Tuesday 7/7: Fontaines D.C.—"Televised Mind"
Today, we share our thoughts on "Televised Mind” by the Dublin post-punk band Fontaines D.C.
Welcome to Endless Scroll, the brainchild of Eli Enis (he/him) and Eric Bennett (they/them). Since Feb. 2019, we’ve been a weekly podcast about music, the internet, and where those two things intersect. Now we’re, also a M-F newsletter about songs. Our format is simple: a link to a song and a short take from each of us about what we think of it. Each day of the week has a corresponding genre: Monday is indie, Tuesday is punk, Wednesday is hip-hop, Thursday is pop, and Friday is misc.
Today, we share our thoughts on "Televised Mind” by the Dublin post-punk band Fontaines D.C.
Fontaines D.C.—"Televised Mind"
Eric Bennett:
The world didn’t need another entry into the “kill your television” canon. Artists playing up some kind of all knowing awareness by pointing out the evils of modernity and technology has never felt like anything but hollow. “Televised Mind” from Fontaines D.C. feels cheap. It reminds me of when Muse came out with The Resistance, and shifted towards music that gestured vaguely at conspiracy, but doesn’t even do that well. Their vocalist succeeds at sounding cold, and not much else. This is a self-serious version of The Lonely Island’s “Threw it on The Ground’, the dollar store brand “Better / Happier.”
Eli Enis:
Fontaines D.C. are what I’d like to call a normie’s idea of a punk band. Freshmen in the school of H&M floral button-down Rawk. A band who would play a band in a Netflix original set in Brooklyn (but filmed in L.A.) about a guy who works at a greeting card manufacturer and falls in love with a terrible woman in an elevator. Yes, they’re a band that the characters in 500 Days of Summer would go see and stand in the back and joylessly sip on expensive cocktails while shooting each other flirtatious looks until they decide to leave halfway through the set. They’re a band for people who still fondly recall 500 Days of Summer in 2020. They’re a band for people who would pay $35 to see Fontaines D.C. and then leave halfway through because they don’t actually know any Fontaines D.C. songs, it’s just the white noise they put on when they’re on the Peloton. Of course they own a Peloton! But they would never admit that they own a Peloton. They’re a band for people who are exactly 31-years-old. And honestly, if I’m being 100% genuine, if you’d allow me to speak my mind, if you could please just humor me (this is the cadence of someone who loves Fontaines D.C.) their new single “Televised Mind” is pretty good.