The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, November 20, 2019 — 5A

Social media and what we think of as DIY culture today are 
incredibly interconnected. Shows are organized on Facebook, 
with attendance being estimated based on the number of “goings” 
and “maybes,” videos of bands performing are publicized 
through Instagram stories. Even Twitter plays a part in allowing 
bands to personally connect with fans via memes and rants. As 
society progresses further and further into the digital age, DIY 
stands as a prime example of social media’s influence on our 
communities.
However, sometimes I wish this weren’t the case. In an 
ongoing effort to limit my social media usage, I’m constantly 
held back by the thought that if I’m not constantly online, I’ll 
lose touch with my local community. If I delete my Facebook, 
how will I ever know when there’s a show going on? Or if I don’t 
check my Twitter, how am I supposed to stay informed about 
which independent labels I should or should not support? 
Of course, word of mouth is still a viable way to hear about 
shows and events in the community, and every once in a while 
posters for shows emerge around campus (groups like MEMCO 
do a great job of this). But I feel like these two tactics have taken 
a much more subservient roll to the internet. In 2019, I feel as if 
DIY promotion is mostly contained within screens. These events 
were probably talked about in-person much more extensively 
in the past, and flyering was probably a much more important 
promotional tactic a few years ago, but now it almost feels like a 
novelty of sorts. 
Part of the appeal of local music and DIY is the community that 
it fosters, and the relationships it builds between people through 
art. It’s entirely possible to build and maintain a community 
through social media, but I think to really build a strong 
community, connecting with people face-to-face is something 
that cannot be undervalued, especially in environments outside 
of shows. Seeing the community in person outside of venues is 
something that seems to have come to a halt. It seems as if DIY 
only exists on the Internet and in basements for a few nights 
every month. 
Some artists, like Philadelphia-based Absinthe Father, have 
an incredibly strong presence on social media, and attract fans 
(like me, for instance) that have never been to one of their shows 
in person. Their tweets regularly go viral, and attract new fans 
to their music daily. On the opposite end of the spectrum, groups 
like Hotline TNT, a band that I discovered through a car ride 
with a friend, merely have a YouTube channel that they upload 
their music on, with no other social media. I have no idea how 
long the band has been around, who’s in the group, or where 
they’re from, but I know that I really like their music. The band’s 
lack of an online presence is something of a rarity among bands 
nowadays, and almost seems like a factor that’s restricted them 
from growing, unfortunately. It seems much harder to succeed 
without some sort of online presence. 
I’m definitely coming off as a grouchy old man here. I really 
do think the Internet has exposed a completely new audience to 
DIY, and has even made it more accessible to certain groups of 
people that may not have heard about these shows and events 
before. But I think there’s a bit of an imbalance between the 
online and offline community. Tell someone you don’t know as 
well about a show coming up, or maybe talk to your local record 
store about having a bulletin board of local events and shows. 
I’m not saying that everyone should hang up and hang out, but 
I do think that there’s something special about expanding the 
community outside of the Internet.

Hey, want a flyer?

DIY COLUMN

RYAN COX
Daily DIY Columnist

Despite a tendency to allow songs and albums to demarcate 
periods in my life, I’ve found that Waxahatchee’s fourth 
album evades this contract. Any such associations I might 
filter through the 10-track album — a person, a relationship, 
an emotional season — are absent. I’ve come to believe that 
this is because Out in the Storm, uniquely and brilliantly, 
evades a sole moment. The relationship that songwriter Katie 
Crutchfield surveys is one available only at a distant retrospect 
— that is, once one has stepped far, far back from the ring of a 
relationship and can trace the life cycle of their love 
carefully, almost scientifically. Falling in love with 
Crutchfield’s album means falling in love with her 
audit of infatuation from start to finish. Out in the 
Storm throws punches at early love and laps at the 
feet of breakups; it screams with hatred and stomps 
out a rhythm to insecurity. It’s a broad and timeless 
narrative, one which, rather than pairing with a sole 
person or emotion, I appreciate for its amalgamation 
of so many emotions that seem both greatly distant 
and staggeringly familiar.
***
Hovering over a sudden outbreak of violent electric 
guitar, Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee opens her 
fourth album, Out in the Storm, with a taste of both 
sloppy adoration and fear in her mouth. There’s an 
air of determination and aggression to the track: 
“I spend all my time learning how to defeat / you 
at your own game, it’s embarrassing,” Crutchfield 
sings in “Never Been Wrong.” “I love being right, 
especially with you.” It’s Crutchfield’s confident 
acknowledgement of a thrilling roulette game of love, 
one where she’s at her partner’s mercy but is up for 
the fight. It’s comparable to Sia’s “Fair Game,” in 
which the Australian singer likens her relationships 
to a game, one where she wants the tables, for once, 
to be leveled. Waxahatchee, on the other hand, seems 
OK with the presence of disparity. “I saw you as a big 
fish / I saw you as a conquest,” she later confesses. Unlike Sia’s 
sorrowful longing, Crutchfield’s thrilled acceptance of these 
conditions on her opening track raises the stakes for the rest of 
the album. And we’re eager with her, anticipating what turmoil 
will transpire.
What separates the track from Sia’s cry for a fair game, too, 
is the fear that “Never Been Wrong” also drizzles over its harsh 
instrumentals: “Everyone / will hear me complain / Everyone 
/ will pity my name.” Beneath the gritty willingness to crouch 
down over the board and move a pawn, there’s a moment of 
hesitation. It’s subtle, but it’s there.
The rest of Out in the Storm, as it turns out, pans out a high-speed 
synopsis of the game Crutchfield lays bare in her opening track. 

