“We were like, ‘Hey, I don’t want to be the spokesperson for all LGBTQ people. In some ways, the sisters will always be associated with a very specific, white cis depiction of lesbian culture, grouped in with millennial queer fare like The L Word, but that stereotype ignores the fact that they have grown with the times, pushing to bring others along with them every step of the way as their platform expanded. They have long been frustrated by the expectation that they be a mouthpiece. That plurality of voices has given the twins a welcome reprieve from being asked to represent the whole LGBTQ+ community. There were tons of them doing it in the underground, but no one was letting them up.” “There really weren’t that many people doing what we were doing. “It was a deliberate choice to make an album that would gain access to the mainstream so that we could queer it a little bit,” says Tegan. Tegan and Sara’s mid-2010s pop domination was driven by their dedication to expand possibilities for queer people in music. TION and Taylor Swift’s 1989, both heavily celebrated pop albums by straight artists who have a large queer fanbase.The sister’s 2013 album Heartthrob - one of several watershed stylistic shifts in the Tegan and Sara oeuvre - inspired Carly Rae Jepsen’s E Acts like Muna and Snail Mail owe their ability to traverse the range between heavier genres like emo and rock and the lighter sound of auteur-style pop in part to the Quins. In many ways, though, Tegan and Sara are simply rejoining a conversation they helped spark in the first place. Guitar rock and electropop influences across the record call to mind the brittle urgency of 2007’s The Con elsewhere, Crybaby evokes the infectious poppy propulsion of their post-2013 work, with standouts like “Sometimes I See Stars” and “Fucking Up What Matters.” “I should start working on myself again / Get these feelings that I feel within / Under my control,” chants the Sara-penned chorus, a mature response to overwhelming emotion. Tegan’s favorite song - at least on the day we speak - is “Under My Control,” and she sells me on it its deceptively upbeat, sardonic-singsong chord progression feels like it belongs on the soundtrack for a late ’90s teen comedy soundtrack, or at least an homage to one in the style of Do Revenge. Vincent in the lush adult-contemporary layered production and the bursts of glitchy, guitar-forward electro-rock. The album was produced by John Congleton, and you can hear echoes of his work with previous collaborators Sharon Van Etten and St. Sonically, Crybaby feels in conversation with current releases from alternative bands like Muna, Haim, Mitski, and Snail Mail.
Other times, we have learned – especially as we’ve gotten older – that it’s okay for us to take a step back.” “There’s times where Sara and I lean into our role as not just trailblazers, but spokespeople, public people, queer people.
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