Indiecast

Every summer, the music press tries to figure out the song of the summer. For Steven, this can be a tedious exercise that feels like one of those fake holidays made up by greeting card companies to sell product. Nevertheless, the discourse is welcome during an otherwise dead time of the year. So Steven and Ian are getting down to the task this week of determining the defining track of the season....

This week, indie-rock institution Wilco announced a new album. It's called  Cousin ,  and Steven and Ian naturally wondered: Is this a deliberate reference to  The Bear ? After all,  the hit FX show is known  for multiple Wilco needle drops. Did Jeff Tweedy return the favor? The verdict is "probably not," but it's fun to speculate about regardless (:28). From there, they t...

After Ian hit up the Pitchfork Music Festival last weekend, Steven hits him up for a post-mortem in today's episode (6:31). Turns out Ian skipped out on Saturday — a day marred by weather delays — in order to eat custard in Wisconsin. Which means he missed out on the headline set by Big Thief, the weekend's most polarizing performance. Steven and Ian also talked about the band's recent single, " V...

Let's say you are starting a record label. Money is no object, and every artist and band in the world is a free agent. Who would you pick? That's the premise of this week's episode. (31:21) This wholly original idea involves selecting acts that fall into five categories: prestige (they don't stream big but they get great reviews), popular (they don't get great reviews but they stream big), solo ar...

Last week, Steven briefly forgot how to work his podcast equipment, and the result was the first, instantly iconic "lost"  Indiecast  episode. Fortunately, Steven Googled "how to work podcast equipment" and he was able to match his vocals to Ian's for this week's episode. The guys begin with a discussion of a weird new trend in live music: People  throwing things at artists' faces ....

There's no fresh, funny, and incisive commentary on Indiecast this week due to technical issues. But here's a rundown of what you would have heard, including musing about Bluesky, The Bear 's soundtrack, and the 30th anniversary of U2's Zooropa . See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

On  Indiecast , Steven and Ian try to keep the gap between what we talk about privately in the DM's and what we talk about on the show as narrow as possible. But given all the weird online discourse this week, that just wasn't possible in this episode. Between all the  Boygenius  gatekeeping and "state of music criticism" chatter, it was a very odd bunch of days online. Oh, and as i...

This week Steven and Ian reach back to a momentous year in music and both of their lives:  2013 . One man discovered the joys of Phish and jam bands that year. And the other man fell hard for the burgeoning emo revival. Somehow, they both managed to also listen to music that wasn't Phish or emo. And we discuss a lot of that music in this episode. Before we get to that, the guys talk about the...

Before getting to the serious business of handing out their mid-year  Indiecasties  awards for indie music semi-excellence, Steven and Ian try to make sense of the most nonsensical TikTok trend of 2023:  The Pinegrove Shuffle . Apparently, there are young people doing this weird dance to a deep cut by the rootsy indie-Americana band. Why? Who knows? Listen to two guys in their 40s t...

Last week Steven and Ian had to bank an episode because Steven was on vacation. Which is why they did their first all "Yay Or Nay?" episode rather than address possibly the most annoying music story of the year (and maybe decade?) so far — the short-lived dating  relationship between Taylor Swift and The 1975's Matty Healy , and the insane online reaction it sparked. Sadly, they do touch on t...

It started out as a joke: Wouldn't it be funny if Indiecast did an entire episode of just "yay or nay?" responses to various stimuli? But then, listeners deluged Steven and Ian with "yay or nay?" emails about seemingly every band known to mankind. Clearly, they had no choice but to go full-on "yay or nay." They tackled quite the range of topics this week. Listeners wanted to hear their takes on th...

This week's episode begins with Ian telling Steven about his recent experience seeing  The Cure  in concert. Turns out they are playing a lot of new songs live, and they sound a lot like  Disintegration.  Steven reveals that  Jason Isbell said something similar  about his experience seeing The Cure in New Orleans (5:06). Next, they address the most hyped release in th...

