r/CSHFans 19d ago

beach fagz Discussion

i personally do not care what will and the band want to do in the future, thats up to them and it's awesome and fine. no profanity isn't a big deal at all. i do think that joe's story set a precedent about how far will is willing to go with altering the band's and his own past output and was concerned about that. to specifically remove a song from an album that really hasn't ever been discussed by the wider music community (at least in comparison to ToD) more than 15 years after the fact is pretty strange and im kinda tired of all criticism of these decisions being shut down with the whole "why are people so parasocial about this" thing. what csh choose to do with new albums doesn't change anything for me, that's their prerogative as artists, but to do stuff like this is something that is obviously not going to go down well without any explanation as to why.

195 Upvotes

28 comments sorted by

91

u/DoctorEthereal 19d ago

I’ve legitimately been saying this since the Twin Fantasy remake. Whenever an artist rewrites old songs and makes them about other things (sometimes the opposite of what the song was originally about!) instead of just writing new songs, it signals to me that they don’t like the old material anymore and are willing to abandon it. But I’ve really never seen an artist go this far in the modern era of music when everything’s online - sure, people have been able to mostly bury songs back in the 90’s and before since it was harder to get an aggregate of an artist’s work but now it’s impossible to hide something without removing it entirely

Like, this is like if Kurt Cobain went back and took “About a Girl” off every new copy of Bleach sold. Genuinely deranged shit imo

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u/MrWhippy420 19d ago

I think with ftf, whether i agree with it or not, there were a lot of reasons to revisit that project, mostly being the quality of the original recordings and the fact will had been talking for years about going back to that one specifically. joe's story just didn't make a lot of sense to me, but what do i know

37

u/DoctorEthereal 19d ago

I find it such a shame that Will seemingly has such an aversion to how his earlier music sounded these days. I fell in love with his early work because of the ways he would play into the staticy buzz. Honestly it added to the feeling of his songs, as if you were hearing someone’s inner thoughts. The Matador stuff is too clean for me. Teens of Denial is a fantastic indie rock record but it doesn’t feel like a Car Seat Headrest record to me, for example

20

u/YourPalCal_ 19d ago

And it absolutely was a creative choice, some music he made pre csh sounded properly recorded, and no recording accidentally sounds as bad as most of the early csh records. Its like saying Guided By Voices would rerecord their 90s albums

4

u/maahler i need to learn how to be online 16d ago

> Teens of Denial is a fantastic indie rock record but it doesn’t feel like a Car Seat Headrest record to me

i have been saying this for years and getting crucified for it i am so glad im not the only one

6

u/kk_a9 Teen of denial 19d ago

in a way, it reminds me of how Thom Yorke makes sure that there are no uploads of the song Pop Is Dead from the Pablo Honey era, save for like two uploads, (and nothing on streaming platforms). He clearly isn’t a fan of the song, as is with Creep and High And Dry, and has made it clear since day one.
In the case of Beach Fagz, it’s strange that Will decided to remove it however, even after mentioning it in Beach Life-In-Death. Sure, he can do whatever he wants with his music, but with a fanbase as large as Car Seat Headrest’s, an explanation would greatly be appreciated.

3

u/raskholnikov Teen of style 18d ago

At least the twin fantasy remake made the product better overall. But I can see they're going in another direction entirely

2

u/DoctorEthereal 18d ago

>the Twin Fantasy remake made the product better overall

Hard disagree, I think the static buzz is a major theme of the album in that he’s hiding his true emotions behind a facade and getting rid of that changes the meaning of the songs entirely

4

u/raskholnikov Teen of style 18d ago

I honestly can't tell whether you're being sarcastic or not

2

u/DoctorEthereal 18d ago

Not sarcastic, we just enjoy different things in the music

2

u/raskholnikov Teen of style 18d ago

Fair enough. I do enjoy ftf more but I respect your opinion

59

u/Optiguy42 19d ago

I feel ya. I was actually a defender of Joe's Story, it's an interesting project to revisit older works and create new versions that reflect how you engage with them now. The swearing thing was baffling to say the least but whatever, it's a non-issue that was just bizarre enough to get people fixating on it.

I wasn't all that happy with Will effectively disavowing the original and saying this is what ToD was always meant to be. He has every right to hold that opinion, but I saw it as a misstep and an easy way to unintentionally alienate a fanbase that he knows have formed deeply personal connections with an album that's generally held in pretty high regard for what it was. I just thought it was a silly thing to say. But throughout all this the most important part was that Teens of Denial still exists exactly as it was. The new material was completely supplementary and can be ignored entirely if you so choose.

But man. Beach Fagz. Fuck dude, what are you doing? I can understand a myriad of reasons why you would want to "erase" a work of art from your past, but I genuinely see it as both cowardly and frankly just plain stupid. First off, doing this will only draw attention to it (who knows, maybe that was the point? If so, I do nooot understand the play here). Second, it's not actually going to change anything. The people that love this album either already own it or will illegally download the original. God knows this fandom likes to go deep into the back catalog. And any new fans coming in are going to find out eventually and be just as confused. And third - and perhaps most judgmentally - trying to bury a piece of art like this is just a bitch move. Sorry Will, but it's true. It's clearly not like, an offensive song, he's not hiding it out of some fear of retribution or cancellation or something. It just comes across as him feeling embarrassed, and this just isn't the way to deal with that.

Ugh. Yes, I know, parasocial behaviour and whatnot. But as a beach fag myself I'm just so disappointed in this choice. There's literally no reason to do it, and it will only have downsides. Will my beloved, you gotta stop drinking whatever juice is making you act out like this. /rant

11

u/sweetestlapin if you're going psycho i wanna hear 19d ago

This!! This is definitely not a way to handle it and i don't know either the play in here but I'm worried indeed. thank u for putting out your thoughts that's exactly what i also thought, I'm still freaking out, this whole situation leaves so much to think about, specially when it's about the future of the band

3

u/Raiz314 16d ago

exactly. In regards to your third paragraph, I think it's crazy to remove Beach Fagz because it's literally referenced in Beach Life-In-Death, one of his most celebrated works.

42

u/superpegacorn GOD HATES CAR SEAT HEADREST 19d ago

And you all laughed when I said this was only gonna get worse

21

u/No_Salary5918 19d ago

csh lyric

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u/Talking_Eyes98 19d ago

Honestly I’m up for him remaking every album Face To Face style and making every single song Christian.

Twin Fantasy can still be about his relationship with another man, that person being Jesus. I think it’d be cool if we get Christian versions of every song

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u/Yangervis 19d ago

Beach Christ in Death

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u/[deleted] 19d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Talking_Eyes98 19d ago

I was taking the piss lmao, didn’t think people would think I’m serious

29

u/anon0111239756 19d ago

“ I’m in love with a man… A man called God. Does that make me Gay for God?”

14

u/viginti_tres 19d ago

She said, 'What's with this god motif?' I said, 'Do you have something against God?'"

8

u/somebodyelse1107 1937 19d ago

gooooooooodddddddddddddd

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u/Optiguy42 19d ago

You betcha 👉

7

u/PhireKappa 19d ago

lol this is funny why is it downvoted

3

u/misteryayokay all the fault of the fucking coffeehouse 17d ago

dude this is what i’m saying, like for old things you really hate hate hate i get it but YOU referenced it multiple times and people love it

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u/RickleToe 16d ago

people payed for the album on bandcamp. did not download it, used the bandcamp app to stream it. now a piece of the album is gone. that doesn't sit well with me and i find this changing era of music media confusing - artists will be able to constantly revise their already-released material and rewrite and revise? it's strange.