Best Coast

In their early years, Best Coast struck a sweet spot between sunshine pop and existential indie rock with their lo-fi love letters to the West Coast. Initially, that California dreamin’ came from vocalist/guitarist Bethany Cosentino’s homesickness. After a stint in NYC, she returned to her native Los Angeles in 2009, joined forces with multi-instrumentalist Bobb Bruno, and began crafting hazy odes to sunny days and hopeless romances. After garnering buzz online, the duo released their 2010 debut, Crazy for You, to major fanfare thanks to the album’s sweet-and-salty mix of girl-group yearning and reverb-soaked punk on hits like “Boyfriend”. That success had them craving a more robust sound, which shines through on 2012’s breezy, Jon Brion-produced The Only Place and 2015’s heavier alt-rock statement California Nights. Cosentino spent the next five years dedicated to self-reflection and sobriety, giving her a new outlook on her life and work: “I feel like I’ve learned more about myself through the back catalog of Best Coast than in therapy,” she told Apple Music. The result was 2020’s refreshing pop-punk manifesto Always Tomorrow, which Cosentino describes as “a self-help book in the form of a record”.