<\/p>\n

I graduated high school in 2010, which means I have been an adult for the entirety of the decade, according to \u201csociety.\u201d I spent six of those months in high school, three and a half of those years in college, four of them working at an office job that I thought I\u2019d never leave, and the past year and a half freelancing and making small amounts of progress toward my creative goals. I spent approximately nine of these months absolutely heartbroken, those same four years in that office vacillating in and out of anxiety. I also started doing improv and quit doing improv, and it took about seven years to figure out that I am not a natural performer.<\/p>\n

Will Toledo began Car Seat Headrest in 2010, recording alone in his parents\u2019 car, lest he be heard by anyone. He recorded four albums named for four numbers, two whose album art is a picture of \u2013 you guessed it \u2013 a car seat headrest, and diligently uploaded them to Bandcamp<\/a>. He went to college, didn\u2019t get out much<\/a>. One more album after those four, and one college transfer later, Will Toledo wrote Twin Fantasy<\/em>, an album about being absolutely heartbroken. Then he signed with Matador, and produced two more albums, had a well-publicized legal issue with The Cars\u2019 Ric Ocasek, and then recorded Twin Fantasy<\/em> again, and did a whole lot of touring, which is basically a day job.<\/p>\n

I think Will Toledo and I are about the same age. Millennials get a lot of crap for their extended adolescence, though it\u2019s the economic collapse of our actual adolescence that eventually made it harder for us to grow up. Well into my twenties, I put my entire trust in the fact that the adults around me knew exactly the right thing to do. In reality, nobody has anything figured out! Nobody! There is no clear answer to anything in life. Time is linear, but life is not always. You can change a lot in a decade.<\/p>\n

Of the albums Car Seat Headrest recorded this decade, it is Teens of Denial<\/em> that speaks generationally. Released in 2016, Teens of Denial<\/em> was the first fully new Car Seat Headrest album since signing to Matador in 2015. It was also my personal album of the year. Two years out of college and the world had never seemed crueler. Certainly globally so, but also on an individual level. In your darkest hour, everything feels like a personal attack.<\/p>\n