Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJ’s think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the Morning Show with John Richards, is “Stardom” by Lust For Youth from their 2016 album, Compassion, on Sacred Bones Records.
Lust For Youth - Stardom (MP3)
Lust For Youth seems to have undergone the same slow, painful growth that many adolescent boys undergo from ages 13 to 21 as they realize that, while being sad and moody can be cool sometimes, there's actually nothing wrong with going out and dancing. Over the last half decade we've watched the band go from lo-fi 80's gloom-pop to highly polished 80's dance retro-pop, traversing a whole spectrum of vintage that would perfectly soundtrack the anxiety-ridden teenage boy as he comes out of the self-loathing shell of The Corner Of The Room and gets out on the dancefloor in his skinny jeans and Chucks and throws down, abandoning all the indulgent, sadder-than-thou posturing for the pure joy of boogeying. Compassion was just set loose on the world on the 18th, and while it varies across the album, we find Lust cleaner, more polished, and seemingly more realized than we've ever seen them.
With its approachable mid tempo, "Stardom", today's featured song and the album's opener, sets the tone for the heavy-panning synth world of Compassion. The rich three-dimensional mix wraps around you, making the already palpable vintage imagery of the album even more vivid - recalling poignant memories - that some of us might be too young to have - of high school in the 80's. "Stardom" isn't as dance-y as the album gets at points, but it does give us doses of pure pop romanticism in lyrics like "I'm complete, I'm content in your bed but I'm floating."
Lust For Youth are finishing up a short set of live dates, which took them around parts of the U.S. but sadly not up to Seattle, so keep your eyes peeled on their Facebook page for an eventual Stateside return and hopefully a Seattle date to go along with it. For now, check out the official video for "Sudden Ambitions", another song from Compassion:
Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJ’s think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the Mor…
Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJ’s think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the Mor…
