Table Of Content

This record enjoyed significant success on a number of official albums charts around the globe. In the US, “Depression Cherry” landed at No.8 on the Billboard 200. And on the UK’s official albums chart, this record peaked at No.17. Beach House officially released this via Sub Pop on August 28th, 2015 as a single (a promotional one) from “Depression Cherry”. So if anything, this isn’t the type of song where a vocalist is depicting herself as being eternally devastated due to a romance gone awry. Instead, the vocalist is clearly looking forward to her emotional wounds being healed and once again being whole, in a manner of speaking, as she was before her relationship with the addressee began.
Two Vastly Different Meanings Ascribed to Cracker’s Lone Hot 100 Hit “Low”

These lyrics are specifically female-centric, giving the impression that Victoria is indeed speaking from her own experience. And even though the verses are a bit melancholic, she does conclusively idealize that girls like herself who go through similar ordeals “fall back into place”. So relatedly, from the end of the first verse leading into the second, the vocalist seems to shift her focus to how it feels to have your heart broken. It is not clear if her understanding of this phenomenon is based on what she’s gone through in the past, is going through in the present or a composite of both. Originally formed 2004 in Baltimore, Maryland, Beach House is an American dream-pop duo consisting of of French-born Victoria Legrand (vocals, keyboards) and Baltimore native Alex Scally (guitar). Their self-titled debut released in early October 2006 via Carpark Records, the same label who also distributed 2008’s Devotion.
Beach House on Making Music People Love to Cry To (Published 2022) - The New York Times
Beach House on Making Music People Love to Cry To (Published .
Posted: Fri, 11 Mar 2022 08:00:00 GMT [source]
A Support System for the Brokenhearted; The Meaning Behind Beach House’s “Space Song”
Dream-pop is the vehicle Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally use to pull listeners from their current reality and into the next space. Since debuting in 2006 with Beach House, the Baltimore duo have used vintage drum machines, organs, and synthesizers to thread together indie-pop and shoegaze to a destination that’s more experience than place. In addition to the above-mentioned singles, the album also contained other popular songs.
The Romantic Angst Behind “Poison Arrow” by ABC
Sometimes sadness creeps in before the trip ends, knowing the experience is ephemeral. Their music has hints of Spiritualized, Slowdive, and Yo La Tengo. And they’ve evolved with each release without jarring reinventions.
Music, Songs & Lyrics
A drum machine won’t budge from its tempo, but imperfection is what it means to be human. It’s a fragile musical bond with the potential to fall apart—like any relationship. Like any good Romantic, Legrand focuses her lens on sorrow. On her space travels through albums like Devotion, Teen Dream, and Bloom, she offers hope in the sadness.
Thank Your Lucky Stars
Beach House’s fifth album, Depression Cherry, continued the band’s slow evolution of using music to escape. Sub Pop released “Space Song” as a promotional single, which promptly went TikTok-viral in 2021, appearing in more than 200,000 videos. Having a “sleeper hit” for Beach House is fitting for a band writing the soundtrack to trances.
Like Legrand’s character in “Space Song,” they returned to an old version of themselves. While he was happy to float in space, Beach House gazes both at its shoes and at the stars. Legrand and Scally may not have thought too deeply about naming their band, but the one they chose couldn’t be more perfect for the kind of escapist and joyous melancholy they compose.
Depression Cherry
With the success of Teen Dream and Bloom, the duo expanded their sound as they began playing larger venues with bigger stages. The louder and developing sound was at odds with the quiet minimalism of Beach House’s natural state. On “Space Song,” they ignored the band’s growing popularity and instead focused on ethereal melodies and minimal instrumentation. Beach House began with a lo-fi indie album recorded on a 4-track. The album is psychedelia and shoegaze with touches of classical themes and vocals echoing Kate Bush.
The song is played on Earn’s (Donald Glover) headphones while he’s on the couch, staring at a gun. But Victoria seems to recognize that in the realm of romance, the naiveté of “wide-eyed girls” can end up working against them. Or as relayed in the second verse, once a heart is broken, it isn’t such that there will be anyone there to “dry your eyes” afterwards.

Since 2010’s Teen Dream, Beach House has been signed to Sub Pop Records. A big list of musical marriages and family relations ranging from the simple to the truly dysfunctional. I don’t think it's just that song, but if that is the gateway, then I'm happy about it. We both feel lucky that younger people keep discovering us and we're able to keep making records. Beach House is like a silent movie where laughter looks like crying—the tiny moment when sadness and happiness collide.
Instead, what’s familiar—what’s more assured than an unreliable lover—is her survival instinct. Legrand layers her voice into a digital choir, acting like a support system for the brokenhearted. Her droning, dusty organ gives the cold synthesizers a balancing warmth. The drum machine beats on in perfect rhythm, like how the pulse of life predictably goes on.
This track achieved viral online popularity, especially on platforms like Spotify and TikTok. American dream pop collective Beach House released “Depression Cherry” as their 5th studio project/album on August 28 of 2015. It wasn’t until somewhere in 2021 that the song became a global hit. By virtue of this, it is safe to refer to this track as a sleeper hit.
But what began as lo-fi bedroom pop soon aspired for the sky, and now Beach House has produced a catalog of consistently great records. Thanks to TikTok, “Space Song” was able to enjoy massive virality in the early parts of 2021. This piece became so popular that by the latter parts of 2022, it was used in almost a quarter of a million TikTok videos. The song’s fantastic success was also replicated on the Spotify platform, where it has so far been streamed more than half a billion times. The song commences with the vocalist coming off as if she and the addressee are separated.
The nature of their relationship is not directly revealed herein, but it has been concluded by other listeners/analysts that it is romantic. Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz on where the term "new wave" originated, the story of "Naive Melody," and why they never recorded another cover song after "Take Me To The River." Bob was the bass player and lyricist for the first two Ozzy Osbourne albums. Here's how he wrote songs like "Crazy Train" and "Mr. Crowley" with Ozzy and Randy Rhoads. As she repeats the line “fall back into place,” a bubbling arpeggiated synth lifts the song somewhere closer to hope.
She uses droning tones to ground the space flight to something familiar. The drone is punctuated by stabbing synths and Scally’s distant slide guitar. The tension between human musicians and programmed machines is the group’s DNA.