Despite McCamman’s recent success, his path to gaining momentum in the indie world wasn’t straightforward. As recently as 2024, he was feeling increasingly stifled playing guitar in the Philadelphia punk band Blood, despite the group having released a full-length album and built a small fanbase. He took a risk by leaving the band later that year, instead moving to New York to be the frontman of his own project: Victoryland.

The ambition which led him into leaving Blood and starting Victoryland drove him apart from many of his musical peers in Philadelphia. But two years on from that move, it has become apparent that he made the right decision. Following the release of My Heart Is A Room With No Cameras In It, LCD Soundsystem’s frontman James Murphy took a liking to Victoryland, eventually giving them the opportunity to open for the legendary New York band’s North American tour. Their first stop was in Vancouver, where Radio TinTin had the chance to speak to McCamman about what some would call his selfish decision to leave Blood and found Victoryland, pursuing the goal of making “perfect” pop music.

A musician’s decision to leave their band is often characterized as ‘selfish’, and it’s easy to see how an artist could take offense at being described this way. Yet McCamman readily agreed with the label: “I like that you called it selfish, honestly… because it was. I think the inception of this project was me starting to prioritize my own songwriting over songwriting for [Blood], which had been restricting my creative urge to write true hits and accessible [pop] music.”

The abrasive punk sound of his previous band eventually became limiting for McCamman, although it took him a while to realize the appeal of a more “mainstream” outlook. “When I was younger, I really loved experimental music, and I really liked challenging myself [with it],” he recalls. “But when I got older, I think I realized that it takes a real skill to write a simple song that is really infectious.”

“I love music where every part of the song is really satisfying, and you can really do that with music. I think about that a lot — how music can be ‘perfect.’ The appeal of what he calls “perfect” music soon became a fixation for McCamman. “I got really obsessed with how people say they can’t stop listening to a song, and what goes into making [that].”

The notion of “perfection” goes against the grain of most of the independent music realm. Victoryland itself is labeled as an “alternative” band — so how could they be chasing the very “perfection” they’re branded to reject? Their answer is by aligning “perfect” with music that’s accessible, not necessarily mainstream. Making music for the masses doesn’t have to be synonymous with chasing universal appeal or losing creative nuance.

The “perfect” song à la Victoryland can still be deeply authentic, especially in its lyrical content. Using a catchy, danceable pop beat to propose deeper or more psychological themes is something they share with LCD Soundsystem. While the New York band is firmly “alternative,” it’s hard not to dance to singles like the aptly titled “Dance Yrself Clean,” regardless of your musical background.

McCamman loves this dichotomy: “My real hope is that someone is jumping up and down and singing to [our] music, and then slowly realizing what they’re saying is [actually] really gross or violent. Because that is [the] thing about pop music [that] is really interesting to me — the way people feel it before they really hear what is being said.”

The authenticity of Victoryland’s lyrics has become a core feature of their music. The words allow McCamman, a passionate songwriter, to showcase his more unsavoury tastes in a way that to him feels both confrontational and strangely inviting. “If I was to tell you some of the gnarly thoughts I have regularly, I think people would be like, ‘What the hell is wrong with him?’” McCamman says with a chuckle. “But everybody has those thoughts.”

Through Victoryland, McCamman seeks to amplify the uglier thoughts that come with being human. Singles like “Here I Stand” channel that same candour into a disregard for outside expectations, turning the abstract aversion into something blunt and immediate. In it, McCamman sings: “Here I stand / Whoever said it’s foolish / Fuck you and everyone else.”

Victoryland’s pursuit of perfection is one that not many are willing to take on, and McCamman is intent on pushing back against the indifference toward ambition that has taken hold in younger creative circles. “The poison of nonchalance and people who are ‘too cool for school’ are everywhere, especially on the East Coast,” McCamman explains, “I really hate that shit.” He pauses, then reiterates emphatically: ”I hate that shit.”

