By now you’ve probably seen them. Like Christmas carols in October, every fall brings a new crop of reissued albums: big boxed sets boasting multiple versions of the same songs you know, love and probably already own.
Some years back I wrote about the proliferation of boxed sets, deluxe editions and otherwise superfluous reissues of the same damn albums every five years (sometimes even more frequently - I’m looking at you Dark Side of the Moon). “If record labels really want to part music fans from their hard-earned dollars, they've got to offer us something new in return,” I said, a sentiment I standby today. Of course, how you define “something” depends on the kind of person you are.
Like a lot of music nerds, I love the journey: watching a great artist emerge from a just-okay one. This is the fuel that drives labels to reissue the same records over and over again with demos, outtakes and multiple live cuts. How did Green Day go from snot-nosed punks to world-conquering major-label rock stars? The answer might be in the 4-track demos included in the new Limited Edition Super Deluxe Box Set of Dookie, an album I’ve already purchased twice (not including the cassette copy I dubbed off of Dave Cadman in eighth grade). Do you need them? No. Will you listen to most of these songs more than once? Probably not. But look at the neat box they packaged them in!
Before I was into music I was into comic books, and nothing gets a comic nerd’s juices flowing like a story explaining how their favourite character got their powers (this usually involves some childhood trauma).
Musicians have origin stories too, and until recently those origins went pretty under the radar if not completely outside the public sphere (s/o to abandoned SoundCloud accounts and YouTube channels). It used to be, that an artist arrived, if not fully formed, then at least somewhat fleshed out, often with multiple records and touring experiences behind them that went mostly unnoticed until they became famous.
These days that’s just not the case. Being famous in 2023 includes people watching you become famous, with all the missteps that come with that — an essay for another time. In contrast, supergroups often have far more time and cost-effective backstories.
When two or more established artists team up for a new project, they’re usually not doing it cold. Often they’ve worked together in some capacity in the past, and it can be quite thrilling to listen to that first blush of creative passion knowing what’s to come.
Below are a few examples of this phenomenon from the past 30 years or so. There are certainly more (I skipped the ‘60s and ‘70s entirely to avoid the usual suspects) so feel free to gripe about what was missed in the comments.
Boygenius, Phoebe Bridgers’ super group with Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker are basically a household name these days. But Bridgers, who has described herself as a “serial collaborator,” was part of a different supergroup before that. Better Oblivion Community Center was a collaboration with Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst. Their sole album came between Bridgers’ debut album Stranger in the Alps and her breakout Punisher, but you can hear the two duetting on Stranger in the Alps track “Would You Rather.”
Foo Fighters are and forever will be Dave Grohl’s beast. So calling it a supergroup, no matter the pedigree of its members (The Germs, Sunny Day Real Estates, No Use for a Name) is a bit of a misnomer. But you can hear Grohl working out his own voice in a couple of different places. First was the cassette he released as Late! in 1992. Called Pocketwatch, the session resembled the creation of the first Foos record. Winnebago even ended up as a Foo Fighters b-side. But “Marigold” was probably most people’s first inkling of what Grohl was capable of. Originally titled “Color Pictures of a Marigold” on Pocketwatch, it was re-recorded with the rest of Nirvana as a B-side for the “Heart Shaped Box” single.
Like the Foos, Gorillaz are basically Damon Albarn’s beast, at least musically speaking (cartoonist Jamie Hewlett who creates all the cartoon band’s visuals is the only other constant member). But the project was initially pitched to listeners are a collaboration between Albarn and producer Dan the Automator, who enlisted MC Del the Funky Homosapien and turntablist Kid Koala to contribute, notably on the group’s first hit “Clint Eastwood.” All four artists had previously worked together on a tracks for Dan, Del and Kid’s Deltron 3030 project, a hip-hop sci-fi concept album on which Albarn had added both narration and vocals.
Before Jimmy Tamborello and Ben Gibbard turned US Mail into an analog file-sharing service, they were just two dudes blazing new trails in two vastly different genres (glitch and indie rock). Tamborello invited a bunch of vocalists to contribute to his third studio album at DNTL, including members of Slint, that dog., and Beachwood Sparks. But it was “(This is) the Dream of Evan and Chan,” his collab with Gibbard, whose band Death Cab For Cutie was on the verge of a commercial breakthrough with The Photo Album, that caught the most attention, which led the two to begin work on The Postal Service, a side project that would arguably surpass their main gigs (it most definitely did in Tamborello’s case).
Today, Major Lazer are sort of like Diplo’s version of Gorillaz. A catch-all project whose members and sounds change with the whims of its primary creative force. Yet the group started as a collaboration between Diplo and English DJ Switch. Their debut, Guns Don’t Kill People… Lazers Do, leaned more into Jamaican dancehall and even came with Gorillaz-esque cartoon iconography. But the duo first teamed up working with MIA. Along with working on songs individually, they collaboratively produced a number of tracks from her second album Kala, including the ubiquitous “Paper Planes” and “XR2”
“Producer gave me a beat, said it's the beat of the year. I said, "El-P didn't do it, so get the fuck outta here!" Such was the devotion between El-P and Killer Mike, two hip-hop lifers from very different sides of the genre when they teamed up as Run the Jewels in 2013. But their collaboration dates back to 2012 when El-P produced Mike’s solo album R.A.P. Music. As well as providing beats, El-P appears on the track “Butane (Champion’s Anthem),” the first signs of the duo's explosive energy together. Killer Mike returned the favour on El-P’s Cancer 4 Cure, which dropped just four weeks later, adding a verse to “Tougher Colder Killer.” Just a year later we got Run the Jewels.
