If you're a music critic/blogger/nerd and you remain unfamiliar with San Diego duo Cults, you're liable to get disbarred, flamed, dragged through the virtual town square and dismembered. If you're an average (or even above average) music listener who attends shows and likes new music but has something (anything!) to do besides browse The Hype Machine all day, you probably have no idea who Cults are — and there's good reason for that.
More than any other recent band I can think of, Cults, who play Chicago's Hideout this Saturday, 7/31, embody the new paradigm of indie rock that the ruthlessly cutting-edge blog community sells culture-conscious listeners. Basically, a young New York hipster couple threw up a digital 7" on Bandcamp.com, Pitchfork liked their stuff and slapped on the increasingly dubious "Best New Music" tag, and the rest of the internet creamed their collective jeans. The relative lack of information and bedroom production only seem to fuel the mystique, as though we're all slapping ourselves on the back for digging up the next Girls before they managed to come to us.
So, do Cults warrant some attention? Absolutely. Their lo-fi girl-group pop registers as smart, wistful and catchy. Some of their more subtle touches, like the buzzy, drum-machine-driven breakdown in "Go Outside" and the slow, menacing sashay of "The Curse" promise a lot more potential than slavish Ronettes revivalism. But I do have to wonder about the consequences for indie music when a band can't stew in their own primordial juices long enough to spit out a proper debut before they come under intense, nationwide critical scrutiny. Should we maybe, just maybe, let a band accumulate more than three songs' worth of material before we foist them on the interview circuit?
If all of this sounds a bit like Luddite grumping, excuse the curmudgeonism. But I worry that the relentless hyperbole about the newest of the newest diamond-in-the-rough indie finds creates a critical and audience consensus before we even actually get to, y'know, listen to a debut full-length album from some of these bands. After all, when was the last time, say, Stereogum upped a band that Pitchfork dissed, or any iteration of vice versa? And just try to find me a Cults write-up that doesn't read something like "blah blah mysterious boy/girl duo blah blah Shangri-Las blah blah OMG AMAZING." It's this sort of accelerated vicious hype-cycle that got Best Coast booked to headline the Metro before they put out their first fucking album.
Anyway, the point is that I like Cults, but I'm not sure how much I care that I like Cults, because there's just not that much Cults out there to like. Nevertheless, the internets tell us that Cults are primed for a meteoric rise. The San Diego duo will bring their three likable tunes (and hopefully some new ones) to Hideout this Saturday, and RFC photog Shani Silver and I will show up to report. Check back shortly after to see if we decide Cults have the staying power to stick around for, like, a whole EP.
My man. i hoped we could get someone like u after raja bailed on me at dinner
Posted by: uggs uk | 10/14/2011 at 09:42 PM
The risks to heart health that are associated with obesity include heart attacks.
Posted by: best resveratrol | 09/12/2011 at 11:01 AM
My man. i hoped we could get someone like u after raja bailed on me at dinner
Posted by: ergo baby carrier sale | 08/10/2011 at 02:26 AM
you're right! everyone seems to have the same opinion about them. I defnitely love their album. and i think their new video for Go Outside is great too. did you see it? http://cultscultscults.com">http://cultscultscults.com">http://cultscultscults.com
Posted by: Charlotte | 08/04/2011 at 06:31 AM
My man. i hoped we could get someone like u after raja bailed on me at dinner
Posted by: cheap mbt shoes on sale | 07/29/2011 at 02:00 AM