For this episode of No Tags, we’re joined by Meaghan Garvey, author of America’s #1 vibes-based newsletter, SCARY COOL SAD GOODBYE.
That’s not all Meaghan does. She started off as an illustrator, laundering a semi-successful weed-dealing operation through an Etsy empire (“selling prayer candles with Aaliyah on? That's some early 2010s shit right there”) before becoming known as a music writer. Whether she’s writing pin-sharp profiles of megastars like Lana Del Rey and T-Pain, or getting deep in the DIY weeds, Meaghan has long been a BS-free voice in a sea of mediocrity. And ahead of the curve, too – she broke up with Drake in 2015.
In 2020 Meaghan launched SCARY COOL SAD GOODBYE, a Substack that’s somewhere between a confessional travel diary and a photo album of nostalgic Americana. Recent editions include a rundown of Milwaukee’s oldest dive bars, a crash course in train-hopping, and a visit to House on the Rock, “Wisconsin's tweaked-out Graceland.” It is, naturally, a vibe.
We’ve wanted to talk to Meaghan on No Tags since the start, but when she returned to Pitchfork for a flagship review of Charli XCX’s Brat, we knew the timing was right. We talked about stan culture, the pantomime of vulnerability in modern pop music, nostalgia for 2011, learning how to write about yourself, and searching for honesty while fleeing from the discourse.
For anyone who had their interest piqued by last week’s payola episode, we continue the conversation in the introduction to this week’s podcast, reporting on more examples of pay-to-play in the underground music press, as well as getting into some Glastonbury chat: should people be losing money to play it? Why is it so crowded? Is Glasto finally… cooked?
As ever, if you like what we’re doing on No Tags then please do like, rate, review or subscribe on your podcast app of choice, and if you really like what we’re doing, consider supporting us via our paid tier.
Tom Lea: So Meaghan, I feel like we've accidentally sneak dissed you twice on the podcast now. There was the first time where we had doubts over whether your name is pronounced Meg-han or Mee-ghan, which... I've hung out with you IRL, that's on me. That's my fault. But then we mentioned Fish56Octagon still having his Christmas tree up in April, and you were like, ‘Well, hang on, what's wrong with still having a Christmas tree up in April?’
Meaghan Garvey: You can say my name however you want, it is Meg-han but I don't care. But the Christmas tree thing did strike a nerve, it's a point of sensitivity for me because I used to be a deadbeat but I'm not anymore, so I'm very sensitive to appearing like one.
Every single year when I get a Christmas tree, it's like OK, this year it's gonna be gone by let's say February. We don't need to be hasty. Let's enjoy it. Let's get our money worth on this investment. But then it's like, OK, well then I'm gonna maybe be out of town and am I gonna throw the tree away before I do that? No, I'm not, so then spring rolls around. One time it was literally the 4th of July, I called my dad over and we had to saw the tree into pieces so that we could take it out in parts, so that my neighbour wouldn't see. But they were all having this 4th of July party on the balcony right next door, so they saw us hacking up this dry Christmas tree.
Tom Lea: We're all agreed that July is too far, right?
Meaghan Garvey: July is too far.
Tom Lea: Meaghan Garvey, welcome to No Tags!
Meaghan Garvey: Oh my god, long-time listener first-time caller.
Tom Lea: So obviously me and Chal both know you and your work very well. But for those listening who might not know you, how would you describe what you do, and specifically how would you describe what you do these days? Are you still a music writer primarily, or are you now a travel writer? Or are you just a general vibes correspondent at this point?
Meaghan Garvey: I would love for people to pay me money to be a travel writer, but it seems like I kind of have to pay myself. But I don't know, are there any music writers anymore? There's probably like four music writers now and they all suck, and I don't consider myself among them because I just don't do it often enough. It's easier to identify as just a writer, because that suits my interest in literature and not just barking about the discourse of the day. So we can just keep it as writer.
Chal Ravens: Some people may have come across your writing for the first time recently, because you came out of Pitchfork semi-retirement to review Charli XCX's Brat, the album of... at least the moment, but realistically, it's probably going to be an album of the year isn't it? I was curious about why you emerged from your lair to write that one.