If there is one thing that we love here at  Indiecast , it is festival posters with absolutely chaotic energy. So Steven and Ian were psyched this week to see the lineup for  Riot Fest in Chicago , which is topped by big-time bands like Foo Fighters, Death Cab For Cutie and Queens Of The Stone Age. But the real action takes place further down the list — where else can you see Ani DiFranc...

In Indiecast 's latest episode, Steven declares that Ian is a surgeon, Dr. Han. (Is this meme old yet? Will anyone know what we're talking about next week?) Actually, their first order of business is talking about  In Times New Roman,  the just-announced  new album by Queens Of The Stone Age  due June 16, their first in six years (6:16). They try to sort out their current feeli...

Every week, Steven and Ian make it their business to talk about the latest news in indie rock. This week, however, they don't do that. Instead, they made the least indie-rock episode of  Indiecast  ever. The most indie topic on the docket is  the rumored relationship between Taylor Swift and The 1975's Matty Healy (17:12). Is this (alleged) relationship too annoying even for them? A...

This week, Indiecast is talking about wily veterans. And that includes Aaron Rodgers, who is the topic of the emergency Sportscast segment at the top of the episode (1:30). Steven has some heavy feelings to work out about his quarterback for the past 15 years, and all Ian can do in response is trash the 2005 film  Hustle & Flow . (It makes sense when you hear the episode.) With that out o...

Indiecast talks about the biggest music news of the week, and this week the biggest music news involved  Frank Ocean's disastrous appearance at Coachella , and the subsequent  cancelation of his performance this weekend . Steven and Ian try to comprehend the original concept for the performance — apparently it involved an ice rink and an army of skaters? — and why Frank Ocean is the sort...

Coachella is upon us, so Steve and Ian felt it was appropriate to talk about the music festival. But do you really need to talk about Coachella on an indie music podcast these days?  This year's lineup might be the least indie-oriented in history , continuing a long-running trend favoring pop and electronic music. To illustrate this point, they revisited the 2013 lineup, a year when The Stone...

Because Indiecast is obligated to talk about the biggest indie news of the week — it's right there in the introduction — they were required to open this week's episode with an overview of the  Boygenius  discourse (:30). Which turned toxic over the weekend for all of the predictable reasons. However, is it possible to think that  The Record  is neither a masterpiece nor the wor...

At the start of this week's episode, Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen try to come to terms with the fact that Ed Sheeran  doesn't think music critics are necessary . Ultimately, they concede that the man has a point — after all, if music critics had any power, Ed Sheeran would not be a hugely successful pop star (:26). In the banter segment, they talk about the upcoming tour by Smashing Pumpkins, I...

In this week's Indiecast , Ian and Steve share their thoughts on two new albums. The first is Yves Tumor's long-winded album Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) (yes, that's the full album title), which is not quite experimental enough to be avant-garde but not quite catchy enough to be a pop record (44:40). The second is Black Country, New Road's Li...

In this week's episode, Ian and Steve review new albums by  M83  (which they like) and  100 Gecs  (which they are mixed on but are intrigued about) (12:01). But before that, they delve into the week's biggest controversy (:27): That tweet from a political writer about how The White Stripes  would have been better  with a more technically proficient drummer. They also...

On this week's episode, Steve and Ian discuss a wide range of topics while acknowledging that neither is as good at music criticism as Jamie Lee Curtis (3:59). They dive into Steve's recent Bruce Springsteen live experience (23:24), the controversy over The Weeknd's new HBO show (34:18) and whether he's too big to cancel, the rumors about a possible reunion tour by The Hotelier (45:38), and the re...

Ian and Steve looked ahead to the next three months and picked their  most anticipated albums , tours, and trends! That's right — they hashed out  future  trends this time (29:46). In the meat of the episode, they talk about whether upcoming albums by  Blondshell  and  100 Gecs  will live up to expectations this spring (31:12). Then they looked at the "Indie Rock...

This is an indie rock podcast, which needs to be reiterated because of episodes like this one. In this episode, Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen discuss some very un-indie rock topics. For instance, they go deep on  Rolling Stone 's  recent article  about the current state of Live, the '90s grunge band famous for songs like "Lightning Crashes" and "I Alone." Why are they talking abou...