He continues: “Because if you fail and you weren’t trying to appease people, then you didn’t really fail, right? And there’s a failsafe, like, it’s like, ‘Oh, I failed? I didn’t try that hard,’” he says with a shrug. “And, well, you should try for something big and fail really hard, you know? An awesome failure is better than a safe layup. You just might as well go big.”

In terms of his creative ambitions, McCamman leaves no space for guesswork. He is continuing to strive towards making ‘perfect’ music, according to his own definition.

The post Victoryland: The Selfish Pursuit of Perfect Music appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Burnside elaborates: “It’s exciting — like with my favourite artists, every time they release a new record, I wanna be like ‘What?’” — his face contorts with a mixture of confusion and disgust — “I want to ask myself, ‘What is this?… They must’ve lost their minds.”

As Burnside alludes to, artists pushing the limits of their musical experimentation can often come at the cost of losing fans. The Strokes are one notable example, having recently altered their sound against the expectations of many of their listeners. Their latest album, Reality Awaits, released in late July, provoked mixed reactions from critics and fans alike. In addition to being touted as the “auto-tune” album, it features a prominent diss to popular music critic Anthony Fantano in the song “Lonely in the Future.” Reality Awaits has achieved an undeniable prominence in the Strokes’ discography — one that can be seen as either a jarring break or a welcome breath of fresh air from the rest of their work depending on the individual listener.

“Every songwriter I know is always trying to challenge and push themselves, some more than others,” says Burnside, “but it’s rare to meet anyone who wants to do the same thing over and over again”.

The reactions of fans, whether positive or negative, can be used as a gauge by artists to test whether they are pushing the boundaries of their own musical landscape to a sufficient extent. While Burnside himself hasn’t been tinkering with the wonders of auto-tune, he has been experimenting with a different emotional palette. His latest record, titled It’s Not Going to be Okay, marks a morbid turn from the more wistful, subdued tone of the rest of his catalogue. Written and recorded in the wake of the death of his best friend, Dean Jendoubi, Burnside used the project to process his grief. Centering an entire record around mortality marked a new direction for Burnside, one he deems significant to
his artistic development.

“You know…you understand how music works after a while, and how melodies and emotions intertwine. Music is like magic, isn’t it? It’s just like trickery. You’re tricking someone’s brain into feeling certain emotions with melodies and chords. But you have to kind of go, ‘Okay, don’t do that. You’ve done that before, or you’ve heard that before. Do try and do something else.’”

Making music that deviates from the norm is a deliberate craft. Commercial success in the music industry can often be crafted from a set of predetermined components that have been shown to work. There are identical melodies in hundreds of songs topping the charts (such as the pervasive “Gen Alpha melody”).

After more than a decade of releasing music, Burnside knows the “formulas” for gaining an audience. “You know all the tricks. You can do all the nice stuff, but you don’t. [In] so much music I listen to, you’re expecting this particular melody, [but] they went the other way even though it’s not as nice. It’s not as ‘done,’” he explains. “They chose to do the sort of grosser thing. And you’re like, ‘ah…I respect it.’ And then you grow to love it.”

In order to be appreciated, music relies on the interaction between the artist and listener, meaning that to some extent artists have to balance taking creative risks with maintaining a universality of appeal to the audience. For Burnside, that conflict is constant in his creative process.

“It’s so hard, when you’re making the music, to choose those paths sometimes. You’re like, ‘if I land on the four [chord] here and do this melody, it’d be really tasty…’ but it’s probably [already] been done. It’s hard to choose the path less taken,” he concedes.

Later, Burnside used the age-old adage “with great power comes great responsibility.” Artists like him maintain the cultural core of our society, wielding their craft to shape people’s everyday emotions. With the current state of our society making it increasingly enticing for people to retreat into the comfort of media and art, artists must continue exercising their creative influence in a meaningful way. Joshua Burnside, for one, keeps us wondering what he’s going to take on next — and how he is going to continue challenging his devoted fanbase, who for now seems to have withstood his attempts to drive them away.