Meaghan Garvey: Because they asked me to! Everyone thinks I disappeared from doing Pitchfork reviews, but they just stopped hitting me up. I'm like, ‘Well, I'm not gonna reach out to you guys…’ [laughter] But it did feel like the moment because, I don't know, I'm 37 years old. I can't be writing about 17 year old rappers with unpronounceable names anymore. That just seems a little unbecoming.
Chal Ravens: I was wondering, because I know you've followed Charli for quite a long time, what do you think of this Brat moment for her? It definitely seems to have promoted her to a new level of fame, particularly in America.
Meaghan Garvey: It’s definitely having that [moment] here, but just not where I live because I'm spending my time in smalltown Wisconsin most of the time. But it does feel like we've released Charli onto the real world – like what used to be ours is now the world's. And by ours, I mean us highbrow music nerd Twitter people.
Tom Lea: Yeah, we were actually chatting the other day about being a fan of an artist early on, and if they become massive it feels like they're not yours anymore. You've had some long term relationships with artists like Lana Del Rey and Future where you're a complete lifer. Do you ever get that same feeling kick in?
Meaghan Garvey: In the case of Future, I did hop off the train for a few years. You know, as long as people act their age, I can grow up with them. But I feel like there were a few years where Future was trying to do a bit of ‘hey, kids, how do you do?’ I like the two albums with Metro [Boomin] that he put out this year, they seem a bit more 40-something-year-old appropriate. In the case of Charli, there were some snarky tweets like, ‘Oh my god, you're 32 years old. You're not in your brat era.’ No, the brat era is all about being in your 30s. Like that's the meat of the thing, duh.
Chal Ravens: Was there anything that you had to leave out of your Pitchfork review that you just didn't have space for?
Meaghan Garvey: Yeah, totally. I wanted to get into a bit of psychoanalytical whimsy... I mean, Brat is just a good album title. It's an amazing concept – it's not that deep, but it could be that deep. It boils down to what I consider to be the main mental illness of our time, which is narcissism, which can be misunderstood as egregious self-love and self-obsession and thinking you're the shit when it's actually a complete identity crisis, like a misunderstanding of self, constant comparison, a lack of self. You don't have to take it there. But it's kind of all in there, isn't it? Like you start off with this raging ego and then it turns to this hall of mirrors that we all live in, but especially someone famous, just a complete misunderstanding of self by seeing yourself refracted in your fans and in the industry and among other people who are maybe doing better than you by certain metrics. That didn't make it to the review though, because I was like, this is kind of unnecessary.
But I would like to put an addendum on the review. Maybe I failed in this regard. Because when I'm talking about the whole performance of vulnerability thing, in this particular era of the relatable pop star, I think the song with Lorde1 that just came out is almost a pinprick in the balloon of that whole idea that I was trying to get across that this album doesn't need to do that whole pantomime of therapy talk. That kind of vulnerability performance… this is a performance too.
I think music writers have gotten a tiny bit carried away with how ‘authentic’ this album is, but it's like, no, you're just the perfect target demographic for this kind of performance as opposed to the Taylor Swift style of performance where it’s like, ‘I'm your best friend, don't you think I'm a good person?’ Everyone's kind of fallen hook, line and sinker for this whole ‘me and Lorde working it out on the remix’ thing. Like, come on guys. This too is theatre. You know what I mean?
Chal Ravens: Regarding stan culture, I'm just going to read your own words back to you here: ‘Truly, I believe that the stanning of pop stars is a trait which ought to preclude an adult's right to vote.’ But you obviously have your own deep, lasting faves who you've written about a lot. Where is the line between a lifer and a stan?
Meaghan Garvey: I didn't think the last Lana album was all that, I can be honest about that. I thought Future fell off for like five years. I don't know. Am I a stan? I guess I am a Future stan, huh? I just think I like cool shit. So if you're really good at making cool shit then I'm on board. But I've certainly never bullied someone over a pop star, aged 37 - imagine! I don't know, are these people present in your lives? Because I just kind of see them from a distance but they have really have no overlap into my life. They don't really trickle on to my timeline. Do they yours?
