Car Seat Headrest is an Indie Rock band located in Seattle, Washington, led by Will Toledo. The band incorporates influences from '90s Alternative Rock, Lo-Fi, Emo and (occasionally) Synth-Pop bands.
Toledo began the Car Seat Headrest project in 2010, releasing four different albums all in one year via Bandcamp. In 2011 he released a fifth album, 5, which eventually morphed into My Back is Killing Me Baby, and then, the work which would define his career, Twin Fantasy. It was here that many of Toledo's hallmarks—long, sprawling, multi-part songs, heavily distorted guitar parts, and densely packed, sometimes obscure references to other works of art and literature—debuted.
Toledo followed Twin Fantasy with Monomania, a sequel of sorts, in 2012, before releasing the double-album Nervous Young Man in 2013. How to Leave Town, which Toledo has called an EP but is about as long as Monomania, came out in 2014, made of songs Toledo cut from his next "proper" album. The next year, Car Seat Headrest was signed to Matador Records, and Toledo recruited drummer Andrew Katz, guitarist Ethan Ives, and bassist Seth Dalby to round out the band in the studio and onstage.
The band's first record for Matador—and their first as a full band—was Teens of Style, composed mostly of reworked songs from My Back is Killing Me Baby and Monomania. In 2016, Car Seat Headrest relased Teens of Denial, the band's first album of new material. In 2018, The band released Twin Fantasy (Face to Face), a complete re-recording of the band's 2011 breakthrough. In 2020, they followed it up with Making a Door Less Open, which combined their usual alt-rock style with more Synth-Pop production techniques.
They're also somewhat known for their side-project: One Trait Danger
, a comedic rap group fronted by drummer, Andrew Katz.
Discography:
- 1 (2010)
- 2 (2010)
- 3 (2010)
- 4 (2010)
- Little Pieces of Paper With "No" Written On Themnote (2011)
- My Back Is Killing Me Baby (2011)
- Twin Fantasy note (2011)
- Monomania (2012)
- Starving While Living(2012)
- Nervous Young Man (2013)
- Disjecta Membranote (2013)
- How To Leave Town (2014)
- Teens of Style (2015)
- Teens of Denial (2016)
- Twin Fantasy (Face to Face) (2018)
- Commit Yourself Completely note (2019)
- Making a Door Less Open (2020)
- Faces From The Masquerade note (2023)
The ocean washed over your tropes:
- Album Title Drop: From: "Father, Flesh in Rags:"My back is killing me, baby
I don't have any comfortable chairs - Alternate Album Cover: The standard cover of Nervous Young Man features Will Toledo in the forefront, shirtless and wearing glasses with hearts drawn on them with a hand over his bleeding chest. The cover on Spotify is just the pictures on the wall behind him, Toledo completely absent.
- Ambiguously Gay: Toledo is evasive about labels and his personal life, but many of the songs and entire albums are explicitly about relationships with men.
- Animal Motif: Do you have something against dogs?
- As the Good Book Says...: The end of "Famous Prophets (Stars)" is a spoken word reading of 1 Corinthians 3-13.
- Arc Words: "The ocean washed over your grave" on Twin Fantasy.
- Ballad of X: "The Ballad of Costa Concordia."
- Book Ends: The first song on Twin Fantasy is titled "My Boy (Twin Fantasy)" and the final song "Twin Fantasy (Those Boys)."
- Call-Back: A common element in Toledo's songwriting. Several songs on Monomania, for instance, quote Twin Fantasy, and the updated version of Twin Fantasy quotes Monomania's "Overexposed."
- Concept Album: Twin Fantasy, which is about a relationship Will Toledo was in at the time.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: A thinly veiled Double Entendre on "Beach Life-in-Death":And when the train came it was so big and powerful, when it came into the little station
I wanted to put my arms around it, but the conductor looked at me funny - Early-Installment Weirdness: The first few numbered albums by Car Seat Headrest, especially the first two, had more experimental song structures and stream of consciousness lyrics compared to the band’s output from My Back Is Killing Me Baby and onward. Tellingly, only two songs from this era (both from the third album) were rerecorded for Teens of Style whereas large portions of My Back Is Killing Me Baby and Monomania were rerecorded.
- Either/Or Title: "Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales."
- Epic Rocking: In spades!
- Twin Fantasy has "Beach Life in Death" at 12:11 and "Famous Prophets" at 10:21; the 2018 remake pushes them to 13:19 and 16:10, respectively.
- Monomania has the nine-minute "Souls" (which itself flows directly out of the six-minute "Los Borrachos") and "Anchorite (Love You Very Much)," which runs just over fourteen minutes.
- How to Leave Town (which Toledo has called an EP) starts with the fifteen-minute "The Ending of Dramamine" and ends with the ten-minute "Hey, Space Cadet! (Beast Monster Thing in Space)." Near the middle of the record are "America (Never Been)" and "I Want You to Know That I'm Awake/I Hope That You're Asleep," back-to-back at 7:16 and 8:44, respectively.
- Similarly, Teens of Denial pairs "Cosmic Hero" (8:32) with "The Ballad of the Costa Concordia" (11:31). "Vincent," the album's lead single, runs for seven minutes (though the music video version is heavily edited).
- Making a Door Less Open has "There Must Be More Than Blood" (7:33).
- I Am the Band: In the band’s first few years, it consisted solely of Will Toledo, who performed all instruments in addition to vocals.
- Intentionally Awkward Title: "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Fag" "Beach Fagz," and "Psst, Teenagers, Take Off Your Clo—."
- Limited Lyrics Song: "Stop Smoking (We Love You)"Stop smoking
We love you
And we don't want you to die. - Live Album: Commit Yourself Completely.
- Longest Song Goes Last: Often avoided, but played straight with Monomania.
- Motor Mouth: The beginning of "Beach-Life-In-Death."
- One-Man Song: "Vincent."
- Sequel Song: "Beach Life-In-Death" is this to the series of songs on 3 that are all titled "beach [something]."
- Short Title: Long, Elaborate Subtitle: A purposeful example on "(Joe Gets Kicked Out of School for Using) Drugs With Friends (But Says This Isn't a Problem)."
- Rearrange the Song: the entire point of Teens of Style and Twin Fantasy (Face to Face).
- Also, the single edits of Teens of Denial's "Drunk Drivers" and "Unforgiving Girl" are vastly different from the album versions.
- Spoken Word in Music: Will often dabbles on this for a good measure.
- Twin Fantasy consists of several instances of this but perhaps most prominently on "Nervous Young Inhumans."
This is the part of the song where I start to regret writing it. - Textless Album Cover: Most of them, barring Teens of Style and Teens of Denial.
