“I Wanna Be That Cool”

Abstract

This article elaborates recent work on a strain of contemporary indie rock by focusing on a case study of one of its chief practitioners, Soccer Mommy. This particular approach—which I refer to with the term “Big Feelings”—produces various feminist affects that are irreducible to any one parameter, but which emerge through a cohesive synthesis of several characteristics. That is, listeners feel this music’s feminist orientations even in the absence of overt references. Primarily performed by Gen-Z musicians, the Big Feelings that these artists articulate must also be read in the context of the successive socio-political crises that are not literally referenced in the music, but which nevertheless inform it. Lyrical analysis of the 2018 single “Cool” shows how Soccer Mommy resonates with but also departs from riot grrrl models, where queer-feminist politics are implied by never stated outright. Harmonic analysis of the same song exemplifies the ways in which Big Feelings expands the sonic palette beyond the two and three note chords typical of masculinized rock music, instead incorporating extensions that track with Susan McClary’s arguments regarding the feminized semiotics of chromaticism. Finally, I read 2020’s “Circle the Drain” alongside excerpted interviews I have conducted with fans of the music, using their words to help corroborate and elaborate my reading of Big Feelings as an orientation that is made meaningful in part because of the traumatic context in which young musicians and fans, permanently in crisis, create spaces of community, catharsis, and care.