Tom Lea: Swifties attacked Al Wootton because his album was reviewed on Pitchfork the same day as whatever Taylor album came out in 2020. His Twitter mentions were just these children being like, ‘Who the hell are you? I've checked out your music, it stinks,’ because Pitchfork rated his album 0.6 marks or whatever higher than Taylor Swift’s.
Meaghan Garvey: It’s fucking scary how it's now really uncool to be obscure. You know what I mean? Like, even in that example, just being less popular than Taylor Swift is seen as this mark of like, you're a loser. That freaks me out.
Tom Lea: It’s so weird that irrelevance and relevance is the go-to metric that these fans seem to use, too. So it always boils down to, well, you're less relevant than Taylor Swift. Like, no shit.
Meaghan Garvey: Right, but I would say that right now Charli XCX is more relevant than Taylor Swift. I guess it all depends on your little corner of where you're coming from, but Charli is way more relevant than Taylor Swift in my world. But how do you prove that? You can't back it up. Oh my god, these kids are lost, man.
Tom Lea: So going back to you, how did you originally start writing about music? And who have been your key inspirations as a writer along the way?
Meaghan Garvey: I really had no intention to become a music writer, or a writer at all, other than when I was a little kid I thought it'd be cool. But when I got into music writing it was because I was doing illustrations for Vice and Noisey. I was drawing pictures of Waka Flocka Flame. And I think at some point I got confused in the shuffle or something and they were like, ‘Do you want to write this thing?’ I'm like, ‘Yeah, sure. I would love 125 bucks. Thank you.’ I don't know, I just snuck in there.
Tom Lea: I don't think I realised that the illustrations came first. I think I thought that they were in tandem with your writing.
Meaghan Garvey: Well, what I was really doing was kind of laundering my semi-successful weed-dealing operation through art. I was like, ‘I'm an artist guys!’ But I was selling weed to art school kids on my bicycle. But all that money went into making zines and shit about like, Rick Ross being a member of the Illuminati. [Laughter] I don't know. I had my little weird arts and crafts Etsy empire. That's some early 2010s shit right there. I'm kind of ashamed of it. An Etsy store selling prayer candles with Aaliyah on? Like, come on. I cringe, but you can't run from your past.
The great thing was that while I was waiting for people to come over to my house and buy weed, I had some really cool customers and we would sit around on my kitchen floor and listen to Lil B, Riff Raff, cloud rap, the Soulja Boy resurgence and like, Farrah Abraham2 and all this weird internet music, and just get high and listen to it. I feel like that really primed me to be a tastemaker in the blog space.
Tom Lea: Can we talk about Farrah Abraham for a second?
Meaghan Garvey: Dude, of course. More relevant than ever on this Charli record!
Tom Lea: This is what I'm saying. I feel like she's been written out of history, bar maybe four people who talk about her on Twitter, but I hear Farrah Abraham in so many hyped contemporary records.
Meaghan Garvey: I guess I can hear her influence. Like the parts of her songs that seem to gallop in opposite directions from each other. You know what I mean? And then there was that Fader interview with the producer of that record where he was like, ‘Yeah, the vocals and the music were not recorded in awareness of one another.’ Fucking crazy. I love how she didn't try and capitalise on it. She did this interview where she was like, ‘What is it called, EBM music?’ She was just like, this is my little fun hobby and I'm not interested in pursuing this at all. Because it would suck if they were trotting her out on the stages of Pride Parade or whatever. That would be corny right?
Tom Lea: Right. Yeah. What does she even do now?
Meaghan Garvey: Probably OnlyFans, I don't know.
Tom Lea: Let's talk about America's number one vibes-based newsletter. When did vibes become your beat? How do you conceptualise vibes as a thing to write about?
Meaghan Garvey: It’s interesting because I really hate when other people talk about vibes. I feel like I'm the only person that's allowed to talk about vibes, and I'm sure it's just as annoying when I'm doing it but... it's really annoying to talk about vibes, isn't it? Because you're not saying anything at all.
Tom Lea: But we did a whole episode on it with Dr. Robin James, the vibes philosopher.
