Last month, Philly’s Remember Sports announced their upcoming album Like a Stone with the careening “Pinky Ring.” Today we’re getting the second single from their fourth album, which is titled “Materialistic.” It’s a moving song that gets at the oddity of how feelings and memories attach themselves to initially arbitrary objects. “Archive the past with some shit that won’t last you a lifetime,” Carmen Perry sings over noodling guitar strums.
Objects become vessels for potent memories and also reminders of overwhelming emotion. Photographs or strange knick-knacks become possessed by a ghostly happiness or a loss that feels like a fresh bruise. “It’s about the feedback loop of me caring about my possessions because they hold special memories, and alternately thinking I’m a bad person for caring about a mostly meaningless pile of junk,” Perry said of the track.
“Materialistic” captures the fine line between wanting to forget versus not wanting to let go. The song builds with tense electric guitars and chilling backup vocals provided by Nadine. Thoughts of a past acquittance—brought on by old noise put in her head or a new email in her inbox—are followed by the occurring response to “push it back down.” When Perry repeats this phrase for the final time, prefaced by the wounded line “I try to forget how you lost me again,” it sounds both like a cry and an exhaled sigh. Remember Sports have outdone themselves on “Materialistic,” illustrating the need to let go of pain with the fear of forgetting.
Listen below and pre-order Like a Stone here.
