The Gyrlz Album
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Zulema Estabrooks
Aug 5, 2024, 12:38:31 PM8/5/24
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Girlsfrontman Christopher Owens grew up in the Children of God cult. His older brother died as a baby because the cult didn't believe in medical attention. His dad left. He and his mother lived around the world, and the cult sometimes forced his mother to prostitute herself. As a teenager, Owens fled and lived as a Texas gutter-punk for a while. Then a local millionaire took Owens under his wing, and Owens moved to San Francisco. There, he and Chet "JR" White formed Girls, and recorded Album, their debut album, under the influence of just about every kind of pill they could find.
As band origin stories go, this one is so epically sad and squalid and ultimately triumphant that nobody could make it up. It's the sort of story that can overwhelm a band so completely that you never really hear their music; you only hear the story. So it's a tribute to Album that you don't need to know one word of that first paragraph to hear it as what it is: a dizzily powerful piece of work. That's partly because you don't need to know Owens' story to intuit that there's something going on here. When I saw the band play SXSW, knowing nothing about them beyond their compulsively listenable "Hellhole Ratrace" single, I wrote that the band's music sounds "like the work of one deeply weird and possibly sad person."
That's largely because of Owens' enormously evocative voice, a hiccupy thing that feels like a direct descendant of every sad nerd genius in pop history. The immediate obvious reference point is Elvis Costello, but you can also hear shards of Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison and Paul McCartney and Morrissey. Owens never brays or moans or snarls; he sings simple songs about heartbreak with the internalized classicism of someone who's been listening to oldies radio in his sleep his whole life. He's playful; he has fun with it. But there's always a wounded, raggedy quaver at the back of his throat, one that implies worlds of hurt beyond the simple breakup songs he's singing.
And make no mistake; most of the songs on the Girls album are about, well, girls. Owens reportedly wrote much of the album in the aftermath of a bad breakup. There's one song called "Laura" and another called "Lauren Marie", so he's presumably got someone in mind. But he never falls into emo laceration, instead delivering his sentiments with conversational directness: "You've been a bitch, I've been an ass/ I don't wanna point the finger; I just know I don't like this, I don't wanna do this." But even his most innocuous classic-pop lyrics hint at a deep-seated fucked-upedness. On "Goddamn", he gets downright creepy over glimmering acoustic guitars and "Ghost Town" percussion-rattles: "Just give all your attention to me." "Headache" is just as fragile and reverby, and Owens cops a half-joking lounge-singer baritone to sing, "Let's be the people that we want to be/ Let's live like we could never part"-- implying, of course, that he's not already the person he wants to be. And he starts out "Hellhole Ratrace", the band's first single, with this: "I'm sick and tired of the way that I feel." He's a broken man.
Musically, Album is mostly sunny Beach Boys pastiche, but it's not the kajillionth indie attempt at orchestral Pet Sounds majesty. Rather, it's simple and forthright early Beach Boys stuff: compact guitar-jangles, sha-la-la harmonies, muffled heartbeat drums. It sounds great. And even though it has a basic core sound, Album manages to cover a lot of aesthetic ground in its 44 minutes. Without being showy about it, they swing from rushing power-pop to acoustic campfire laments to "Morning Light", which is one of the most fully realized slices of shoegaze revivalism I've heard in years. If they'd made an entire album of songs like "Morning Light", Girls would be getting a ton of blog love, but they decided to go for something at once messier and simpler. And they're getting a ton of blog love anyway.
There's a pillowy quality to many of the sounds on Album, but this isn't lo-fi or glo-fi or whatever. Rather, every little production flourish is so much a part of the whole that you don't notice it until the 10th or 15th listen. On "Lust for Life", for instance, there's a melodica that bubbles up on the second half. "Big Bad Mean Motherfucker" is joyous beach-party stuff, but there's a beautifully discordant guitar solo in there. "Hellhole Ratrace" builds to an epic guitar whoosh halfway through its seven minutes, but the beat's hammer never quite falls; the drums stay just slightly off. The guitars on "Lauren Marie" twang like Duane Eddy's. All this stuff functions like the sleigh bells on Liz Phair's "Fuck and Run": subtle little intuitive details that you might never notice but that add to the devastating whole. The canniness of Album's production choices and the scuzzy depression of the lyrics and the gut-level songwriting instincts, along with everything else about the record, add up to something elusive and fascinating-- maybe even heartbreaking.
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As some of you may know, there are hidden faces of the Beatles on the cover of the Rolling Stones album, Their Satanic Majesties Request. I was going through their different album artworks when I found an inside cover for Some Girls.