Meaghan Garvey: Well, she probably has a PhD in vibes. So I can't compare. Does she?
Tom Lea: I don't know if it's specifically in vibes. I feel like she's the vibes philosopher, but you're more on the ground.
Meaghan Garvey: Yeah, I'm the boots-on-the-ground vibes reporter. But vibes, for me… I do have this woo-woo idea that you can exercise your instincts to the point where... I don't want to say it's psychic, but you can be at the right place at the right time. It's not a coincidence. It's a skill.
Tom Lea: I saw this, you talked to Lana about this!
Meaghan Garvey: Yeah! And when I'm talking about vibes, that's really what I'm talking about. I'm talking about using your instincts to find what the fuck you want to write about, as opposed to like, oh my god, they're saying that indie sleaze is happening. You know what I mean? Vibes is more like instinctual reporting, I guess, but it's really just some sort of silly catchphrase I came up with as a shorthand for saying, I'm not going to write about anything relevant. So don't come here for that.
Chal Ravens: The latest edition of SCARY COOL SAD GOODBYE is a report from somewhere called House on the Rock, which I had never heard of. Why did you want to go there and what does it have to do with what you're trying to do as a writer?
Meaghan Garvey: OK, House on the Rock. It's no surprise you haven't heard of it. The only people who've heard of it are people from the Midwest whose parents dragged them there when they were kids and they came away changed and like, traumatised but inspired. The story goes that... you know the architect Frank Lloyd Wright? Supposedly this was his nemesis. Frank Lloyd Wright had this gorgeous house built into the rolling hills of southwestern Wisconsin, which is a very beautiful region. And so this freak named Alex Jordan built this house on a 70-foot tall rock. It's this weird marvel of engineering because it's really precariously balanced on top of the rock. It's sleazy – like, ‘60s groovy, conversation pit, Graceland velvet, shag carpet, and everything is kind of dingy and dark and just like an orgy house basically. Or swingers, I guess it was called back in the ‘60s.
So this was his house. But then as people paid him money to come see his house, he made millions and millions of dollars and reinvested it, turning it into this 13-layer, Dante's Inferno style, like, dark, weird carnival slash museum with no historical accuracy. If it sounds like I'm making no sense, this place makes no sense unless you go see it. There's an orchestra of mannequins who robotically play symphonies. There's a whale that's the size of the Statue of Liberty in one room. And then there's his collection of guns. It's insane but it's really beautiful too. It's amazing.
If you bring your kid there, it will imprint upon their subconscious in a way that really stuck with me, fucking 30 years later, so I was like, I gotta go back. So this is what I say when I mean vibes. I'm kind of chasing something that... I don't know what, but I guess I'm running. I'm running away. I'm running away from the discourse is what I'm doing. I'm fucking running for my life away from the discourse.
Chal Ravens: You often write about half-forgotten parts of America. You've written about Midwestern dive bars, architectural follies, train journeys. And I suppose you could call some of that Americana. I was wondering what you think is the difference between vibes and nostalgia?
Meaghan Garvey: Well, the thing with nostalgia is that they tell you it's a trap, right? I've heard so many times: nostalgia is a trap. You don't want to get stuck in nostalgia. But for me nostalgia's the best. What's wrong with nostalgia? A lot of shit was just better back in the day. So maybe vibes are like, the ghosts of when America wasn't so dilapidated and ruined? Maybe the vibes are the ghosts of America past.
Chal Ravens: There's a question here about how you approach cherishing and remembering these elements of the past without falling into a retrograde, reactionary thing of ‘it was better in the old days!’ Well, yeah, but you also had Jim Crow. How do we divide that up?
Meaghan Garvey: I don't exactly know how to answer that question. Listen, I don't think that life was better in the fucking 1940s or whatever. [Laughter]
Chal Ravens: What do you think was America's best year? When did it peak?
Meaghan Garvey: Whenever Elvis was really good, in like 1958, or ‘56? Whenever Elvis was really hitting.
Chal Ravens: That’s pre-Civil Rights, you can't choose that!
Meaghan Garvey: Oh my god, I know I can't choose that. But what was it then?!
