Car Seat Headrest Songs Ranked
Car Seat Headrest is an American indie rock band formed in Leesburg, Virginia, and currently located in Seattle, Washington. The band consists of Will Toledo (vocals, guitar, piano, synthesizers), Ethan Ives (guitar, bass, backing vocals), Seth Dalby (bass), and Andrew Katz (drums, percussion). Beginning as a solo recording project by Toledo in 2010, Car Seat Headrest self-released 12 albums on the music platform Bandcamp, before signing to Matador Records in 2015. Car Seat Headrest would begin touring as a full band the following year. Here are all of Car Seat Headrest songs ranked.
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20. Beast Monster Thing (How To Leave Town, 2014)
“A deceptively simple chord structure and more typical indie-rock production carry some of the best lyrics on “How to Leave Town”. The chorus sang in Toledo’s least scratchy singing voice, is candy to the ears, before a fitting anti-climax degrades the song slowly into silence.”
19. Famous Prophets (Minds) (Twin Fantasy, 2011)
“Listen to the chanting at the end of Famous Prophets (Minds) while sitting on the end of your bed, rocking back and forth. It will make you feel completely hopeless. And I love it.”
18. Sunburned Shirts (My Back Is Killing Me Baby, 2011)
“It’s cool how he makes the guitar sound like a sitar at the beginning. simple lyrics that perfectly describe wasting away in a college dorm. There’s something about the pre-TF songs that just draws me in…I find it incredibly hard to articulate but they’re at once cryptic, pessimistic, humorous, mysterious and utterly desperate. pretty good vocal harmonies and countermelodies. and i like how it fades out just like it fades in from nowhere, with no resolution.”
17. Happy News for Sadness (My Back Is Killing Me Baby, 2011)
“Just listen to “Happy News for Sadness”, for instance; that song wouldn’t be nearly as effective if the layered vocals, piercing organ, and synth sweeps weren’t muddled together by the reverb-y mix. It feels a bit like the culmination of Toledo’s earlier experiments with noisy looping, finally realized into something meaningful. “
See more: Car Seat Headrest Albums Ranked
16. Twin Fantasy (Those Boys) (Twin Fantasy, 2011)
“Twin Fantasy is a masterpiece of lo-fi indie rock. It beautifully translates raw youthful emotion in great songs that contain a dash of fun experimentalism.”
15. Fill in the Blank (Teens of Denial, 2016)
“Will was always more a single artist for me rather then the LP one, and here the choruses are killers as always, but I’d like him to work out the verse vocals more—there’s a thin line between flippant singing and just plain lack of melody overall…”
14. Times to Die (Monomania, 2012)
“After more than a half-decade career up to this point, this second take of a Monomania highlight is somehow Will’s best song.”
13. Father, Flesh In Rags (My Back Is Killing Me Baby, 2011)
“The amount of passion Will can put into even his more restrained songs is quite impressive, and the way that this song in particular changes up halfway through to become some sort of mixture between tongue and cheek sounding and genuinely sombre is quite a nice touch.”
12. Destroyed by Hippie Powers (Teens of Denial, 2016)
“I lacked some self-sufficient hook in the start, but the song works instead on dynamics. Also, props for melodic approach to noise.”
11. Boxing Day (Nervous Young Man, 2013)
“Some of Will’s most honest storytelling and songwriting is on exhibit here, even when it comes time to pick up the pace like on the Masterpiece Boxing Day which has a noisy, energetic rock song that leads into a sad love ballad before picking steam up again.”
10. (Joe Gets Kicked Out of School for Using) Drugs with Friends [But Says This Isn’t a Problem] (Teens of Denial, 2016)
“I am very conflicted about this song and I’m not sure why. something about it just holds it back for me and i don’t know what, the lyrics are funny as fuck, and i love that he has made one of his catchiest choruses “drugs are better with friends are better with drugs” and so on. It’s a great song but something that I can’t place just doesn’t do it.”
9. Vincent (Teens of Denial, 2016)
“”Vincent” opens with a long, and constantly building instrumental that erupts into a great song, one containing some of the most compelling writing on the whole album.”
8. Anchorite (Love You Very Much) (Monomania, 2012)
“Anchorite is popularly misconstrued as some beautiful “acceptance” part of the album, but by the end of its runtime it reveals itself to be as bitter and angry as ever.”
7. Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales (Teens of Denial, 2016)
“This is the sort of song I absolutely love. You know, these blissfully, utterly RAMBLY songs that go on random directions while not having distinct part ? That’s exactly what I love. There doesn’t need to be a single incredible moment, the rambliness makes up for it. I don’t need to get it. If I don’t totally get it, it’s even better. It adds to the rambliness and the stream-of-consciousness feel.”
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6. Bodys (Twin Fantasy, 2011)
“Though it’s something of an endorsement for “living in the moment,” there’s a bittersweet nature to the revisitation of “Bodys.” Originally recorded when Toledo was still a teenager, the passage of even just seven years may have brought a little more wisdom to the track, but it also allowed a little more weariness to sneak in as well.”
5. Something Soon (My Back Is Killing Me Baby, 2011)
“Something Soon in particular is a big highlight here, having all the anthemic qualities of some of CSH’s best songs, but turned up another few notches, with the chorus being great enough for me to start humming along to it with reckless abandon. The song just gets even better in its final moments when Will just gets louder and louder as all the other instruments fade out, leaving his vocals almost completely isolated as only the drum beat remains.”
4. The Ballad of the Costa Concordia (Teens of Denial, 2016)
“The last 4 or 5 minutes of that song are great, but the beginning is really unnecessary, if you ask me. And look, I get that songs building up is Car Seat Headrest’s thing, but sometimes the buildup isn’t worth half the song being bad. But these criticisms are only minor nitpicks, because I really enjoy this album.”
3. Sober to Death (Twin Fantasy, 2011)
“His sense of melodies and vocal harmonies is absolutely impeccable (the wordless vocals at 2:05 of Sober to Death are positively angelic, to say the least), as he expertly manages the balancing act between euphoria and melancholia in these songs.”
2. The Ending of Dramamine (How To Leave Town, 2014)
“The Ending of Dramamine is the most absurdly perfect blend of pretentiousness and amateur, and that is not a compliment. the intro is ridiculously drawn out and sounds nothing more than someone trying out fruity loops for the very first time.
1. Beach Life-In-Death (Twin Fantasy, 2011)
“Not every heterosexual person such as myself might be able to relate to the narrator’s story of stumbling through a coming out situation like the one detailed in Beach Life-in-Death, but the feelings associated with it come through loud and clear, where awkward confusion and issues with self-identity are prevalent.”