Medium Build’s latest album Country exists as a duality, running the spectrum of human emotions from playful optimism and visceral affirmations of life to heartbreak, loss, fear, and loneliness. Raised in Georgia, educated in Tennessee, and transformed in Alaska, his stories speak to the spectrum of those experiences and eagerly draw outside the clear lines of genre binaries—pulling from classic country, ‘80s new wave, '90s pop, and early 00's emo in equal measure. In another era, Medium Build might have just as easily been a rhinestone cowboy—lonesome out on the range, a blue-eyed crooner on a smooth-sailing yacht, or a leather-clad video star—but in the here and now, he’s no one but himself.
I just discovered this guy. I think I've listened to "In My Room" a hundred times. But almost every song off this record and the Marietta EP is excellent. Really loving this run of artists like Medium Build, Ruston Kelly, and Hovvdy who are combining country elements with more indie sensibilities. Whatever genre it is, it's becoming my favorite kind of music.
Listened to the Julien collab a few months ago and liked it, but never dug in more fore some reason. This song then came on one of my Daily Mixes, “mormon” lyric drop perked my ears, and then I immediately dug into the latest. Like this album is the tits.
This guy has become one of my absolute favorites over the last few years. Puts on an incredible live show also. The snippet of the new song sounds SO GOOD
I've been trying to figure out the best way to articulate this trend of late stage capitalism nihilistic lyricism that is fast becoming a standard on TikTok/Reels music. Artists like Medium Build and Petey USA are some of the more successful standard bearers (and ironically even like Bo Burnham’s “That Funny Feeling”). I see SO MANY singers doing this sort of like “the world is burning and nothing matters and my life sucks" in this floridly descriptive way. It’s kind of the next stage of the 2020s Phoebe Bridgers hyperspecificity that got turned into almost a parody of people just singing about their day. Interested in digging into it.
If you haven't listened to it, Sinai Vessel's last record "I SING" is explicitly about late stage capitalism. Haven't heard a more honest record about what it's like trying to make music in this current climate.
Honestly I'm not that interested in getting that out of my music in 2025 haha. I think Spanish Love Songs kind of nailed it on Brave Faces Everyone though and all the artists I described are doing kind of a smarmier version of it.
Got it. I mention the record particularly cause it tackles the same subjects your describing in a less smarmy and more subtle way. More autobiographical, less preachy. I'm a big fan of Medium Build but not huge on the on-the-nose stuff you're describing.
I was a big fan of Country (never got this ping from back in Feb oops sorry @Dog Fish) but I gotta check out the new EP!