Allie Goertz’s debut album, Cossbysweater.
Musician Allie Goertz, aka Cossbysweater, has been buzzing around the internet for some time now. Her Youtube videos where she performs songs about her favorite things—Freaks and Geeks, role playing games, Arrested Development, Pee-wee Herman—have found their way onto Comedy Central’s webpage and The Huffington Post, and have been praised by Patton Oswalt. She’s sat alongside Dr. Andrea Letamendi and Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Amber Benson for a discussion about geek girls. This past weekend, appropriately enough on Free Comic Book Day, Goertz released her debut album, Cossbysweater (produced by Buffy’s Adam Busch, who played Warren Mears).
Goertz falls into the realm of guitar-driven singer-songwriters alongside artists like Aimee Mann, Emmy the Great, and Laura Veirs. Her songs are soft and contemplative, and many of the tracks are underscored with forlorn strings, a few trilling horns, and even a Sufjan Stevens’ styled banjo. Her topics of choice go beyond simple pop culture references, delving and searching for the motivating sadness the song’s character carries.
In “Good Kid,” one of the album’s finest tracks, Goertz visits the short-lived television series Freaks and Geeks, focusing on Sam Weir, the geeky outcast protagonist. She explores Weir’s desire to fit in, but also parallels that desire with the other characters’ own pain and frustration, showing that Weir plays just one role in the teenage hierarchy, but most of the other roles—roles he longs for—carry the same confusion. But Weir at least does the right thing and one day that will pay off.
Another strong track, “Everything’s Coming up Milhouse,” explores the many failures of Bart Simpson’s blue-haired friend. Where “Good Kid” had a caring and concerned tone, Goertz points out how nobody likes Milhouse, not even his supposed friends, and the musician sounds as if she could be firmly planted in that group as well, singing snarky comments such as being sure Lisa will respect him soon “when she sees you’ll do anything she asks of you.” Marching violins push the number to a grand finale and Goertz hits her lyrics with the same staccato flare as Fiona Apple and Joanna Newsom. There’s a rising since of desperation, but little hope Milhouse has a happy future waiting for him like Sam Weir.
On “Open Letter (To Myself)”, Goertz turns a critical eye towards her elitist attitude, reminding herself “don’t forget the subjectivity of best” and asking herself to be more open minded towards friends who watch Friends and the Big Bang Theory. “You can like the girls/ who don’t like Dunham’s Girls/ without calling them all morons” she sings.
Ultimately, the album is about shirking the status quo more so than celebrating her favorite things—it just so happens that those favorites provide the lessons on how to endure the loneliness, or escape reality through Dungeons and Dragons, and finding a realm of make believe such as Pee-wee’s Playhouse in a very serious adult world. “The Hobbit Song,” the album’s last track, acts as a rallying call to the disenfranchised geeks of the world who also want those escapes. It’s both a map and an inspirational tale of the little man who reluctantly left his comforts behind and found new meaning to his life through great adventure. It’s a lesson Sam Weir, Maeby Funke, Milhouse, and many of us should take to heart.
Cossbysweater is currently available for purchase on iTunes and Bandcamp.
May 7, 2013
Awesome that even music gets a go on here. As a massive fan of The Simpsons I absolutely love the Milhouse song, funny and sad.