On Black Country, New Road, Online Music Fandom and Coping with Change

Every year there is an episode of the podcast I host where we talk about albums that disappointed us most. I struggle with this episode more than anything else we do. I find a lot of albums frustrating, but rarely does "disappointing" feel accurate to the way I leave listening to music. Avoiding disappointment in artists I love has never felt all that difficult – I grew up listening to a lot of emo and pop punk, I'm very comfortable with new albums by bands I'd previously considered favorites shifting away from being for me and having to find something else in them. I'm very uncomfortable with the perspective some people seem to have that music taste is a game you should be trying to win with right answers and wrong answers and canons to stick to.

I've been thinking about disappointment and approaching new music by beloved bands because Black Country, New Road just put out their new album, Forever Howlong. Their fanbase strikes me as very young – if not literally right now then at least in the sense that it feels like a significant amount of their fans started listening to them very young – and heavily imprinted on the scene the band comes out of in a way that is commensurate with a young person's pursuit of finding identity in bands. Everything about the release and reception of Forever Howlong feels highly conscious of that fact.

For the last several years it has seemed to me like the band has been carefully preparing their audience for change following the departure of former vocalist and songwriter Isaac Wood. The first single – and first song on the album – being sung by a member of the band who had never done main vocals on a record before is a statement of change. It feels intentional to me that the most circulated press photo for Forever Howlong presents all the members in their own solo portrait with their instrument as opposed to many of their previous press photos – the more traditional Collection Of Well Dressed Young People Standing Together. The presence of the instruments reads to me like a (very charming!) statement of everybody's contributions. The tone of the album art even feels like a warning of change. Really, going back to choosing to put out a live film and album in 2023 with the new songs they'd written in Wood's absence feels like a beautiful statement of transition for the band.

They gave everybody time to prepare. I imagine they were doing the same for themselves.

I personally avoided BC,NR for a long time because I have been known to have a strong aversion to both hype and things described as post punk, so my intro to the band was something off Live At Bush Hall via a playlist made by a guy I went on two dates with last fall. I've grown to really love the live album. I love the vocal performances and how grand it all feels, something that has stretched into how I feel about the new one. I've watched the Glastonbury performance of Turbines/Pigs a hundred times since I first heard the song.

I struggle with the older stuff for a similar surface level reason that some fans probably struggle with the post-Isaac Wood music – a new voice is a tough hurdle. Different tone is a tough hurdle. You can pretend to think a different voice singing doesn't matter that much, but it does. Obviously there are consistencies in the music, but voices matter. I don't think I'll ever see what people do in Ants From Up There, nobody has to like the new album.

What's impossible for me to overlook with the reactions I've been seeing to the new album has been how the misogyny under male genius narratives has jumped out. Even when it's not ridiculously overt, like the YouTube comment band member Charlie Wayne screenshotted or the tweets I saw after the first single derisively calling it "lesbian music," it's clear how much some fans view the band as successful purely because of Isaac Wood.

Obviously that is just horrible, up front misogyny, but I think there is a more underlying perspective that I'm more compelled by – should they be able to call their band Black Country, New Road anymore? I've seen this perspective a lot in YouTube comments and on Twitter. Due to coming alongside the really overt sexism, it first sparks a question of whether that would be the attitude if a man took over doing main vocals. You can argue about that. I doubt anybody making that argument would be able to see that as a part of their analysis. Their fanbase to me seems, at least in part, connected to a sort of Rate Your Music culture of investment in pretending to treat music with objective quality and buying into singular genius narratives. I imagine these people think it's objective to say if you change your band or lose "the most important member" then you should change the band name. I've seen it compared to Joy Division and New Order despite Isaac Wood being, you know, alive.

The problem with this, of course, is that it's a criticism that is entirely selfish. These people are unable to admit they're simply mourning disliking something they've tied their sense of self into. Instead, they're hiding behind the idea that Isaac Wood was a singular genius whose work should not be exploited by the remaining members of the band continuing on. It's clear the band doesn't feel like they need to "honor" the previous version of the band the way these people want them to and many of their fans agree. I think it feels in the spirit of the band and the highly collaborative scene they come out of to continue on and change and work to innovate, but to acknowledge that would be foregoing their objective reason for hating the current iteration of the band. Singular male genius narratives are dismissive of the collaborative nature of writing music and, as we see here, fueled by an undercurrent of misogyny.

Nobody says a fan of a band inherently has to like the band's new direction. Lots of cool punk bands I've loved have decided to try to make pop songs or employ synths for the sake of it and I stopped being that interested – it's fine to not listen as a matter of taste. I wonder if a drastic new direction would be differently perceived had there not been a member change, but on the surface it's fine to dislike a change. I guess I'd recommend many of these fans who feel themselves disappointed try to untangle their experience with music from over-identifying with one person or one band. I'd recommend lots of young people work to connect with music on an art level before anything else and, if a band you love is a few albums in, try to find a way into their current work instead of expecting anything that band does to always instantly sweep you away. How you feel about music is almost always more about you than them.

Nancy Tries to Take the Night, by Black Country, New Road

from the album Forever Howlong

Black Country, New RoadTaz

I put out a new issue of my zine Portable Model a little while back! If you're interested in music writing, please check it out! It's about the last 5 years of music. There are still physical copies, but now you can buy a PDF copy for just $8! Wow!

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Portable Model Issue 2 - PDF — two flat press

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Miranda Reinert is a music adjacent writer, zine maker, podcaster and law school drop out based in Chicago. Check out PDFs of most of my zines at the link on the top of the screen. Follow me on Twitter or Bluesky to keep up on the next time I write about online fanbases: @mirandareinert.  This blog does have a paid option and I would so appreciate any money you would be willing to throw me! You may also send me small bits of money at @miranda-reinert on venmo/on Paypal if you want. As always, thanks for reading!