I remember beginning to listen to music independently and not passively during the pandemic, and I had a small library of 100 songs with one of my starting artists being A.C. Newman from The New Pornographers. They would always be one of the first to play in my queue because A.C. Newman was in the title, and it’s funny to find that an interviewer pointed out his song, “Miracle Drug” to be the first song that plays whenever she’s in her car. 

Carl Newman had a small moment when he met Paul Rudd, where Paul mentions Carl being one of the first results too.

Their album in 2023, “Continue As a Guest”, explores the themes of isolation and acceptance, and it was written during the pandemic. For such an isolating time, Carl has seen their member, Neko Case more times during the pandemic than without it. When the band meets up, they have Neko for a few days until she’s busy for another six months.

Continue As A Guest

The album’s art actually very well pictures the pandemic. It showcases nearby houses stacked on top of each other and only connected through wires, where no one could visit each other. The concept of the art was based on the work of an artist named Amy Casey, someone whose works were known by Carl and Neko for a while. When Carl asked Amy if he could pull off something similar to her art style for his new album, she said he could.

For their song, “Pontius Pilate’s Home Movies”, it’s about the dangers of social media, and how we’ll put anything up on the web for an audience, even if it’s a terrible event. 

Carl does his best to stay away from social media, but one time, he had a little social experiment posted on Twitter and asked what people thought of Steely Dan because he knew how many people reacted poorly towards him. He then saw the train of people writing why they hate Steely Dan. 

For a moment, he was surprised that he caused this, but this also shows how people get too invested in things that don’t matter.

Growing out of isolation also gave Newman acceptance where it doesn’t matter how many tickets they sell at a show, they’ve already reached success, and there’s this ease when even if the band isn’t massively well-known, they’ve done things they’ve always dreamed of.