Back on the safest of ground, I want to talk about this band I love again.
Rilo Kiley reunited after more than a decade and a half earlier this year for shows across the USA. Just the USA, unfortunately. A lot of the bands I love are reuniting and sometimes it's my fault I haven't got round to seeing them, but not in this case.
To make up for it, I'm watching a lot of clips of the shows on youtube. You can tell that the audience is ecstatic to see them, the band are thrilled to be performing, and that Jenny Lewis is singing better than ever.
Sitting at home, wishing I was there, I'm quite moved to remember just how much I love this band - maybe, alongside Wilco, the most constant and long-lasting love I have for any of the early 2000s American bands.
I've seen in quite a few places Rilo Kiley being described as primarily a band for millennial American girls/women, which I think is true, meaning that most of their biggest fans would now be women in their late-30s/early-40s, who loved them as teenagers.
One of their biggest fans is Katie Crutchfield aka Waxahatchee, born in 1989, who has a Rilo Kiley tattoo, describes seeing RK perform live as a teenager with her sisters as a life-changing moment, and will be supporting them this week (though, she is probably, at this stage, a bigger act).
Being a British 47-year-old man, I suppose I'm not an archetypal Rilo Kiley fan - the Uncut/Mojo guys went far more fervently for Jenny Lewis solo, especially her first solo album Rabbit Fur Coat. But though I like most of her solo material, and love 2019's On the Line, I do think her greatest songs, and the ones that really hit me hardest, are by Rilo Kiley. I mean, putting aside the songwriting, I do love the clean, dramatic indie-pop sound, I do like Blake Sennett's guitar playing. They're a proper band, not a solo vehicle.
Still, the fact remains, I'm one of a few hundred people watching these videos on YouTube. Rilo Kiley getting back together is something of a thing, but it's not a massive thing. They're one of those bands that get written about like they "hit the mainstream" at some point, but that never really happened. Not the main mainstream. How many people in the UK could pick Jenny Lewis out of a crowd? One in 500? One in 1000?
Why did Jenny Lewis never hit the big time, she who could get Brie Larson, Anne Hathaway and Kristen Stewart to star in her video, who supported Harry Styles (and got him to appear in her video), who was loved by Lady Gaga, who was (maybe) referenced in song by Taylor Swift.
Maybe the songs weren't poppy and tuneful enough, but quite a few of them are pretty poppy and tuneful, and it wasn't like they emerged in any era when indie-pop wasn't having a moment. Maybe it's because their catchiest song is called Portions for Foxes, their most exultant singalong moment is the line "sometimes when you're on you're really fucking on", maybe it's that their supposed big crossover pop single Moneymaker was some weird squelchy funk song about the porn industry. Maybe it's because they began an album with a song called It's a Hit with the line "Gotta write a hit, i think this is it, it's a hit!" and it was obviously not a hit.
Anyway, love this band, love their songs, wish I could have been there ...
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