The post The Art of Losing Listeners appeared first on The McGill Daily.

The line between performance and identity has become increasingly blurred in music. Be it EsDeeKid’s carefully hidden persona or Gorillaz’s quarter-century of lore, artists now construct themselves as deliberately as they write songs. Every physical action and digital trace carries a magnitude of importance. Optics are king, and a misstep could spell the end of an artist’s career.

Singer-songwriter Phil Elverum, talking to the Daily from his home studio in Anacortes, Washington, USA, has noticed this modern obsession with a carefully crafted image. “I think it’s an expression of what’s happening in the culture at large,” he says, gesturing for emphasis. “Everyone on social media is always performing for their followers, so everyone is used to putting on a face and presenting themselves in an idealized way.”

The goal of “perfect” performance is not restricted to social media or mainstream artists. “I think that it’s even finding expression in independent music,” Elverum adds. 

Performing as The Microphones and Mount Eerie, Elverum leans into lo-fi production, recording many songs with analog tape recorders and sparse acoustic arrangements. From hellish sound collages to delicate love stories, his music exudes vulnerability. The result is an intimate sonic landscape listeners can immerse themselves in.

Having released more than 40 records since the 1990s, with standouts like The Glow Pt. 2 shaping the independent scene, Elverum is no stranger to the pressures of presentation. Like many public figures, he holds his actions in high regard — but rather than chasing flawlessness, he actively avoids it. “People forgot that human touch is so important,” says Elverum, who is known for manning his own merchandise booth when on tour. 

Still, his goal of showcasing imperfection is most evident in his music. “My mind was formed in the era where sloppiness and imperfection were important to feature prominently,” Elverum says. His musical identity is shaped by Seattle’s grunge scene, which he describes as “raw and imperfect.” That era of music was not burdened by today’s technology, a development which tends to eliminate the mistakes and human touch that make recording music so special in the first place. 

Hence, the contrast between Elverum’s sound and the majority of today’s new music is evident. 

“I’m weirded out by how clean everything sounds. Also, people’s singing is so pretty.” He laughs, flashing a wide grin. “What’s up with that?”

Our algorithm-driven world is relentless in its crusade to force individuals into fixed boxes. Whether it’s new technology or the latest viral trends, the pressure to conform to social pressures seems unavoidable. In this day and age, a student showing up to class in skinny jeans would likely face judgement from classmates — even though the opposite might have been true ten years ago. Elverum faces a similar dilemma. Instead of skinny jeans in a room of straight-cut or bootleg denim, he arrives at a technically faultless musical landscape armed with uneven vocals and untamed instrumentals.

How has he resisted the expectations of conformity from the music industry, remaining aligned with his north star of imperfection? “I’ve just been careful to maintain my own weird little corner off to the side [and] to not really participate in the music industry as a whole in a way that feels like it’s beyond me,” Elverum explains.

His independence, facilitated through his own label P.W. Elverum & Sun, allows him to release and sell his work on his own terms. 

“I don’t work with other labels, I’m small, so I’m free and liberated to just do whatever I want. Also, I don’t really follow music very well, so I don’t even know what the expectations would be… I know how to do one thing, and that’s just what I do. If I were to try to do something that would be well-received or cool, it would be embarrassing and it would not work.”

The authenticity with which Elverum pursues his craft is poignant. Despite the talent and influence he has accumulated, he has not abandoned his ethos of imperfection for a path that almost certainly would have brought more commercial and financial success. 

At his essence, Elverum is an artist, and while he may continue to ponder the mysteries of human existence through his music, one thing he does not question is the importance of making art. “My ideal is to be engaged with some kind of art practice. Whatever it is, if it’s music or something else, I don’t know,” Elverum says.

“That’s who I am. That’s who I want to be. That’s the life I want to live, until I die.”

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