spotlight
SYNTHETIC PLEAS
We’re putting our money where our mouth is, because it feels
like in the past we had been like, ‘Diversity, enough of misogyny, sexism and homophobia in the industry!’ and then we’re hiring white, heterosexual males all
the time. So, it was like, if we’re going to do a video for every
song, we should try to collabo- rate with artists like Jess Rona.”
Tegan, older by eight minutes, assures that the answer is “No” and that the song and its title was inspired by her sister’s epiphany during a noncommittal, dating situation with a woman. “We always joke that with lesbians, you go on one date and are monogamous and moving in together,” she shares. “Neither Sarah or I are like that, so she was dating someone and this person was zeroing in on someone else she’d been seeing as long as Sarah. So. Sarah was like, ‘You’re treating me like a boyfriend here, you’re calling me every night, we’re going out all the time, let’s lock this down.’ I love that Sarah used the term ‘boyfriend,’ because I felt like I say that in my relationship, too. Totally, my girlfriend treats me like a dumb boyfriend all the time.” The twins’ new album, Love You To Death (Warner Bros.), can only be interpreted as sparkling ‘80s-inspired contemporary dance-pop, a synth-rich marriage of New Zealand’s Ladyhawke (she’s also a lesbian!), Sweden’s Lykke Li and Katy Perry, the latter of whom they opened for on her 2014Prismatic tour. “Boyfriend” has already been followed up with a bouncy, bona fide earworm, “U-Turn,” that seems to owe as much a tip of the hat to Tom Tom Club’s iconic ‘80s ditty “Genius of
Love” as Norway’s electro-diva Annie. Every one of the album’s ten songs will be ac- companied by a video created in collaboration with “directors and artists who are queer, or transgender, or women, or people of color,” Tegan shares. Gay artist/musician Seth Bogart, of Hunx & His Punx, directed the colorful, part-animated “U-Turn,” actress-turned-director Clea DuVall helmed the humorous, quirky “Boyfriend” clip (Sara composed the score for DuVall’s directorial debut, The Intervention, which bowed at 2016’s Sundance Film Festival) and Jess Rona of the humorous dog grooming Instagram @JessRonaGrooming, was
Are Canadian synthpop wondersTegan and Sara trying to tell us something with their catchy new single, “Boyfriend?” Has one of the openly queer, identical Quin twins switched teams since their multiple award-winning 2013 record, Heartthrob?
by lawrence ferber
24
RAGE monthly | JUNE 2016
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64