Nostalgia Should Hurt The Right Way
"I Can't Help But Hate the Heat" - Hamish Linklater's Batman, Probably
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s latest album, Flight b741, is only 43 minutes long. Somehow this feels short for them. There should be some secret extended second disc, or demos available on Bandcamp only. And yet, 43 minutes is the perfect length with no need for any extra bells or whistles.
Flight b741 sounds like King Gizz and classic rock radio. The guitars are tube-driven, the grooves make your head bop, the bass is warm and round; Stu Mackenzie does that growly-voice thing that he somehow fits into every genre the band tries out.
The first three songs on Flight b741 could have been on the soundtrack to my childhood. Made up of duped CDs form old cassettes, I grew up on the classic rock of the sixties, seventies, and eighties. I know the words to most if not all Beatles songs; John Paul Jones informs how I carry myself not only as a bassist but as a bandmate. Therefore, when I hear anything that could have played on Q104.3 in New York in the 1990s and early 2000s, I am transported to sitting in the backseat of a rusting, periwinkle Chevy Impala on my family’s infrequent drives to a nearby Costco.
That shade of blue is the color I see when I hear “Antarctica.” Despite the chilly-yet-swampy atmosphere that KGATLW aim for, I feel the heat of a baking summer in the car as my hand washes in the wind like a wave. One song that was on the soundtrack to that warmth in real time was The Band’s “Ophelia”; the soundtrack to that memory is now “Raw Feel,” or any of the other eight songs on Flight b741.
What is beautiful about this record is that it does not feel disingenuous with its nostalgia. Let’s use Greta Van Fleet as an example. When a GVF song comes on, I get bored quickly and want to listen to Led Zeppelin. When the a cappella comes in on “Hog Calling Contest,” I want to hear what comes next and appreciate growing up in home that encouraged singing along to “Fat Bottomed Girls” like we were singing in a megachurch. KGATLW always toe the line of respectful acknowledgement and never enter the cheap, unsatisfying territory of nostalgia.
Conversely, there is Batman: Caped Crusader, from Batman: The Animated Series head producer Bruce Timm and acclaimed Gotham City comics writers Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka. The new series evokes the nineties’ show’s 1940s-inspired steam-deco aesthetic. Hamish Linklater does a great Kevin Conroy for his Batman—though I do miss Conroy’s lofty playboy Bruce Wayne. There are new twists on old characters, the production value is high, and the creators clearly respect the material they are working with. Nevertheless, this doesn’t hit the way Flight b741 does.
Because of these not-quite-but-almost-Animated-Series traits, watching Caped Crusader is the sort of nostalgia that stings unpleasantly. I am not necessarily missing the original show (it is available to stream easily); nor do I truly yearn for the blips of memory I have of watching it as it aired in my nascent childhood. Instead my pain derives from wanting something more than a riff on what Timm and co. have already achieved.
Don’t misunderstand me: more Batman is always good Batman to me. Nevertheless, I wish to engage in art that charts new paths, not media wearing new boots in the same old tracks. King Gizz clearly went for the sound of yesteryear with their 70s-rock-inspired opus. While all the songs on Flight b741 would make any boomer smile and wonder when they dropped acid to KGATLW, Caped Crusader makes my millennial heart yawn in a sleepy, lukewarm satisfaction. I am happy and grateful it exists, but as a fan, I am left wanting.
There needs to be more risk in the way creators homage what comes before, let alone just make things in general. It is totally acceptable and respectable to nod to your forebears, but the audience knows when something else could have been done to make the work more special. A forward-looking failure still faces the right direction.
What should I watch, read, or listen to next?
As always, thank you for reading! I appreciate you.