May 24, 2024
#blog
I think it's time I expose the world to my "cursed" taste in music. Well, I think it's good at least, and a lot of it explains things about me. Today I'm writing about the sensation that is April Harper Gray, better known as underscores.
I've been a fan of her work for a couple years prior, but it was really the release of her new album "Wallsocket" last year that catapulted her to the top of my Spotify listening stats. This isn't meant to be a high school English class style analysis, but since this album really spoke to me, I may as well try.
Wallsocket tells the story of a couple young girls in a typical American conservative rural town, specifically in Michigan. We learn a lot about them, among other characters and quirks of the town, throughout the album. But beyond that, what is being told, to me at least, is the transfem experience and all the complexities it presents.
There's the one where you're trying to get help from a mental health hotline but all they do is echo the same words of affirmation and don't really understand you.
There's the one where you mald about your cultural and religious upbringing and how being trans forces you to clash with that.
There's the one (arguably two) about outgrowing your home and feeling it necessary to leave everything behind.
And there's even an early 2010s Katy Perry-esque banger. Because of course there is. Girls rule.
The motif on the album cover is a horseshoe, which has kinda become the de facto symbol for much of Western politics right now. It's nominally about extremes and the dualities between them, and needless to say, the album is full of dualities. Sonically, you have big clashes just going from song to song, but even with the characters, you have someone who's trans but still embracing her religious upbringing, or maybe a nepo baby who tries to hide her wealth.
There is no unified sound throughout the album, yet at the same time it does feel like there's a common thread that ties it together. The sound often calls back to underscores' earlier works, which do probe some trans ideas but not to the same extent as Wallsocket. The album feels like your standard story arc; the first few tracks have us meeting the characters, the next few are a little more chaotic, and the last couple seem to convey acceptance and learning to cope.
There is a certain phrase that you may use to describe her and her contemporaries' music which is an already common genre with a five-letter prefix added to it. I don't often like that label as it feels a little degrading, though I am starting to get where it comes from. Jean Baudrillard coined the idea of the "hyperreal" where the real and the imagined seem to exist in tandem. And maybe that's why seemingly every artist in this space is trans - you take something universal like pop music and apply something that seems artificial but fits in perfectly. And maybe in a way that's what us trans folks are also doing - trying to bring our bodies closer to what we wish they could be.
I got to see underscores on tour last year as she debuted the album, and it was probably the greatest live event I've been to. I suck with large crowds and I don't take any substances, both of which has somewhat ostracized me from certain music spaces, but this one was in a nice intimate venue where it felt like we all knew each other. It's weird - I hope my favorite artists get "big" enough that I'd feasibly be able to see them live, but not too big that the only way to do so is at a huge event that will not only drive my anxiety nuts but also cost a small fortune to attend. And with this show, I can't help but feel like I struck gold.
Maybe I'll write more about other artists I like, but there was no better place to start than underscores.