Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Phoenix; "1901"; From Goodwill Sacramento
Unlike their namesake, Phoenix has never had to die to be reborn. They always manage to reinvent themselves with a creative pivot, flying forward onto the next thing. Their discography feels like anthropological explorations of different folkways—they have their power pop record, their k-pop record, their Italo disco-inspired detour.
But in the heady days of indie’s ascendance, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix was their Beatles on Sullivan moment. They had crossed the Atlantic to rapturous attention. Some of us had heard them before—maybe from Gordon Tracks’ feature on Air’s Virgin Suicides soundtrack, a connection further cemented when Thomas Mars married Sofia Coppola. But even those of us in the know weren’t prepared for a French band to produce the indie hit of the summer.
1901 hit our college radio station, and everything felt right. I biked through the ravine over jittery brick-paved streets with Girlfriend in my headphones and on my lips, past the row of fraternity houses, past the Jewish center, past the concert hall where the band would eventually play. The financial crisis loomed, but for the moment, positivity was in the air and in the speakers. My friend S ran into the band at a Jimmy John’s while they were in town. He was gobsmacked—these consummate celebrities, standing in line for a sandwich, unrecognized and unbothered. Even stranger for him, having come from France himself!
That summer, my friends and I lived in a big, moldering house off-campus the summer of our junior year. It was three stories tall, with a wild tangle of a park nearby that gave it a Grey Gardens kind of charm. But the neighborhood had its dark moments too—a police standoff, shotgun vs. shotgun, two doors down soon after we moved in.
Despite the violence, we managed to hold some absolutely raging house parties. People ambled up from the street, drawn in by the music, the energy, the heat of a packed dance floor.
Lisztomania is named after a concept of maybe the first documented fan culture obsession, where audiences would go absolutely crazy during Franz Liszt’s performances. We never got to see the band perform any of these songs live, but I like to think we inhabited the same raving madness that people at the concerts (Lizst’s or Phoenix’s) would have exhibited, dancing like the kids in A Charlie Brown Christmas—all ebullience and awkward angles, spinning in the yellow glow of a floor lamp as the speakers blasted.
Verdict: Keep
Would you have gone to a house party at my place? We would have loved to have you!