In “Sparks Fly” she’s in the thick of love; in “Brass Beam” she’s 
fighting back against her partner’s narcissism and unsteadiness. 
“8 Ball” confesses toxicity and “No Question” chronicles anger 
so fervently that it’s as if you’re a lover, a thrown champagne 
glass having just missed your head. The album becomes a 
roadmap of a relationship with distinct checkpoints. At the same 
time, these points in the narrative don’t feel locked into their 
respective slots on the tracklist — at times, Crutchfield’s writing 
feels true and nonspecific enough that these checkpoints could 
be rearranged to puzzle together a new relationship.
A softened punk sound pervades Out in the Storm, a noise 
distinct from both the band’s lo-fi precedent and piano-ballad 
follow-up album. It’s as if Bikini Kill were dampened or, heading 

the opposite direction, if Sharon Van Etten’s vocals were torn 
up and pasted back together. Each track centers on an organic 
thrash of drums that amplifies Waxahatchee, even when things 
feel sobering and despondent. With it, there’s an overpowering 
electric guitar. The album has another noticeable consistency, 
though, and one that goes almost unnoticed without tender 
listening: Just about every line is insulated with a harmony from 
Crutchfield’s sister, cut and laid over the original vocals. It’s not 
just for emphasis; it is, literally, nearly every line. The padding 
of these harmonies softens the punkish aura of the album. It 
renders it aggressive but never overwhelming. Where the album 
already seems cohesive lyrically, such tactical blankets link 
Crutchfield’s confessions together musically, too.

The album reaches its creative and lyrical summit with 
“Sparks Fly,” a track in which Crutchfield watches herself fall in 
love through her sister’s eyes. Like a practiced poet, Crutchfield 
trusts her audience. The terms she offers are never specific 
or explained; she knows we’ll mold the rest of the narrative 
for ourselves.“Sparks fly / sparks fly,” she repeats throatily 
throughout the song. “I’m raw like wire / electrified.” It’s a 
deliriously genius track that admits the indelible hunger that love 
calls forth. Perhaps the most striking line of the album is a simple 
but heavy concession: “I’m a live wire / finally.” There is a gush 
to the lyric, and though Crutchfield sings it in an even register, 
one might sense a shake hidden behind her voice on “finally” — 
instrumentals pause for the briefest moment. It’s a tone monitored 
carefully to prevent thrill from leaking through. It’s a 
descent into infatuation: finally, wonderfully.
Bits like “Sparks Fly” showcase, too, the album’s 
truth-through-storytelling practice, a feat like that 
accomplished in the narratives that percolate Big 
Thief’s 2016 Masterpiece. Songs lay out unassuming 
landscapes and actions that, though briefly mentioned, 
make the album’s experiences both personal and 
accessible. “We sat in the hot summer twilight / radio 
loud and the brim bite / the Coosa water is choppy and 
wild / I jumped abruptly, unreconciled.” Crutchfield 
similarly understands the capacity of small, tangible 
things — the way light falls in a stranger’s bedroom, 
say — to represent something bulky and unwieldy. 
She capitalizes on this. These objects and details are 
in the periphery, perhaps insignificant, long before 
they are injected into the song. Crutchfield’s strength 
is fishing them from these spaces and noticing the 
power they can possess in recalling a long-buried 
intimacy.
“Fade,” the album’s conclusion, serves as a delicate 
outro. The intensity of prior tracks is pulled out from 
under Crutchfield, who sings flatly over acoustic 
strums. “You wring me out / I tell the truth,” she 
sings. “I kissed you goodbye / and hid for the rest of 
your life.” It’s a track that feels like closing a book, 
just-finished, slowly. It’s the exit from the storm. It 
should be despairing, and Crutchfield’s harmonies, 
spread across the song thin like butter, make it sound so. But 
there is a sense of acceptance, a breathy hope peeking through 
the nostalgia. “I first saw you through childish eyes / I was in 
love with a song,” the lyrics admit — though not necessarily in 
defeat. Rather, for the conclusion, she distances herself from the 
relationship: “I stayed out of your way.” The guitar strums fall 
into a rhythm and slow. The game ended, Waxahatchee tells us, 
and guitar reverberations overtake the track. But there is a sense, 
having lingered with Crutchfield through the surefire center of 
her album, that there will be another round. Another player, 
surely, will enter the arena. Until then, there is little choice but 
to revel in the searing, expansive chronicle of the game already 
played.

