Inaccessibility Or: Why I’m Unable to Review Xiu Xiu

It Comes Out as a Joke

Xiu Xiu does not make music for the casual listener.  Their songs won’t appear on your wedding playlists or SoundCloud feeds for kickbacks.  They lurk within the experimental rock genre where guitars and percussion maim each other for dominance and distortion poisons the air.  In some ways, the band seems like they’re purposely pushing away listeners, straining them through a colander of inflammatory lyrics and discordant sound structures to expose the “true fans.”

For those who survive the doom colander, Xiu Xiu’s music feels enriching, piercing, and even catchy.  Few bands hit me on such an emotional level, and Jamie Stewart and his crew have surprised me with how they subvert music conventions, producing works that redefine how I enjoy music.  At times, their songs skew too strange or vulgar for my liking, but I unwaveringly trust their genius.

I’m a fan.  They’re my second favorite band ever.  I bought two toothbrushes emblazoned with “Xiu Xiu In Your Mouth.”

Their newest album, Girl with Basket of Fruit, has challenged me more than any of their other works.  It makes their last bleak album, Angel Guts: Red Classroom, sound like s quiet introspection on black dicks and killing people.  Critics and fans have hailed Girl with Basket of Fruit as “affecting,” “one of the year’s best,” and “a return for Xiu Xiu.”  On Metacritic, it sits at a 75 based on eight reviews.  Not amazing but still pretty good.

I didn’t like it.  Not on my first listen.  Not on my second and the several after.  This baffles me.  Confronted with the positive feedback the album has received, I question if I’ve missed the point.  Has their creative genius exceeded my understanding?  Did my grip slip from the colander? 

It is for this reason I can’t write a legitimate review of a Xiu Xiu album.  When I enjoy one of their songs, I worry I misinterpreted the lyrics and like it for the “wrong” reasons.  Conversely, I wonder if my stupidity can’t appreciate the band’s more difficult works, as is much the case with Girl with Basket of Fruit.  My self-consciousness overwhelms my objective thought, so in lieu of a review, I can only process my jumble of emotions. 

Dear God, I Hate Myself   

A local college radio station introduced me to Xiu Xiu, a mumbling DJ feigning excitement as she announced the song, “Chocolate Makes You Happy.”  Although I couldn’t recognize it at the time, the song dives into the themes of body image and self-loathing while proclaiming chocolate makes you happy.  I imagine my response was much like anyone else’s when they hear their first Xiu Xiu song: “What?  Is this a joke?”  With its poppy electronica, it could’ve passed off as a cheery little tune, but it threw phrases around like “out of your mind with whorishness” and “as you unbutton/your top pants button.”  Xiu Xiu created a singular song unlike any other I had heard before.

Driven by an unsettled fervor, I returned home and researched this “Shoe Shoe” person.  After struggling with Google to understand “Xiu Xiu” was the name of the band and not an onomatopoeia for lasers, I came upon the fandom devoted to the band.  I learned Xiu Xiu did not produce their music ironically.  Satirically, perhaps, but if Jaime Stewart chose to belt, “My behind is a beehive, there’s a buzz in my backside,” it was because he had a goddamn purpose behind it. 

I dived into their music, and once I surfaced, I came to understand them as the music group that didn’t ignore the most disgusting and cruelest aspects of ourselves and society.  Rather than embrace these ugly parts of ourselves as somehow beautiful, however, Xiu Xiu highlighted the ugliness.  There was no sugarcoating the shit in our lives; it was forced closer to our faces.

 “Dear God, I Hate Myself” was the song that began my obsession with the band.  Unlike many of their songs, the chorus in this one is unabashedly simple and straightforward:

dear God, I hate myself
dear God, I hate myself
and I will never be happy
and I will never feel normal

It captures the deep despair of depression which has turned into a desperate prayer to God.  Its bouncing beat undermines the dark content, and this unearths the absurdity inherent in one’s internal suffering.

It became my anthem.  Earlier that year, I had been placed on a 72-hour hold for a mental breakdown.  To my friends, I was sick with the flu.  To my family, I called it a suicide attempt.  I couldn’t bring myself to say the truth:  I was too scared to kill myself but too in pain to do nothing.  I was a young man drowning in privilege, but I needed someone to focus on just the bad in my life.

The resulting inpatient stay, medication, and therapy did little to reduce my depression, and I was left with shame for my actions and guilt for not getting better.  “Dear God, I Hate Myself” captured my self-hatred and bottled it into a message I could listen to on repeat.  While everyone assured me things would get better, Xiu Xiu recognized that it didn’t feel like it.

When the band released their eighth studio album, Always, I became indebted to Angela Seo, the mastermind behind my next anthem, “Honeysuckle.”  In it, Stewart and Seo share a surprisingly tender duet about how the mundane can suffocate us when twisted by what I assume is depression.  On those days when I hid from depression under my bed’s comforters, their voices became mine:

I’m gonna lie back down
And ask for nothing, nothing
I’m gonna throw it back
And let it, let it go

The music did nothing to make me feel better.  It is possible it dragged me further into my self-loathing.  During those times, however, I did not want to feel better.  I asked for nothing.

