It would have once been obvious to say that a band’s fans made them what they were. Now there’s almost something quaint about it, especially considering (and not in spite of) the hashtagged millions that comprise the Little Monsters, Swifties, and Beliebers, who are as much a marketing tool as the groups being marketed to. Although they get a decent amount of exposure each time they release a record, until now, Tegan and Sara’s sustained success has been down to a core fanbase. The title of their seventh album, Heartthrob, is a reference to how we relate to the objects of our affection as teenagers, that obsessive feeling that you live and die by for a few years, and how those crushes usually end up getting replaced by real, mutually loving relationships. Being someone who’s liked this band to varying degrees of intensity for a decade, it’s easy to interpret the name as the Quins recognizing their own role in their more devoted fans’ lives. Doing so at the same time as they decide to make an album with pop impresario Greg Kurstin and dabble in writing for Carly Rae Jepsen might seem a little like selling their cow for a handful of supposedly magic beans.
Some folks have accused the duo of selling out with Heartthrob– a concise 10 songs, at least half of which could be pop radio singles– to which I’d argue that accessibility has always been a part of their appeal, in more respects than just working in friendly acoustic, rock, and electro-pop mediums. Surely part of the comfort of their music, at least to a young person quietly negotiating their sexuality without wanting to be obvious about it, is that it doesn’t make a big deal of what it’s come to represent. It’s not like putting on an Ani DiFranco record in your bedroom and the lyrics sparking a parent’s ear. One thing they’ve not been shy about in their songs, however, is ambition– there’s a sweet example of that on the Chris Walla-produced Sainthood‘s “Someday”– and more power to them for deciding to explore a populist bent on Heartthrob, which pulls it off with aplomb.
The clearest sign that the Quins would follow this path lies in Sainthood‘s “Alligator”, an insanely catchy, arid little pop song that had become Sara’s trademark. (“Shock to Your System” and “How Come You Don’t Want Me” carry on that impulse here.) But it was also a sign of the growing disparity between the twins’ respective songwriting styles; Tegan’s efforts on that record were stormy emo/power pop blasts, and the two didn’t gel to the extent that it seemed fair to wonder whether it made sense for them to continue recording together. The Roxette and Cyndi Lauper-referencing, soaring keyboard pop of Heartthrob is a welcome stylistic reconciliation, if one that sacrifices their sonic weirdness.
Kurstin has taken Tegan and Sara’s ability to write a solid refrain (some of their old songs were arguably all refrain) and channeled it into rushing, skyward stadium pop songs where their voices are more upfront, and less tethered to their former prickly structures. ”Closer” is the killer, starting with Tegan’s coy, tightly wound vocal laying out what she’s after– “All I dream of lately/ Is how to get you underneath me”– the triumphantly shouted chorus coming off brash and charming, as if she knows she’s definitely going to get it. It’s a gloriously freeing, retrospective retelling of first infatuations, rewriting the script to articulate what you could only think about furiously back when.
“Closer”‘s trad structure is typical of most of the songs on the record, but “Now I’m All Messed Up” breaks through its crackly piano and static whirr of a chorus with piercing, layered pleas: “Go! Go! Go if you want, I can’t stop you!” It plays like a Wham! ballad repurposed as a glitchy, modern slow jam, which, in case that needs clarifying, is brilliant. The lyrics are a great, tragic portrait of post-split heartbreak– “Now I’m all messed up, sick inside wondering where/ Where you’re leaving your make-up”– but the song as a whole never sounds anything less than fully empowering.
On Heartthrob, Tegan and Sara sing about solitude, regret, and self-loathing alongside romance, but most of its 10 songs feel amazing. That’s not a sign of cognitive dissonance, but their considerable abilities fusing with those of Kurstin to drag their music out of headphones and into zones of unabashed communal euphoria and delight. The dramatic, ravey swish of “Goodbye, Goodbye” and new wavey tick of “I’m Not Your Hero” actually deal with the problem of coming across differently to your true self, and the risks you incur to reconcile that gap, whether that means losing someone or admitting that you’re lost inside.
Making a relatively conventional sounding pop record– not an acceptably hip, minimalist one produced by Devonte Hynes or Ariel Rechtshaid– is a small risk in itself for the duo; for one, if its charms don’t chime with sales, I can’t imagine Warners keeping on a band whose last album sold 110k. Its misfires are few, if pronounced: On “Drove Me Wild”, Tegan’s voice is pitched up to sound unrecognizable, and the blandness of the music doesn’t exactly inspire a wild vocal take– it sounds like the music on an ad for Ibiza package holidays; “Love They Say” dies under slimy 90s production, bland acoustic verses, and a string of clichés about love (“true,” “blind”) that an actual teenager would probably balk at scrawling on a “Love is…” notelet.
At its best, however, Heartthrob brings the 32-year old siblings’ more adult, romantic touch to a record that roundly avoids turning into any old generic, radio-friendly collection: “Love like ours is never fixed,” Tegan sings on the classic piano pop of “I Was a Fool”. It’s hard to believe you could ever feel differently when you’re a teenager crushing so hard you could cry at the injustice of your emotions going unrecognized. One of the strongest ideas Tegan and Sara give anyone who’s ever plotted their identity by their music is the potential for change and transformation. For the unconverted, a temporary suspension of cynicism may be required.
Tegan and Sara: Heartthrob
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