Two years in the rain: Waxahatchee’s ‘Out in the Storm’

MUSIC NOTEBOOK

JOHN DECKER
Daily Book Review Editor

MERGE RECORDS / INSTAGRAM

“Charlie’s Angels,” directed by Elizabeth Banks (“Pitch 
Perfect 2”), is a movie meant for all the women who have ever 
had a condescending man talk down to them, for all the women in 
male-dominated fields who have to deal with misogynists every 
day. It’s meant for all the women who have had to sit through 
countless male-driven films in the past, forced to be appeased 
by the presence of a single 
female who serves as a 
vehicle for “equality.” It’s 
for all the women who have 
been told to “smile” and 
“look pretty” and who have 
been called “good girls” by 
men who don’t know them 
or care to know them. It’s 
for women who need to be 
empowered.
This film takes all the 
best parts of the previous 
renditions 
of 
“Charlie’s 
Angels” and incorporates 
all 
the 
feminist 
ideals 
present in modern day 
society, so you’re left with 
an action-packed, intense but shockingly real movie that makes 
you feel.
One thing that makes this movie so interesting to watch is 
the thread of inverting common media tropes. There is a minor 
love story, sure, but it’s not the primary plot. It’s not even the 
secondary plot. Noah 
Centineo (“To All the 
Boys I’ve Loved Before”) 
plays Langston, one of 
Elena’s colleagues, and 
has an almost laughably 
small role. In fact, he 
takes the role of the 
damsel in distress and 
is, in essence, the token 
male. It’s about time we 
had a movie where there 
were hardly any men, 
and the few guys who 
are present are either 
hilariously incompetent, 
like Alexander Brock 
(Sam Claflin, “Me Before 
You”), or reduced to 
minor love interests like 
Centineo.
The three leads of 
the film all take on a 
different strength found 
in women and a different 
“flaw” typically attributed to them. Then, they cleverly invert 
the stereotype forced upon them. There’s quirky and chaotic 
heiress-turned-convict-turned-Angel Sabina (Kristen Stewart, 
“Twilight”) who is confident but self-centered. Then you have 
Jane (Ella Balinska, “Juction 9”), a fearless and fierce former MI6 
agent who was let down by her agency one too many times and 
lost hope and trust in people, leaving her seemingly emotionless 

and guarded. And finally, exceedingly bright but soft-spoken 
Elena, a scientist — and newbie to the Angel world — who lets 
her sexist superiors patronize and push her around (Naomi 
Scott, “Aladdin”). By the end of the movie, the characters make 
something more out of their so-called flaws. Forever-confident 
Sabina finds a reason to care about other people, Jane lets herself 
be vulnerable and open up to people while maintaining the 
fierceness that defines her character, and Elena stands up for 
herself and shows off the intelligence she’s always known she has.
The movie doesn’t shy away from letting the women be 
women. They’re not just 
agents 
who 
fight 
crime 
while looking good — they 
have real emotions. One 
of the most meaningful 
scenes in the film finds the 
three leads on a quiet boat 
following an intense fight. 
They’re sitting together, all 
half-asleep on one another, 
just enjoying each other’s 
presence. What makes the 
moment especially tender is 
the presence of a little girl. 
She 
interacts 
seamlessly 
with the Angels, all of whom 
talk to her and play with her. 
While these women might 
be machines when it comes to taking down bad guys, they’re not 
robots.
Even though that scene is one of my favorite moments from 
the whole film, it’s not the best part of the movie. It’s not Sabina’s 
humor or Jane’s epic fight scenes or even Elena’s opportunity 
to stand up for herself, 
either. The best part of 
the movie, as cliche as 
it might sound, is the 
message it leaves for 
all the women in the 
audience. There is no 
one perfect model of 
a woman. Anyone can 
be an Angel. Whether 
you’re a little weird, 
physically 
strong 
or 
intimidatingly 
intelligent, you have the 
makings of an Angel. 
Previous “female team-
up” movies try to get 
the 
same 
message 
across, but I’ve always 
found that the women 
favored in those films 
are the scarily strong 
and physically fit ones. 
That’s not the case in 
“Charlie’s Angels.” Here, 
you’ll find yourself loving and relating to various aspects of the 
incredibly different — but equally inspiring — women on screen. 
While “Charlie’s Angels” can and should be enjoyed by 
everyone — men and women alike — it is, first and foremost, 
a movie meant to empower women. This movie strengthens 
women’s beliefs in themselves and gives them the opportunity to 
find what makes them Angels.

‘Angels’ showcases strong women

FILM REVIEW

SABRIYA IMAMI
Daily Arts Writer

Charlie’s Angels

Columbia Pictures

Ann Arbor 20+ IMAX

SONY PICTURES / YOUTUBE

