Why We Damn Sure Respect Girls, Even Though They Fetishize Stupid, Clichéd Love Songs

Sandy Kim

Unlike so many of his peers, Christopher Owens has the chops and vision to pull off his nostalgia fetish; not just to approximate the sound of his forbears but approximate their songs, too. The problem is, an approximation is what it is. That can be intoxicating on its own: just for its accuracy, "Honey Bunny" is one of his many thrilling Beach Boys impressions. Though it switches angles a lot melodically, its hooks have a warm familiarity, down to the ending that repeats the final line three times: "And you'll be the girl that I love!"

What's so hard to process about Owens is how sincerely he loves clichés, one stacked on top of another until they become something that's not cliché: a pile of clichés that all stick out bizarrely. Six minutes of Spiritualized-style stoner gospel, complete with choir (wonder if they knew the track would be titled "Vomit"?). Seven minutes of cooing "love ... love ... love ... it's just a song" over a fucking flute. It's kind of funny.

In fact, it's pretty ridiculous. Owens and cohort scan so earnestly that reading it from the view of a normal person feels arch and almost cruel. After all, this guy survived a horrid childhood that took his mother and his innocence from him (he was in the Children of God cult). Who am I to tell him he can't fetishize stupid love songs salvaged from faded old records like mini-movies from a childhood he never had?

That childlike quality pops up in his sexuality ("Honey Bunny"), his longing ("Forgiveness"), and a simplicity with words that teeters on banal. His voice is barely existent and not very sweet. On his debut Album, it was actually loudly sour, evoking a snotty childishness on "Lust for Life" as he asks for a pizza and a boyfriend like he's talking to a genie. But filling his heart with old records feels more sympathetic than say, Jason Spaceman filling his arm with drugs.