Temple of the Dog are perhaps the only supergroup who were not super until after they’d broken up. The band was built around compositions that Chris Cornell wrote after his friend, Mother Love Bone singer Andrew Wood, died from an overdose. Along with his Soundgarden bandmate Matt Cameron, Cornell recruited Mother Love Bone members Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament and Gossard’s childhood friend Mike McCready. Eddie Vedder, in town from California to audition for Gossard, Ament and McCready’s new band, sang some backup vocals. That band would of course go on to become Pearl Jam, who re-worked the Temple of the Dog song “Times of Trouble” as “Jeremy” b-side “Footsteps.”
By the end of the 80s, David Bowie was creatively burnt out. To get his groove back he decided to form a band where he was “just one of the guys” (good luck with that when you’re one of the defining musicians of your generation). Anyway, despite Tin Machine being a democratic unit where everyone had a say, Bowie and guitarist Reeves Gabrels quickly became the band’s creative nucleus. After Tin Machine split, Gabrels was absorbed into the singer’s band and became his primary collaborator during Bowie’s creative rebirth in the 90s. You can hear the beginnings of that on the two Tin Machine records. Both have their moments while presaging the alt-rock explosion that was just around the corner. But it was an inauspicious debut for a combo that would produce far more adventurous work soon after.
Kool Kids Self-promotion Club
I reviewed the new Hotline TNT record for Exclaim! The band, who have a tangential connection to Vancouver via noise-poppers Weed, have signed with Third Man Records which is sure to find them a wider audience. Also, the record is very good! “Simultaneously modern and nostalgic, a hard rocking band that you can lose yourself in, Hotline TNT have made a record that defies time and space.”
I also reviewed The Stones and Brian Jones a new documentary about the Rolling Stones’ OG member from filmmaker Nick Broomfield (Kurt and Courtney). “It's through archival recordings and contemporary interviews — many with women Jones was involved with — that Broomfield manages to unearth his subject's humanity, showcasing a charismatic star tortured by feelings of inadequacy.”
Kool Kids Recommendation Club
When I first heard “Pain My Bedroom Black,” I thought the lyrics in the chorus alternated between the title and “Take my bedroom back,” which is also a pretty self-empowering thing to say after a breakup. Anyway, Holly Humberstone was scouted by BBC Music Introducing radio show back in 2019 and had her single “Deep End” catch fire in the pandemic. Her debut album, Paint My Bedroom Black, is full of quietly pummelling songs about exploring the world as an adult-ish person for the first time. I highly recommend.
Field Medic is prolific AF. Kevin Patrick Sullivan already has one album under his belt for 2023 (the pretty rad Light is Gone 2) and is now readying a second album of new material. Dope Girl Chronicles, which Sullivan previewed — I’m pretty sure as a joke — way back in 2017 on “do a little dope,” arrives December 1. In the meantime, he’s teased the record with “silver girl” a plaintive ode to a (maybe romantic) friend whose “command of language has got me sprung.” Preach!
I first wrote about ML Buch waaaayyy back in the very first issue of KKMC where I noted that the songs on her debut, Skinned, “could easily pass for singer-songwriter fare.” Buch is back with her second album Suntub, a late but worthy contender for one of the year’s best albums, which leans even more in that direction, for the better IMO. “Well bucket” is a particular stunner. Musically spare, the Danish musician sounds wide open emotionally, even if the song’s true meaning is obscured by its impressionistic lyrics. All the better to keep ‘em guessing I suppose?
Does the fact that “Swings,” the latest single from Makk Mikkael, liberally borrows from the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Slide” have anything to do with why I like it? Highly likely! Mikkael was born in Montana, but lived in Calgary, LA and Toronto before settling in Montreal. She’s been putting out music for some time in a lot of different genres, country, pop, R&B among them. But her most recent singles, including “Swings,” are starting to incorporate more of the guitar sounds Michelle Branch and the production group The Matrix were working with in early 2000s. The song traverses the emotional rollercoaster of someone opening themselves up to their partner, only to find the door shut on the other side. Despite this, the protagonist is not letting go. “Doesn't matter now what you do,” Mikkael sings on the bridge, “cause' I'm gonna keep onto you.”
As their name suggests, No Pressure subscribe to the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” approach to pop-punk. Featuring The Story So Far’s Parker Cannon as well as members of Light Years and Regulate, the band laid out their refreshingly no-frills, no-pretensions style on last year’s self-titled LP. They came back with their latest single earlier this year, the appropriately straightforward “Say What You Mean.” They’re the kind of band whose familiar sound belies how good they are at what they do. Before you know it, they’re jamming up your Spotify queue.
Ian Gormely is a freelance music journalist based in Toronto.
Write to koolkidsmusicclub@gmail.com for questions, criticisms and submissions.