had become a true fan.