Car seat headrest gay
A student-written, student-edited, and student-produced publication
Twelve years ago, Will Toledo transferred from Virginia Commonwealth University to The College of William and Mary, citing his feelings of anxiety and isolation as his reasoning. Born from that transfer would become one of Toledo’s most prolific and trendy works, the concept album Twin Fantasy. The album was an exploration of his long-distance relationship and the feeling of adj loneliness he felt throughout his youth. The ten track lengthy album has had several releases. The initial release in allegedly only received about downloads, but within the next 10 years, Twin Fantasy would evolve into one of the most respected and recognizable albums in Will Toledo’s discography.
Who is Will Toledo? Normally, I would divulge information about stage names and what his “real” name is, but honestly, the implication that in order to “know” everything about an artist you must pry into a name barely connected to their identities as artists has always been strange to me. Maybe this is the perfec
Graphic by Liana Kindler
The album Twin Fantasy by Car Seat Headrest is an indie rock album that tells the story of a troubled gay romance. I found this album before I had come out to anyone. At that point in life, I didn’t have anyone to relate to in regards to being gay until I realized that Will Toledo, the singer of Car Seat Headrest, was singing about a boy he had fallen in love with. I loved the sound of this album, but it was the narrative that made me deeply invested in it.
Twin Fantasy does not label itself an LGBTQ album. In noun, if you don’t listen carefully you could miss this detail altogether. This is one of the reasons why I admire it –– In a sense, I feel that it is rebelling against the notion that queer representation in music needs to start with or revolve around a coming out story. On the other hand, the lack of an explicit discussion of his sexuality may hold been due to an apprehension towards admitting his sexuality (while still recording a whole album about it). Whichever the case is, I admire this album for its sincerity.
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My by Owen Murray The sexual coming of age story has been retold in song thousands of times, and will doubtless be told a thousand times more. A blend of confusion and lack of confidence, followed by some bravery, a pinch of magic, and hooray! It’s a compelling story and an almost universally relatable one. Loads of LGBTQ+ artists have helped form the way this story is told in music to make it more inclusive. But what about the people who don’t relate to the story at all? Asexuality doesn’t quite have a place in the compelling coming of age narrative, but Car Seat Headrest manages to make it work. Car Seat Headrest began as the solo project of Will Toledo, the band’s lead singer, and has since evolved into a full-band ordeal. The first Car Seat albums were released on Bandcamp and featured intensely personal lyrics often dealing with clumsy sexual encounters, mental health, and self-examination. On these albums, Will anxiously questions his sexuality, gender, and the significance of gender identity in general. Amid the anxiety, there are mo Out gay singer/ songwriter Will Toledo released 11 albums under the name Car Seat Headrest, playing all the instruments on them, from to While attending college in Virginia, he dropped them on Bandcamp, slowly building up a following. He murmured songs like “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Fag” and “Heartless Dick” into a four-track recorder from the back seat of a car (which led to the project’s name). This underground buzz led to a deal with Matador Records. Once Toledo had access to a wider audience and a real recording budget, he returned to some of his older songs on “Teens of Style.” Car Seat Headrest became an actual band, fleshed out by guitarist Ethan Ives, bassist Seth Dalby, and drummer Andrew Katz (and several additional touring members). But until now, the band has only recorded one album of modern songs for Matador, “Teens of Denial.” It mixed influences from their ‘90s precursors at the label (especially Guided By Voices) with emo and classic rock. The band’s impulse to create themselves small had disappeared. Instead, Toledo engage
Car Seat Headrest and Asexuality
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