BSH Saturday Music Club: Sling

Sling - Clairo

Cole:

The career arc of Claire Cotrill (Clairo) has always been fascinating to me, really. She began her career as the next great bedroom pop artist, with hits like “Bags” and “Sofia” off her first album Immunity that continue to dominate Clairo’s overall streams. Those are hits for a reason, and a part of many punchier cuts from that first record of hers. But as she released Sling and now her brand new album Charm, Clairo has demonstrated an artistic depth about her that I wasn’t expecting after the mainstream success that Immunity was.

So, when Sling was dropped in the middle of the pandemic, I wasn’t sure of Clairo’s abilities to make a full cohesive album – but Sling surprised me in its shift in sound and artistic direction. Working with mega-producer Jack Antonoff, the two were able to maximize the tenderness and emotionality of Clairo’s soft-spoken voice. The instrumentation is lush, the vocal layering (a Jack Antonoff special) and vocal harmonies are refined in almost every song, and Claire really comes into her own vocal style. That style may not be for everyone, as her hushed voice can definitely turn some people away.

Even if you aren’t a fan of Clairo the vocalist, Sling was a major step forward for Clairo the songwriter. Certain songs off this record are some of my favorites of the 2020s thus far. “Amoeba”, perhaps the grooviest song on the record, mixes a catchy piano section with flutes, a subtle drum, and bass, among other things. And the songwriting, as Clairo contemplates her life’s priorities and how she’s spending her days, immediately drew me into the song. This is seen in the final verse of the song, “Pulling back I tried to find the point of wasting precious time, I sip and toast to normalcy, a fool’s way into jealousy.”

Another highlight for me comes on the fourth track “Zinnias”, where Clairo really allows the instrumentation to take over. There is a simply addicting guitar riff in two different parts of the song, and out of anything on the record, it’s the sound I remember each time I revisit the album. Then, on the ballad “Harbor”, Clairo intimately recalls a relationship of resentment and trying to hold on to a spark that might just not be there anymore: “Clinging on to everything you fear, keeping me close while you hold me out and say, ‘I don’t love you that way.’ I harbor myself away from everyone else.”

The album might not be a standout for everyone, but I attach such fine memories to this album for the amount of time I had it on in freshman year of college. It was the perfect wintertime, grind-in-the-library album for me, the type of comfort album I will always be able to go back to and enjoy. It’s also the kind of album where you’ll hear something different in the instrumentation every time you go back to it, considering how full the soundscape is that Antonoff and Cotrill created. This artistic development for Clairo only continued on her recently released third album Charm , where she further entrenches herself (and improves!) upon the style of Sling. Heavily recommend giving it a spin, if you enjoy this one!

Jason M: There\'s gentle voices, gentler voices and then there\'s what Clairo (born Claire Cottrill) has, a hushed delivery that draws you in from the start of \"Bambi.\" Sounding like a tune that would be perfect for a rainy Sunday morning, \"Bambi\" saunters along without much care in the world although the horns help it along. Having not heard of the album before (maybe I do live under a rock after all?) Clairo sweet vocals resemble a conversation you\'re overhearing: off in the distance but too appealing to walk away from. \"Amoeba\" has a bit more jump to it while \"Partridge\" reverts back to the delicate arrangement and her almost ASMR-ish effect.

Musically it runs the gamut from light pop to a bit of jazz to even hints or wisps of \'70s era prog-rock. But then you hear something like \"Blouse\" and you realize Clairo could make a supergroup like boygenius envious with her warm, folksy approach. One of the more adventurous, poppier tracks is \"Wade\" that doesn\'t sound like filler at all. Nor does \"Joanie\" which has a jump in its step. Most of Sling works although it might be an acquired taste for some folks. An album that you can be alone with your thoughts to.

Joe D : Clairo’s debut Immunity was a standout album for me the year it came out (and I revisit it often), and I’ve liked the recently released Charm so far, but I was not a fan of Sling and have mostly left it alone. This provided a nice opportunity to revisit the album, and…can’t say my opinion has changed much, unfortunately. What made Immunity so good–the idiosyncratic autotune of “Closer to You,” the propulsive percussion of “North,” the hypnotic and cyclical “Bags,” as examples–was almost entirely absent on Sling , and Clairo fell into the trap that many artists do: in an effort to sound more mature on the follow-up record, she just sounded boring.

Standout track “Amoeba” is really the only song I come back to, but the album as a whole sounds like Clairo listened to a bunch of Elliott Smith, then tried so hard to emulate him that she lost the quirkiness that had made her so good to begin with; the energy and urgency of her earlier work was gone. Maybe I’ll change my tune when I see her in Philly a few months from now and these tracks hit different live, but for now I still consider Sling a sophomore slump.

Maddie : It’s been a minute since I went back and listened through this album in its entirety, and I found doing it now, and filtering it through the lens of her newest release, knowing where her work would ultimately take her, was really cool and enlightening. To my ears, Clairo introduces some interesting threads and stylistic choices with Sling, and then Charm sees them through, fleshes them out, and seeing the whole arc has been pretty illuminating.

On the whole, I think the whisper vocal bedroom pop genre seems like it’s become easy fodder for clowning on, but I think that’s boring! Hating is easy! Let’s engage with this in a meaningful way! I think the soft delivery here doesn’t bely a lack of substance, I think it actually supports the storytelling (if you will) of the record well, and the finding of a way to balance that softness with an instrumentation and production that doesn’t overwhelm that becomes an interesting challenge in craft. I think Clairo took a bit of a stylistic leap of faith on this one, and while it might not work for everyone, it definitely works for me.

https://open.spotify.com/album/32ium7Cxb1Xwp2MLzH2459?si=T-F6wocgTIS8SAijDoSn0A

Talking Points