I’m sorry, am I actually losing my fucking my mind here? Is this some bizarrely specific psychotic hallucination that I’m suffering? Is everyone else suffering mass psychosis here?? Is it a mind virus or something? Did all you idiots catch it from TikTok? Everyone else seems to use that apart from me, so that might explain this apparent lunacy.
Hey, I don’t want to sound like I’m not open to debate: if you want to argue that I’ve actually been far too harsh on this modern rock masterpiece, and that it should rightfully be far closer to the number one spot. I hear you, I really do, and can only defend myself by arguing that there have been three albums released this year that are even greater pieces of genius. Also, erm, spoiler alert but there’s a Prince album to come and all. In the interests of BBC-like ‘Both Sides‘ bullshit, I will also listen to even the most insane and backward opinion that suggests that ‘The Scholars‘ would merely be a top ten album, probably delivered while the questioner dribbled out of the side of their mouth and softly pissed themselves. But to suggest anything lower than that is akin to suggesting that not only does man made global warming not exist, but it’s a huge conspiracy thought up by a still living Elvis Pressley as he controls the narrative from the same studio that he faked the moon landing based in the outer reaches of the flat Earth. I’m sorry, sir, but you are obviously an imbecile whose opinions are flimsier than drunk ape’s attempt at Jenga.
And yet, ‘The Scholars‘ received pretty good reviews and was barely mentioned when general discussions of the year’s best took place.
The fuck is wrong with you people??
I walked into the ocean at Long Beach
It spit out plastic and didn’t treat me any different
(I deserve this heartbreak)
Love doesn’t do what I want it to
It doesn’t change me and it doesn’t change you
Make peace with the dirt around you
Make peace with the dirt around you
Make peace with the dirt around you
Make peace with the dirt around you, around you, around (Dirt around you, dirt around you)
‘The Scholars‘ is an absolute masterpiece of expansive rock. The addition of a full band to Will Toledo’s former essentially solo project has allowed for a huge extension of the Car Seat Headrest sound, and the new band members again and again show themselves to be extraordinarily capable of keeping up with Will Toledo’s typically epic ambitions. The tracks on ‘The Scholars‘ are incredible achievements in prog indie composition and performance, one that’s able to contain tracks that spill over 10, 11 and 18 minutes without ever being close to losing the listener’s full and undying attention; and yet still bang out straight up rock classics like Devereaux and True/False Lover. I was going to include CCF (I’m Gonna Stay With You) in that latter group until I realised that motherfucker’s eight minutes long!! Because ‘The Scholars‘ proves how possible it is to do both! Then there are parts that tear your heart apart like Lady Gay Approximately. This is a near* perfect album of a quality surely anyone with two ears and a heart would recognise.
(*I’ll explain that ‘near’ shortly)
So, in the immortal words of Aenesidemus: Wha’ happen???
Stones of white preserve the words unspeakable for ages
It’s not a place of honor or esteemed deed commemorated
What’s left inside is what’s evolved from what we have forsaken
Check the black box
I studied critical reviews of ‘The Scholars‘ in the same way that a historian might look at contemporary reporting of mass dancing hysteria or the delirium that lead to literal witch hunts: what would lead generally normal human beings to act so irrationally?
There were no bad reviews – even the people burning witches weren’t that crazy – but all the 6 or 7/10 shrugs all offer the same complaint:
I don’t really understand the lyrics. And I don’t think the plot made sense.
Fucking Idiots (2025)
Guess what: I have no fucking idea what the lyrics literally mean either. Have you seen the lyrics I’ve quoted on this post?? No idea! It’s still a masterpiece.
Nobody ever knew what Michael Stipe’s lyrics literally meant – they couldn’t fucking understand what he was saying for most of his career – but people still agree that they’re beautiful pieces of prose that fit the music and tone of each song beautifully. Nick Cave – when he’s not excusing genocide because his favourite book is set there – has long since moved beyond literal meaning in his lyrics, preferring now mainly to focus on words and phrases that happen to fit certain unspeakable energies within his band’s songs. The literal meaning of ‘The Scholars‘ may well be intentional poppycock, but I still feel every single emotion that’s transmitted through Will Toledo’s words. Sometimes you don’t need literal meanings. Sometimes you don’t need everything spelled out for you like you’re in secondary school English class. So why wasn’t Toledo afforded the same trust as Stipe, Cave and other lyricists who communicate more through poetic beats rather than simple stories? Firstly, I think because Toledo and Car Seat Headrest have in the past been more associated with real stories about real relationships, and when many critics are presented with something so abstract and open to personal interpretation that they start to listen using the wrong part of their brain. Also, with the band promoting the record as some sort of ‘Rock Opera’, people looked upon it as some sort of coherent play to critically analyse, and I will accept that ‘The Scholars‘ should not be nominated for any Tony Awards this year.
Also, the plot doesn’t make sense?? Last week, I watched one of the Zendaya Spiderman movies. I can’t remember which one, because they’re all called shit like ‘Spiderman Comes Home’ and ‘Spiderman’s Home Improvement’ and ‘Spiderman Home Bargains’ and ‘Spiderman’s Home Is Where His Spiderman Heart Is’, but it was the Jake Gyllenhaal one. In it (SPOILERS), Jake Gyllenhaal creates a whole artificial reality that tricks people into believing he’s a superhero from another planet, creates giant CGI monsters using drones that he can save real people from, does that enough times around the globe that The Avengers finally recognise his good work, and he does all that so he can finally get close to Spiderman in order to steal his glasses!! That’s an actual movie with an actual plot, go and criticise that, you bunch of Marvel-brained ignorami.
Like I said though: ‘The Scholars‘ isn’t quite perfect. There’s one song that doesn’t really do anything for me, and the listless and unexciting Reality really slows the otherwise incredible thrust and flow of the record. Yeah, I can hear you: “But that’s only one song!”. Mate, it’s 11 minutes long, so that’s a pretty big chunk of the album. So… yeah, when I mentioned songs that kept your attention over “10, 11 and 18 minutes”? I was kind of lying. The 11 minute one doesn’t. Poetic license. Ever heard of it?? Marvel-brained ignorami. And still the rest of the album is so incredible that its scientific placing of #5 still seems harsh.
…
…
…
…so why did Jake Gyllenhaal cause his CGI monster to go somewhere that Peter Parker’s school weren’t going and just hope that they’d go there?? Why didn’t he just do it near where Peter Parker was?? I mean, it worked, I guess, but you’re betting on a huge number of coincidences there, and…
2020 #62 (+57 fuck, yeah, didn’t even mention: that last album was a fucking stinker) 2018 #1🏆, 2016 #30
You’re all fucking idiots!! The user score of 78 is similarly inexcusable.
Uh-oh…
Necessary Evil 