Xiu Xiu’s other music was not good simply because it was a soundtrack to my egocentric suffering.  I appreciated the stories, the catchy tunes, and the incredible ways they reformatted music’s very DNA.  Admittedly, I still adore them because they ruminate on the awful elements of the world.  I don’t always want to see the silver lining.  Sometimes I want to fixate on the dark cloud contaminating the sky.

I have likely simplified their catalog of work, but again, this isn’t a review.  It’s my processing.

The Prize Pig

I don’t think Girl with Basket of Fruit betrays Xiu Xiu’s previous work.  Rather, it does seem like an evolution, as if a manic, violent anger has been festering in the band and has finally torn its way out, not unlike what the chestburster did with John Hurt in Alien.  It assails the senses to convey a brutal meaning.  It also makes for inaccessible music, even by Xiu Xiu’s standards. 

The titular song sees Stewart distorting rape into something even more vile.  Remarkably, he seems to go too far with his lyrics.  At one point, he shouts:

Every frog hops right up into her butthole
Every frog eats a single butthole flea on its way in
She brown box squeezes them all into… FROGHOST!!!

Xiu Xiu has used similarly disturbing lyrics to reflect the hideous nature of life, but here, he doesn’t seem to emphasize the horror of rape.  He seems to make it grosser.  Perhaps that is the intention, but then it feels like exploitation to me.  Again, I cite my own ignorance if my claims come off as insensitive or inaccurate.

“It Comes Out as a Joke” and “Ice Cream Truck” seem like filler, which in the world of Xiu Xiu amounts to seemingly perverse metaphors and grouchy instruments.  “The Wrong Thing” feels similar, but it does not embrace the harsh presentation of the other songs.  All of them add to the tone of the album, but even now I struggle to remember them as the album plays over and over while I write this.  I acknowledge that these songs are doing something unique compared to previous Xiu Xiu works, but somehow, they still sound predictable, like someone taking all of the core elements of Xiu Xiu, throwing it into a broken blender, and calling it new music.

“Amargi ve Moo” has a personal meaning to Stewart, and his singing seems to convey his pain.  It is also a pain I feel excluded from, causing it to not resonate with me and not end up on my iPod.  This does not make it a bad song; it’s just not for me.  Notably, the lyrics contain the deeply touching phrase, “BLUBLUGBLOOGBULGOGIOBBLLUOBGHBLOULGU!”  Yes, I recognize my immaturity.

“Pumpkin Attack on Mommy and Daddy” and “Normal Love” are the sole highlights to me.  The former attacks us like gun fire pretending to be a house beat.  It unsettles me, my heart racing to follow along with the tempo.  You could slip the song into Devilman Crybaby’s opening club scene (the one where everyone is ripped apart), and it would probably improve the episode.  Conversely, “Normal Love” offers a quiet finale, a haunting duet between Stewart and Oxbow’s Eugene Robinson in which they struggle with discomfort caused by a normal relationship, free of abuse and shame.  At least I think that’s what it is.

The album’s first single, “Scisssssssors,” sounds no more remarkable than “It Comes Out as a Joke.”  The music video certainly confounds and proudly caterwauls, “THIS IS XIU XIU.”  It’s how Xiu Xiu shoves itself into you, no toothbrush needed.  Honestly, I may have been better able to evaluate the song if it didn’t remind me of the Courage the Cowardly Dog “Crisis Theme.”

I’ve saved “Mary Turner, Mary Turner” for last because it represents the greatest clash between my interests and quality music.  It recounts the brutal lynching of Mary Turner and murder of her unborn child, and any further description would fail to capture it as well as the actual lyrics.  It’s harsh imagery and reads like a demented nursery rhyme, warning us of the ignored atrocities of white male culture.  It reminded me much of “I Luv Abortion!” which takes an unflinching look at love for an act vilified by our society.  I enjoy both pieces as works of art, not as music.

It’ll Be the End Finally

Ultimately, I think I know why I don’t like Girl with Basket of Fruit.  It’s not mine.  Whereas with almost all of Xiu Xiu’s other albums, I could personally connect with a handful of songs.  They seemed to reach out to me and recognize me.  They didn’t accept me for who I am, but I wasn’t alone.  Someone or some entity understood me, even if I could not see them or touch them.

Apart from “Normal Love,” I do not see myself in these songs.  This preference is egotistical and selfish, but this is precisely why this article is not a true review.  The album is not for me, but it may be for many others.  Although it may sound a perversion of the typical coming-of-age story, perhaps Girl with Basket of Fruit will be the equivalent of my Dear God, I Hate Myself for someone else, walking with a person as they trudge through their misery and distress.

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Because I adore lists, here are my Top 10 Xiu Xiu songs.  Feel free to judge further my ability to recognize quality music.

1. Honey Suckle
2. I Luv the Valley OH!
3. Wondering
4. Over Over (Remixed by Son)
5. Ceremony (off of “Xiu Xiu:  Remixed and Covered”)
6. Dear God, I Hate Myself
7. The Fox and the Rabbit
8. Only Girl (In the World)
9. Smear the Queen
10. Suha