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Day Two: The Closer

An ex-partner of mine once joked that a majority of music in my library was effectively described as "Angry Women With Guitars". I'd like to think that my taste has grown since then, but as a general if you were to pull up the playlist of, say, Lilith Fair, I'm probably going to know the majority of the lyrics.

One of the groups that acted as sort of feeder band for my obsession with the kind of music you hear a lot in (just as a purely hypothetical, totally not based on my experiences) Chicago Lesbian Bars is a band called Tegan and Sara. I kinda fell in love with them once I decided that I actually wasn't terribly fond of all that 80s and 90s hypermasculine hairmetal music I listened to in High School so I would fit in with a bunch of people that I didn't actually want to fit in with, when I was secretly playing my tapes of Siouxsie and the Banshees so much that I had to buy replacements.

Tegan and Sara had a pretty good string of albums that catered to a particular audience, but in 2012 they dropped a much more "mainstream" album, much poppier with an interesting change to tempo and beats, but their musician's chops are still there: their voices are still great and still work well together, and the lyrics are snappy and smart as ever.

They're also unabashedly aiming at a younger, much more hungry audience and I think it works very well. It's understandable why there was crossover between T&S and Katy Perry during Perry's last tour; 2012's Heartthrob is pretty much the kind of music that someone who wanted to sing Perry's music to her girlfriend instead of her boyfriend would probably like to hear.

I like it. It's much more strenuously produced and consciously aimed than their earlier work, but I'm not going to criticise an artist for trying new things, especially when it means more people learn of their work. There's still plenty of angry, though. And if I want less of the synthpop vibe and more acoustic guitar, there's always the back catalog.

Obligatory Youtube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e9NSMY8QiQ
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