I miss the endless summer, no matter how lackadaisical it felt. Of course, this period in between senior year of high school and freshman year of college may not have involved many physical beaches for me, but it did bring with it many figuratively misty shores. I speak on the subject of the “hazy beach,” a trend in music revealed to me by Francis Tseng of Deerhaus. Contemplating this briefly, I realized Tseng had a point. One of my favorite artists of that summer, Surfer Blood, is precisely characterized by the notion of “hazy beaches,” building their first album and initial identity around the concept. Jumping from this, I thought about some other artists I had on repeat that year — Animal Collective, the Unicorns and Gorillaz — all had that element of haze and cloudy contemplation. Is this making music shallower? It’s hard to say. While it may be putting a thematic damper on upcoming tunes, it’s lead partly (in my opinion) to the adolescence of chillwave, let alone other surf–core bands resembling Surfer Blood. Playing devil’s advocate for a bit, I’ll admit I don’t hate the trend. Hazy beaches remind me of deeply conceptual nostalgia, of encasing your treasured memories in sepia because you’re a pretentious Tumblr fanatic. Still, that may be the case, but so be it. Music has already begun moving past this fascination with late–night bonfires, pressing forward into whatever frontier comes next. I for one am extremely excited for the coming winter–themed obsession — Odd Future’s Christmas album would be absolutely Yonkers.

More Like This