album review: "Supermodel"

Artist: Foster the People
Genre: Indie Rock, Synthwave, Indie Pop
SOT's: "Are You What You Want To Be?", "Pseudologia Fantastica", "Best Friend", "A Beginner's Guide To Destroying The Moon"

Returning to the music scene following their successful debut studio album Torches in 2011, Foster the People come back at full force with their sophomore effort, Supermodel. As many of you will notice when listening to this record, Supermodel focuses a lot more on experimentation & symbolism that maintains some key aspects of their old sound while also incorporating new genres and instrumentation styles to bring us a refreshing, matured collection of songs. What makes this album so interesting is that it will serve as the successor to the band's exponential fame arising from their hit song "Pumped Up Kicks" (which received months of radio airplay on multiple stations), which ultimately determines Foster the People's status as either a one-time hit, or a genuinely talented group.



Recently, FTP humbly acknowledged in their AMA on Reddit this 'pressure' to live up to the expectations that Torches set:

"I think that Pumped Up Kicks was an anomaly that may never happen again. To me, it's amazing that the song ended up on Top 40 radio sandwiched between artists like Beyonce and Rihanna. At the end of the day, I think we're fortunate to have made something that created a cultural impact of that scale, but as far as moving forward, it's more important to us to keep putting out authentic music. It's more important to us than trying to write "hit" songs."

Kicking the album off is the refreshingly peculiar "Are You What You Want To Be?", which fuses their original indie rock sound with elements of mambo/salsa, which can be heard upon Mark Foster's pitch-variable delivery of lyrics (beginning at the 0:50 mark). Paired with this very interesting technique of vocalization is the soft, tribal sounding drums in the background, which recreate a Caribbean-esque island style. This is the key feature that makes this album so diverse: Foster the People's courage to experiment and assimilate different genre styles into their existing sound. "The Angelic Welcome of Mr. Jones" serves as an angelic choir-like interlude to the groovy "Best Friend", which integrates the style of disco/soul music from the '80s. Tasteful blending of trumpets, funky guitar riffs, heavy synths, and some cartoon sound effects fabricate a nostalgic, blast-from-the-past sound - not to forget Mark's incredible vocalizations which heavily resemble the R&B artists from this era. "Fire Escape" also provides a simple song style what we didn't see in Torches; a stripped down, one-on-one with Mark and an acoustic guitar, accompanied by a light xylophone interlude near the end. It serves as a sort of identity revolution for the band, reminding fans that they don't solely rely on catchy synthesizers and contagious choruses to captivate the listener. It also showcases Foster's incredible vocal ability out of the shadow of instrumentation.

Getting into the incredible lyricism on this album, I just want to post two of the band's song explanations from their Reddit AMA, just to show those new to FTP their respectable focus on lyrics:

Addressing the beginning of the song "Goats In Trees"
"The coyotes that are barking in the beginning of Goats in Trees actually were barking as we were recording that song. you could hear they were on a hunt and if you listen closely, you can hear that the alpha dog let's out a howl and the rest of the pack go silent. To me, it was symbolic to the subject matter of the song and the feeling of being pursued by an enemy that comes from all directions. When I think back to that time and hear the intro to that song, it takes me right back into the feeling of being trapped by a multi-headed animal."

Addressing lyrics from "Are You What You Want To Be?"
"Well the first line ["A young one dripping makeup put her hands out to holla/ I gave her what I got but couldn't handle her broken heart"] is about seeing a young girl begging in the streets and giving her all the money I had in my pocket but not being able to truly give her what she needed, which was fixing a broken heart. The second line ["The young one dripping makeup lift her leg up to holla/ I told her what she's got should be protected in the arms of love"] is a progression of the same girl, now hitting the streets to make money and sacrificing a piece of herself in the process."

As mentioned earlier, traces of Torches are still prevalent alongside with the innovative, new songs. "Ask Yourself" has a similar lyrical structure to "Pumped Up Kicks" in the sense that the captivating beat and Mark's vocals (eerily familiar to those on "Waste") mask the dark overlying theme of dissatisfaction and an unaccomplished life ("Well you say that dreamers always get what they desire/ Well I've found the more I want, the less I've got"). "Coming Of Age" was released as the promotional single, which surprised me because it's one of the less distinguishing songs on this album. I feel like this particular song was tailored to their radio/pop audience, since it relied a lot on Foster's vocals and the summer-y guitar strums at the chorus. "Pseudologia Fantastica" is a mesmerizing track which relies heavily on the hypnotic synths that dominate the song. These trancy synthesizers are accented by the hard-hitting piano chords that drive the chorus. I was very surprised to hear Clams Casino pop up in this album in "A Beginner's Guide To Destroying The Moon", which samples the "LVL" beat he produced for A$AP Rocky's Long.Live.A$AP. The lyrics seem to allude to Greek mythology, to which I interpret this song as a rejection of higher deities - in this case the Greek lunar goddesses of the moon ("I'm coming for you giants and you liars/ And your chariots of fire"). The haunting beauty of this song is a result of Foster's passionate vocals, as well as the multi-layered instrumental track that blends Casino's original beat with steady guitar bridges and powerful drums. Yet again, FTP masks the sinister theme of this song, however some of its raw emotion leaks out into Mark's delivery, especially at the line ("The blood of the forgotten wasn't spilled without a purpose/ Or was it?"). "Tabloid Super Junkie" reminds me a lot of "Don't Stop (Color On The Walls)", due to them both having an oddball, goofy beat of mismatched cowbells and keyboard melodies - not to forget the eerie echo effect on the keyboards near the chorus.

If I haven't conveyed this effectively in this review, I will say it now: Supermodel does indeed squash any hesitation on Foster the People being a one-hit wonder. As a YouTube commenter put it very well, Supermodel is simply a transitional album from their old sound; their third release will begin to adapt to this new established versatility that they've begun to identify with. This new confidence and consolidation of their identity, as well as the integration of genres you'd never guess would mix so well with indie rock, just proves how innovative FTP can be as a relatively new band to the indie music scene.   

7.5/10