On Wavves and "I'm So Bored"

            We seem to be seeing a trend in mentality that permits, even encourages, wallowing in the sludge of one’s own boredom, lack of fulfillment, depression or whatever.  Words like "depression" and "depressed" get thrown around so haphazardly that to many the concepts are surely equable with a much more tame, much more shallow, and much more basic form of sadness.  On the lo-fi band Wavves’ debut album “Wavvves,” arguably the most popular track on the album features a chorus that reels and reels out the line “I’m---- so---- bored----.”  So when people sing along with the chorus at a concert, what they’re actually doing is professing a disdain for the very song and the very band they’ve come to enjoy – at least that’s how the scenario is wired.

            But yet the song is very, very catchy.  When the distorted drums start thundering in at the beginning of the song, it's almost impossible for your head to not start moving back and forth, at least a little bit.  It's interesting to think about what constitutes "catchiness" in a song -- tracks on the radio with streamlined, simplistic choruses and hooks are so easy to get stuck in your head, I suppose because they're all so very simple to digest totally in a matter of seconds-- and I suppose they're manufactured that way, for the only passively interested in music who perhaps find themselves too busy to really pore into songs and albums.  Creating a simplistic, catchy melody is often an easy way to get out of having to conjure substance.  

            But let’s think about the creative process behind writing a song like Wavves' song "I'm So Bored."  Clearly, instead of moving to find fulfillment and move out of boredom, Wavves front man Nathan Williams (who looks like he’s about 24 or 25), has decided to immortalize his lack of stimulation and his lack of fulfillment in this song.  Instead of trying to create something that’s interesting and not boring, Williams sings about being bored, and the fact that it's catchy will have people listening to it and getting it stuck in their head and singing it out loud too.  

            What’s really going on underneath all the distorted guitar and floaty background vocals?  Is this some sort of push toward accepting – even embracing – boredom and mediocrity? 

            Does Williams simply regard something like the return of boredom as being inevitable, and so crafts this song in an attempt to capture what is, for him, this lackluster feeling's inevitable, impending return?  How, I ask you, can one hope to get out of boredom if one doesn’t stop focusing on being bored and start focusing on finding something interesting to do, or making what you are already doing interesting in itself?  His chorus reads as elementary, as if he’s crying out for someone to come bring him a video game or drive him to the mall, and when you get past the initial catchiness of the song, really the whole mentality plays as pathetic.  Here’s the track for your listening (dis)pleasure: