Superlatives
A Vulture series in which artists judge the best and worst of their own careers.
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Sara:Spiritually or literally dead, I would go with Walking With a Ghost.
It was really the one that got us cred in places where we hadnt had any credibility.
Take that or leave that.
Im mostly referring to white straight men, but its true.
It was our first kind of crack at radio and the mainstream.
It still sounds so fresh.
Tegan:I really agree with all of that.
We just released a song called Faded Like a Feeling.
Sara and I collaborated on it.
I lifted some of her old lyrics.
It was made up of an old song which had not been released.
Worst song
Tegan:Yep, I can do this one easy.
I get requests constantly to play a song called Superstar, and it is a bad song.
Sara:I dont think its a bad song.
I wanna say that I totally disagree.
I just think that theres a presentation issue with the song.
Thats the problem with a lot of our first songs.
Heres a new melody!Sara was the superior songwriter in our early career.
Saras songs were really melodically developed.
I was basically still coming down from high-school acid.
Sara:If I had to pick anything, Id pick any song onThis Business of Artwhere Tegan rapped.
In every batch of songs she sends me for an album, therell always bethatsong which really stands out.
I remember hearing Nineteen fromThe Con.
I remember her listening to a song Tegan had sent from across the apartment.
I actually felt that way about everything Tegan contributed toThe Con.
Tegan:It was my peak.
Sara:Maybe it was your peak.
Tegan:Theres a song of Saras called Not Tonight fromIf It Was You.
I think that was the first song we recorded on Pro Tools.
He was like, Lets maybe buy a computer.
It was such an exciting moment.
Then we burned it onto CD, and we listened to it like 42,000 times.
Most experimental song
Tegan:Superstar just kidding.
Im sure we thought we were being very experimental.
Sara:Probably a lot of the stuff onSainthood.
We were experimenting with a lot of new production ideas, doing some writing together.
Paperback Head is the one Ill throw out there.
The songwriting process was very unique.
Tegan and I were in this new era of collaborating with other artists.
Wecollaborated with Tiesto; this was not the cool thing to do in 2008.
Now everyone does it.
Its very common for indie artists to now be featured on an electronic musicians track.
Most stylistically pedestrian album
Sara:Im gonna say something potentially controversial.
So many indie rock bands have gone into more of a pop sound since.
Its not as taboo to be trying pop even if youre not a traditional pop artist.
I think 50 percent of that album is leading-the-pack, experimental, pushing-the-envelope pop music.
But to make pop music requires a pedestrian attitude.
You are trying to reach the masses.
Closer was strategically pedestrian.
Tegan:Probably our first album,Under Feet Like Ours.
I have trouble listening to it because it was so pedestrian.
We were just capturing; there was no style.
Wed just convinced our grandfather to give us some money.
But that album was just late-90s straight-to-microphone singer-songwriter.
The song they felt most aligned on
Tegan:So Jealous or Walking With a Ghost.
Both of those songs felt like the future of what Tegan and Sara was going to sound like.
Then right after that, Sara moved to Montreal and she found this air organ on the street.
We were sending CDs back and forth, and I remember hearing those two songs and feeling so inspired.
It just sounded so different.
Sara:When I think about being aligned, I go back to Closer.
We both had to be on the same page.
We both wrote on the song.
It had to be whats the baseball metaphor?
There was this huge fight that happened.
We were crying at this restaurant called Mohawk Bend in Los Angeles.
I feel like weve changed so much since then.
There were a lot more tears, arguments, friction between us and our management.
I have so much respect for huge bands.
There are so many cooks in the kitchen.
But its always just been us; we make all the decisions.
Like, okay, now we have 25 minutes to say good-bye to our family and friends.
Theyre songs about sexuality, but theyre not sexual songs.
To me, a song like Nineteen is far more sexy.
A lot of the songs I wrote for that album were written in the hopeful part.
I had a lot of desire and lust.
The goal is different between records.
The goal is not always Sell the most albums, bro!
Sometimes, the goal is simply sustaining.
I think revisiting some of the songs fromSainthooddown the road could be really cool.
So I think some of those songs got overlooked by the fans.
Sara:If anything, Ive always wanted to be a popular band and a well-reviewed band.
That makes my ego want more.
I want someone to say, Youre geniuses.
Thats how hard I work, and thats how much I believe in what we do.
Not that wearegeniuses; I just want a five out of five or a 9.0 on Pitchfork.
Thats how I think in my brain.
I dont necessarily feel an album is overlooked, but I do think,Are we just good?
Or are we great and people dont know?
Tegan:I would say some of my biggest regrets are financial choices that we made.
We had these light cubes for theHeartthrobtour; the budget ballooned because of them.
It was the profit for the tour in my mind.
There are so many things like that because there is so much pressure for artists to just exist today.
Ticket prices are locked, but then everything else is more expensive hotels, gas, lights, life.
Sara:Welcome to Tegans TED Talk on inflation.
We used to joke that when we each bought our first apartment that it was withGreys Anatomymoney.
Sara:My downpayment on my apartment was absolutely fromGreys Anatomy.
Tegan:Also, again, at that time indie bands werent doing that.
People would discover us throughGreys Anatomy, and its not like radio; its not just nameless and faceless.
People would come to us with this attachment.
We could simply just hear the story.
Theres something really moving about it.
We were really saying something at that age.
We had a voice, and we were singing these songs from within the maze of adolescence.
Even now in my 40s, I listen back and think,This is so sweet.
No wonder people were so excited and drawn to it.
I was like, Well, its not us, its Saras.
And she said, Well, its the coolest song Saras ever done.
Sara:In our fan base, we have Tegan people and Sara people Stacy is a Tegan person.
But she loves a deep cut of mine called Light Up.
Really, all my songs are the same.
I think if you were to analyze all my songs, youd think this person has unbelievably low self-esteem.
I feel like all my songs are about either anxiety or rejection.
Tegan:The Con.
That song sums me up.
Its a very romantic song but about that fine line between anxiety, pining, obsession, and devotion.
Its super-direct and extreme about what was going on in my life.
It sums me up perfectly.
So much passion and excitement and intensity and perverse directness and also extreme frigidity and passivity.
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