Chal Ravens: The reason that I ask is because something that really interests me is West Coast countercultural history, where so many interesting things overlap – drug culture, Silicon Valley, all these things. [Merry Pranksters, Black Panthers, gay liberation, desert raves… etc!] And this line between nostalgia for the past and a reactionary over-treasuring of the past is interesting, because we know that things have got worse. This is a line that Lana Del Rey treads, for example – she's not a ‘modern woman’, but of course she is.
Meaghan Garvey: I guess the real answer is that no time was ever better or worse. If you spend enough time on Twitter you walk away with the idea that the world is quite literally on fire, and that we live in end times. And it's never been worse than this. Of course it's been worse than this! You know, we're not in end times. You wish we were in end times, but we got a long way to go before end times. So in my writing I guess what I'm pushing against is the idea that life on Earth and in America is uniquely dystopian right now. You know, heaven and hell are places on Earth and always have been. My nostalgia is simply my own. I don't nostalgise a past I don't remember, I nostalgise when I was seven years old on a porch swing with my grandma. That's really what I'm trying to get back to in my writing.
Chal Ravens: In that sense it's a bit more more personal, or as you suggested before maybe more psychoanalytical, rather than a kind of cultural grand statement? Which I guess is what I see in Lana Del Rey, because she's imagining a type of America that she couldn't possibly be old enough to remember.
Meaghan Garvey: Yeah. And you know, Lana's not trad, she's 39 years old, unmarried with no kids. She’s not trad at all, she's a modern woman.
Chal Ravens: The newsletter is a place where you can shift into a very personal voice, which is something that I have actually found hard to do as a writer. I was thinking about how you had managed to evolve in that direction and one of the threads that comes up more frequently than you might expect in your writing is grief, which really goes to the kernel of your inner self. How have you approached that challenge of getting closer to a personal voice in your writing?
Meaghan Garvey: I don't know if you guys feel this way, but often when I read writing on the internet, be it cultural writing, essays, what have you, I feel like everyone's lying through their teeth. Maybe not even on purpose, but it's almost as if they haven't had the time or money to interrogate whether what they're saying is how they actually feel, or if they're just saying what they think people want to hear.
Chal Ravens: How much time and money is required?
Meaghan Garvey: Well, you need more than a day, you know? You need more than a day to write about a Beyoncé record. I started to feel this major dishonesty when writers say things like, ‘It's impossible to deny that Olivia Rodrigo is on top of her game.’ What are you talking about? Don't rope me into that! This ‘we’, this ‘we all know’ – no you don't, you don't know me. It’s this very inside-baseball stuff where if you gave it to your neighbour or your dad they'd be like, what the fuck are you talking about?
So anyways, I came upon the idea that writing through the first person, the ‘I’, is the only way to honestly express what I'm trying to say. And that to me has been very freeing. Perhaps it tickles some narcissistic tendencies, but I think it's actually a means to broader and hopefully truer ideas, because if I speak for myself, I can truly be honest.
Tom Lea If a Taganista [OK, looks like we’re doing this if you lot don’t send in better suggestions] was ready to leave it all behind, buy a ticket to America and hit the Amtrak, what would be your recommended route?
Meaghan Garvey: You gotta start in Chicago, because that's really the heart. All the arteries flow out through Chicago, so it's very handy to live here. The longest Amtrak route in America, I believe, is from Chicago to Los Angeles. And maybe LA isn't where you want to go, but you go through the mountains of Colorado, you go through the deserts, you go through these weird Utah rock formations, and a lot of really boring stuff as well. That's a really good long one. What you have to keep in mind on the Amtrak, though, is don't get the room. They'll try and sell you on this private room, but you've got to sit amongst the people, and you've got to be ready to sleep next to some weird drunk homeless guy. It's crazy to get the room, you miss out on all the good stuff which is the vagabonds and freaks riding amongst you.
Chal Ravens: What are you listening to right now? Is there any new stuff you want to tell us about?
Meaghan Garvey: I’m still listening to the Cindy Lee record. That one's still holding up for me, that's one of the best albums I've heard in years. What else? Basically nothing that’s relevant, although I did like that Mk.Gee guy, did you guys listen to that?
