Double Vision?

For the month of September, several music magazines both online and in print featured articles and interviews with Los Angeles band Rilo Kiley. Three albums later and nearly a decade after their formation, their first major label album was released in August.
Spin Magazine featured the band members on its September cover and at least five other magazines, Under the Radar, No Depression, Paste, Harp, and Blender Magazine also featured them, and that’s not including the online magazines. With the newsstands so saturated with the same contemporary images and musicians, it makes one wonder how different these feature articles can be. Although the articles surprisingly took on the band profile from several different angles, there were a few familiar observations that popped up.
Under the Radar's article written by Matt Fink, focused on the new album “Under the Blacklight’s production aspects rather than the lead singer’s “skills as a writer of narratives that explore the darker side of life.” Fink thoroughly explored the relatively new pop sound. The album is the result of a gradual morph into what most magazines have dubbed “pop,” and the angle of Fink’s article is optimistic.
Don McLeese of No Depression magazine wrote three full pages about Rilo Kiley focusing on the bigger picture. McLeese looked at Rilo Kiley the band as a whole and mused philosophically about them going mainstream.
With “Under the Blacklight” McLeese compared the sound to that of Fleetwood Mac. Spin Magazine’s coverline that asks “Is Rilo Kiley the Next Fleetwood Mac?” reinforces this frame and even Jeff Levin from Paste Magazine made a Stevie Nicks reference in regards to Jenny Lewis. These are only few of many Fleetwood Mac references in all of the magazines looked at reviews included.
Jeff Levin’s article in Paste looked at an even bigger picture than No Depression. Levin mused at what this newfound stardom of a once cultic “indie” ensemble means for the recording industry.
Levin also looked at the influences of each, and speculated that the album was a look at Los Angeles as a seedy personality- more specifically the San Fernando Valley.
The article in Harp Magazine, written by Wes Orshaski, focused more on Blake Sennett (guitar and vocals) and Jenny Lewis’ relationship- both in the past and present, from their natural chemistry together, their early acting careers, to the band’s start and possible future.
Orshaski made a nod to the album’s hip hop influence on some songs- something Levin from Paste picked up on, and Under the Radar who also talked about the hip hop influence using quotes from Lewis.
In a time when magazines are all competing with each other for consumers, and when certain magazines are a dime a dozen it seems hard to stand out. And if the consumers are asking for the same things, in this case features about Rilo Kiley, it seems even harder to switch the narrative to something original.
Despite this difficulty, each article takes on its own original angle- sometimes making poignant observations about the group and the music industry as a whole. The narrative, however remains the same, “Indie band going mainstream.” It’s interesting to see how music magazines react to this phenomenon and what angles they take to explain it. One recurring mood, however, to each of the articles was of unwavering optimism.

Links:
http://www.undertheradarmag.com/
http://www.nodepression.net/
http://www.pastemagazine.com/action/article/5023/feature/music/rilo_kiley_and_rocks_new_era
http://harpmagazine.com/articles/detail.cfm?article_id=6138
http://www.blender.com/index.aspx
http://www.spin.com