Seth Bogart (album)
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| Seth Bogart | ||||
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | February 19, 2016 | |||
| Recorded | 2012–15 | |||
| Length | 44:01 | |||
| Label | Burger | |||
| Producer | Cole MGN | |||
| Seth Bogart chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Seth Bogart | ||||
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Seth Bogart is the second overall solo studio album written, recorded and performed by Hunx and His Punx vocalist Seth Bogart. It is the first studio album to be released under his name, as his previous solo record Hairdresser Blues[1] was issued under his stage name Hunx. Seth Bogart was produced and co-written by Cole MGN, and also features vocal performances from Chela, Kathleen Hanna, Tavi Gevinson, Jeremiah Nadya, and Clementine Creevy.
Bogart had enjoyed making music as his Hunx character, but had wanted for a long time to start recording material that showed more of his true self, "like a weird teenager's version of an adult album, I guess. But I just mean that in the sense where I took it super seriously and worked on it for a long time"[2] because "I wanted to make something that I would look back and still really love later."[3] He took more than two years to make the album, unlike during his Hunx period where he would make a record in five days or fewer.
Seth Bogart was promoted with an art show, videos and a tour that contained props inspired by Pee-wee's Playhouse, as well as numerous pre-album song premieres. Upon its February 2016 Burger Records release, the album was praised by some reviewers for its concept of fakeness of apparent beauty in celebrity and fashion culture, as symbolized in its use of cheap keyboard sounds and vocal effects such as autotune. There were also critics that complimented its combination of elements of punk and pop music and liked it as being a fun record.
Bogart started making all of the songs in his bedroom with only a guitar, a $50 keyboard and laptop before sending them to Cole MGN, well known for his work with other artists such as Ariel Pink, Julia Holter, and Dâm-Funk, for them to be finished.[3] Bogart often met him since the mid-2000s in Oakland, California until Cole moved to Los Angeles. Bogart did not move to the city, given that he had to stay in Oakland to run a hair salon, until 2012, which the two met up again to record demos that would be finalized for the album: "I really can't find words to describe how much I love collaborating with him. He's such a great artist, musician and producer and puts everything he has into whatever he's working on. There was basically nothing challenging about making this record. It just always felt right."[4] The album features collaborations with singers including Chela and Kathleen Hanna, who both sent their recorded vocal tracks, as well as Clementine Creevy and Tavi Gevinson whose vocals were recorded in the studio;[4] Bogart said that he considered 20 people to collaborate with for the album.[3]
As symbolized musically with low-grade keyboard sounds, as well as exaggerated autotuned vocals, Seth Bogart is about the culture of fabricated fashion and celebrities,[5] and combines them with reality to show how the seeming beauty of these things are actually dull.[6] Musically, the album uses the sound of the early 2000s period of DIY punk acts such as Le Tigre and Tracy + the Plastics, and makes it goofy enough so it still can be taken seriously at the same time by adding bright electronic sounds and effects common in pop music to the mix.[7][8]
Track information
Seth Bogart opens with the lo-fi "Hollywood Squares", which laments the honoring and social climbing of celebrities in Los Angeles.[2] It contains distorted guitars, basic drum rhythms and tongue-in-cheek lyrical content, with the song compared by one reviewer to a more "produced" Japandroids track.[8] "Eating Makeup" was inspired by an episode of the TLC series My Strange Addiction,[4] which contained a testimony by a woman named Brittoni who described eating makeup as "craving of your favorite kind of candy bar."[6] As a reviewer described "Eating Makeup": "What begins as a lick or a curiosity turns into a full-blown obsession, and all of a sudden, you're sprawled in the center of Sephora, covered in opened concealer. Eventually, Bogart concludes gleefully, 'everybody's eating makeup'".[6]
"Forgotten Fantazy" deals with how someone's own true personality is removed by another person's vision about what a perfect lover should be: "It's hard for me to know what you need/ I'm your forgotten fantazy."[6] It is instrumentally driven by a restrained synthesizer line that, according to Jeremy Gordon of Pitchfork, may have been taken from a loading screen of an old NES game.[6] Bogart described the lyrical content in a magazine interview: "When it comes down to it, Forgotten Fantazy is a song about S&M. It's about non-satisfaction. Un-satisfaction. Satisfaction going out of style. Nothing ever being enough. The possible pleasures that control your sex drive no matter how bad you try to resist. Being tied up and disconnecting from reality. Confusing pain and pleasure, and pleasure and pain. It's a love song."[9] The song is followed in the album's track listing by "Smash the TV", which is about the narrator's attraction to someone he only sees on a television show.[6] As MTV News wrote, the album "puts kitsch and queerness at the fore" with songs like the R&B ballad "Lubed",[5][10] which includes instruments such as a mesmeric synthesizer riff playing over a piano and "melodic distortions".[6] Described by Bogart as "the most Radio Disney song I’ve ever written", "Club With Me" involves the narrator dancing by himself at a club with a song he wrote himself playing.[11]
Bogart cited his "plastic obsession" towards Plastic Bertrand, as well as groups including Plastics, The Plastics group in the 2004 film Mean Girls, Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band, the Aqua song "Barbie Girl" and the group Tracy + the Plastics as inspiration for "Plastic!".[12] In the song, the narrator deals with him seeing potential in a lost friend of his who becomes briefly famous in public and now becomes crazy in seeking for more of this popularity.[12] "Plastic!" is followed by the doo-wop track "Barely 21".[8] Containing vocals from Gevinson, it is about having a crush on someone who has just turned twenty-one years of age, hence the title,[6] and musically has "a nice digital gloss to it, as well as some tender guitar hooks" as a reviewer for Exclaim! wrote.[13] The "slinky disco" track "Supermarket Supermodel"[10] is followed by "Flurt"; an upbeat song on the outside, "Flurt" is brightly sung by Chela who reflects if going out to a club with intentions for only having a private moment was really a good idea, which according to Gordon, juxtaposes against Chela's hidden sorrow.[6]