Chal Ravens: Yeah, I was gonna raise Mk.Gee as something we need to discuss on No Tags. I dunno, it seems a bit like Connan Mockasin again but not as exciting.
Meaghan Garvey: No, you're right. OK, this leads into my idea that the year 2011 is back.
Tom Lea: Was I not saying this, Chal? Was I not saying this the other day?
Chal Ravens: You were. Meaghan, speak on it.
Meaghan Garvey: Well, it's hard to speak on it without sounding completely psychotic. Like, what do you mean ‘2011 is back’? But when the Cindy Lee record came out I was like, oh my god, it's fucking Altered Zones3 vibes! Something about that, the How to Dress Well record that came out, the Mk.Gee... I'm trying to put my finger on it. But it is Altered Zones, though. That's kind of the point I'm trying to hit. Does that make sense?
Tom Lea: I had this experience, maybe last year, which I also brought up in the episode with Jeff [Weiss] but it's really stayed with me. I was with a friend of mine who's 10 years older than me, and another friend of mine who is about 10 years younger than me. Three different generations. But we were chatting, and we all homed in on the early 2010s as the period where we felt we had the healthiest relationship with absorbing new music. I think there was a lot of stuff that peaked at the same time: Altered Zones, Dat Piff, blog-era rap. It all felt so rich. And I was probably just the right age for it. But I don't think it's a coincidence that someone 10 years younger than me and someone 10 years older than me also homed in on that time period. I feel like the Cindy Lee record and Altered Zones is a perfect comparison.
Meaghan Garvey: Totally. So is this all just our collective yearning for that time? But there's something in the music, too. There's some quality to the music that I can't quite put my finger on.
Tom Lea: Well, it's the last pre-streaming era, right? Streaming really becomes dominant in 2014, maybe 2013. And the Cindy Lee record obviously isn't on streaming. I'm not sure that's a coincidence.
Chal Ravens: There's a very small window between everyone getting fast enough broadband to be able to upload and download lots of files, and then streaming coming in and saying, ‘hey, now you don't even need the files.’
Tom Lea: Chal, you said to me that the Cindy Lee record reminds you of having iTunes.
Chal Ravens: Yeah, which is funny because the music doesn't sound like it’s from any era when home computing was a particularly big deal, right.
Tom Lea: Meaghan, who's the one artist you've covered in the past that you wish got bigger?
Meaghan Garvey: Can I say Sicko Mobb?4
Tom Lea: Of course you can say Sicko Mobb! That mixtape's a classic.
Meaghan Garvey: Sicko Mobb was hyperpop before hyperpop. I will die on that fucking hill. Not exactly, but you see what I'm saying. I think rap would sound a lot more compelling now if Sicko Mobb blew up instead of Juice WLRD. R.I.P., but you know what I mean.
Tom Lea: We prepared a little quick-fire section to close us out. Chal, you start us off.
Chal Ravens: Here we go. Marlboro Red or American Spirit?
Meaghan Garvey: Marlboro Red. American Spirits are like sucking a cigarette through a straw. I don't understand why people like them.
Tom Lea: Twin Peaks or Mulholland Drive?
Meaghan Garvey: Twin Peaks.
Chal Ravens: Elvis or Johnny Cash?
Meaghan Garvey: Definitely Elvis.
Tom Lea: Cardi B or Megan Thee Stallion?
Meaghan Garvey: I’m gonna go Cardi. Megan Thee Stallion doesn't have as many hits as people would like to say.
Chal Ravens: Rhinestones or studs?
Meaghan Garvey: Rhinestones.
Tom Lea: Report the truth or print the legend?
Meaghan Garvey: Whoa. I'm obsessed with the truth right now, we gotta go with the truth.
Chal Ravens: ‘Espresso’ or ‘Good Luck, Babe!’?
Meaghan Garvey: Yo, what is up with people's obsession with ‘Espresso’? People are like, ‘This is the new Annie’ - remember Annie, back in the day? I'm like, what are you talking about? It's pure astroturf. I don't even know the other song that you said, but let's go with that one.
Chal Ravens: It’s by Chappell Roan.
