Now that they are actually in their 30s, Tegan and Sara have written a glossy pop masterpiece, an album that stands out from their previous six.Įach song on Heartthrob leads into another, narrating love and loss with the angst of a John Hughes film, plus a whole lot of shiny production. I don’t think Young Tegan would have understood that,” she says.
“Our label was like, ‘You don’t know anything about love or life, and when you get to your 30s you’re going to write something important, you’re going to reach people, and you’re going to experience something. “We thought we knew everything, like any 15-year-old,” says Tegan. When the twins were just teenagers themselves, they started out playing earnest, guitar-driven alternative music with the impudence that’s characteristic of most kids their age. We were introduced to them through a mainstream pop song on the radio.” And we weren’t introduced to them as a gay band. “We play shows with Paramore and Katy Perry and it’s 13-, 14-, 15-year-old teenagers now, all kinds of kids.
“Our audience has become so diverse,” Sara says. Sara agrees, phoning in from her own vacation to discuss the remarkable changes in the duo’s more than 10-year career. “We didn’t really imagine we’d be doing this, so I think Kid Tegan would be like, ‘Whaaat? Whaaat?’ We didn’t sit down and decide that this is what we wanted to do,” she says, at home in Los Angeles on a rare break from touring. (She and her twin sister Sara are now 33.) In fact, the thought that she would even have a career in music never crossed her mind when she was young. Long known as half of the Canadian indie rock band Tegan and Sara, she says she had no idea that their latest studio album would catapult them to mainstream pop success. Tegan Quin swears she never saw it coming. “We wanted to access the mainstream and make a difference…but we are still Tegan and Sara and that hasn’t changed.” * * We signed to a major label when we were 19 years old.” Welcome to the mainstream, Tegan and Sara.thanks for classing the place up a bit.The indie darlings reach the top and make our hearts throb. One would have to go a long way to find a pop record that is as easy to swallow, yet contains such depth. Heartthrob is the sound of Tegan and Sara taking on modern pop music head-on and winning in triumphant style. After a long career spent making subtle adjustments to their approach, it took some real guts to make such a drastic change, and the gamble pays off for them. The rest of the album has the same sonic impact and emotional power as it alternates between new wave-influenced rockers ("Goodbye, Goodbye," "Drove Me Wild") and moody and dramatic midtempo tracks ("Love They Say," "How Come You Don't Want Me") that wouldn't have been out of place on an early Cyndi Lauper record, before finishing with a pair of bleak synth pop heartbreak ballads ("Now I'm All Messed Up," "Shock to Your System") that make La Roux sound like Bananarama. The insistent impact of the album's opening track serves as a statement of intent - "Closer" comes bursting out of the speakers in a rush of barely contained emotion and sports the type of thrilling chorus that fills your heart with joy as you breathlessly sing along. Indeed, the core musical values that have always made Tegan and Sara special, like their ability to write super-hooky melodies, their willingness to strip their emotions bare, and their powerful voices, remain fully intact on Heartthrob, and the shiny package that surrounds them only seems to have made their collective impact stronger. While longtime fans might be a bit perplexed by the shift, they will find plenty of familiar ground to cling to as the record plays and the smartly written and tear-filled songs follow one after another. Working mainly with producer Greg Kurstin, the duo's approach is slick and punchy with lots of synthesizers, programmed drums, and a sound that falls somewhere between Robyn and Katy Perry on the pop spectrum. Four years later, on 2013's Heartthrob, the duo dives into the pop mainstream headfirst. On their 2009 album Sainthood, Tegan and Sara made some tentative steps into the pop mainstream by stripping their sound down to the bare essentials and delivering a batch of their hookiest songs to date.
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