The inspiration for these songs is almost as broad, partially due to all of us being songwriters. Some of the songs have a feminist message, telling women to be strong and have respect for themselves, while others are inspired by the people we love and those we meet on our travels. All of them, however, espouse the idea that life is what you make of it. The world is full of challenges and obstacles, with lots of people and structures trying to dictate what you can and cannot do, but ultimately every choice is yours. This album calls for everyone to live their own truth, whatever that may be.
Most of us had never performed at an open mic night before until we did so at Rainbow House. We used to live at this unofficial housing and arts co-op in Isla Vista that held a weekly open mic (without a mic) every Monday, and it was our church. It was a very welcoming crowd, with several regulars, beans and rice for everyone, red wine tossed about, people singing along and encouraging performers when they forgot words or played wrong chords. The room was often packed, stuffed to the brim. It was scary to get up and do something like that in front of a bunch of friends and strangers, but not so bad when you got the hang of it.
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Album was awarded the fifth spot on Spin magazine's best albums of 2009 list[13] and tenth on Pitchfork's "The Top 50 Albums of 2009" list.[14] Pitchfork also awarded it "Best New Music" upon release.[9]
After spending some time living in Slovenia with the Children of God, Chris escaped the cult, moving to Amarillo, Texas where his sister lived. After spells of rough sleeping, Chris became the personal assistant and mentee to American millionaire, artist and philanthropist, Stanley Marsh 3, a controversial grandson of an oil magnate who became a patron of the arts, most notably the Cadillac Ranch. Eventually moving out West, Chris looked to make his dreams of being a musician come true.
As a solo artist, Christopher Owens went on to release three albums, and in recent years he has rebirthed Curls with a new band, and they have recently completed a new album. JR, for his part, has worked playing and producing albums for artists such as Cass McCombs, Tobias Jesso Jr., Spectrals and DIIV.
PRODUCE 101 JAPAN THE GIRLS is the 5th and last release of PRODUCE 101 JAPAN THE GIRLS. It was digitally released on December 18, 2023, two days after the show's finale. It was also physically released on February 7, 2024.[1] The album is a compilation of all ten original songs that were performed in the show.
During the show finale on December 16, 2023, the national producer representative, Kimura Kaela, announced the upcoming release of the show's first and only original album. Pre-orders started on the same day at 16:00 JST. The digital version released two days after the finale aired and one day after FINAL was released. The physical version was released two months later, with different sellers having first press bonuses with different concept battle evaluation teams.[2]
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of TH1RT33N GH0STS, Psycho Ball, ROLL MOTTLE, you don't like real girls, TELL ME WHEN I'M TELLING LIES, Cassie of the Dead, American Nightmare, Ich Liebe Techno, and 58 more. , and , . Purchasable with gift card Buy Digital Discography $45 USD or more (90% OFF) Send as Gift Share / Embed 1. you don't like real girls 03:23 lyrics collection of my death thoughtswhenever i try to be someone i don't wanna bedestruction of this landcan't live inside my fucking mindi'm just a loner, on my owni don't like real girls, that's what they sayi'm so alone inside this placei feel like dying every dayi've been so stressedthat's my human damnationwanderer, spiritsomething i try to beand when i try to think about youmy head's exploding once (again)midnight, i'm trying to thinki wanna leave earth and this placeviolence across the worldinto my own realityfeelin just so lonelyi'm just a loner, on my own (a rebel, a rebel)i don't like real girls, that's what they sayi'm so alone inside this placei feel like dying every dayi've been so stressedthat's my human damnationwanderer, spiritsomething i try to beand when i try to think about youmy head's exploding once againvocals/written/produced by D. Diaz 2. watcher watcher 02:43 lyrics dance in the darktheres no one here to seeblow your brains outi wanna seeand im waitingi wanna kiss your porcelain neckwith our wrists sliced openthen we both lay deadno one can see youno one can see us againno one can save youno one can see you againno one can see us againno one can see youno one can see us againno one can see youno one can see us againno one can see younow you can seehow i daily feelall day longwhy i feel so slow?and now im waiting near darkwhere you left mestill my body here remainsso jealous that i made it herestill feeling like i wanna dieeven if i just made it herei wish my death upon the skyspill my blood into the groundno one can see youno one can see us againno one can save youno one can see you againno one can see us againno one can see youno one can see us againno one can see youno one can see us againno one can see youvocals/written/produced by D. Diaz about SPOTIFY
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