Meaghan Garvey: I haven't listened to her yet. I feel like I need to.
Chal Ravens: Yeah, we both really like it - so obviously you will.
Tom Lea: Amtrak or road trip?
Meaghan Garvey: Well, this is a really tough one but since I am the new owner of a really cool car I'm going to go road trip. It's a '93 Cadillac De Ville, I got it on Craigslist. It's all red on the outside, all red on the inside. I just blacked out, I didn't even have a driver's licence when I bought the car. I was like, fuck, I gotta get a driver's licence now.
Chal Ravens: OK, final one. This should be straightforward: Kendrick or Drake?
Meaghan Garvey: Oh my gosh, of course Kendrick. Of course.
Tom Lea: We also want your definitive ranking of the Lana Del Rey album catalogue - starting from the bottom. That wasn't a Drake reference by the way.
Meaghan Garvey: Okay, starting from the bottom... Bottom: Born to Die. I know people are gonna come at me for this, so we can take it off the pod. Next on the list is Blue Banisters. I just haven't tapped in yet, more to be revealed for me. Then Lust for Life, third from the bottom. Her newest album fourth from the bottom - that actually could go lower than Lust for Life. Oh my god, what am I missing? We'll say Ultraviolence. We'll say Honeymoon. We'll say Norman Fucking Rockwell number one. Yes. Did I miss anything?
Tom Lea: Chemtrails Over the Country Club? Did we say that one?
Meaghan Garvey: I don't know, somewhere in the middle. It's good though.
Chal Ravens: You know, I never got on the LDR train initially. But now I totally get it. It's just the consistency of it.
Meaghan Garvey: Anti-eras! You don't have to have eras, just do the same thing over and over until you master it.
Chal Ravens: OK, final question. Meaghan, please recommend us a film.
Meaghan Garvey: There’s this documentary. It's probably from 1999, don't quote me on that. It's called American Movie. And this sort of takes place in the SCARY COOL SAD GOODBYE aesthetic universe. It takes place in Wisconsin, more specifically in Milwaukee, which is a really cool city, and it's about this guy, kind of a typical Midwestern character. He has delusions of grandeur, but also really interesting things to say, and he has auteur dreams. He's making a movie. He's actually making a bunch of movies, these chintzy horror movies. But this movie is about him trying to make his movie. This doesn't sound very interesting, but it is kind of a portrait of... you know this term ‘NPC’ [non-player character] that people use now? I think it's so horrible, it's the new ‘normie’ or whatever. Both terms really upset me. As if the fucking hipster media class has a monopoly on interiority and interesting thoughts and life experiences and traumas and tragedies!
But this movie I like. One, because it's hilarious. Two, because the guy is really hot. And three, because it is like us. It's a portrait of a working class, normal guy who works graveyard shifts at literally a graveyard. He's just a regular dude but he's an auteur. He has visions, he has dreams, he's creating his artistic canon and I don't know, it's just really cool. It's a very anti-NPC movie. It's eminently quotable. I highly recommend it.
Context: fans figured out pretty swiftly that the song ‘Girl, so confusing’ from Brat was about Charli’s awkward relationship with Lorde, and shortly after the album came out, the pair of them publicly “worked out” their issues on a remix.
Farrah Abraham is a reality TV star, finding fame via the MTV show 16 and Pregnant and its spin-off series Teen Mom. In 2012 she released her sole album, a confessional blast of oddball EDM titled My Teenage Dream Ended. We’d recommend Alex Macpherson’s excellent review for FACT.
Altered Zones was a Pitchfork sibling site launched in 2010 to document “small-scale DIY music” and “to serve as a focal point for the flood of creativity coming from deep within the music underground”, rounding up contributors from key blogs of the era (such as Gorilla vs. Bear, Don’t Die Wondering and 20 Jazz Funk Greats) to write about emerging artists like Sleep ∞ Over, Stellar Om Source, Grimes and Oneohtrix Point Never. The website was discontinued at the end of 2011, and predictably has since disappeared from the web with very little trace - though former contributors did band together to form Ad Hoc in 2012.
21: Meaghan Garvey, America's #1 vibes-based journalist