On 'Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix'

Notes on Phoenix's 2009 breakthrough, the history of the band, and spending my adolescence becoming a Music Person

I’ll never forget getting my first iPod. It was my 12th birthday, and after spending the past couple of summers translating my love of video games into my love of music through Guitar Hero and Rock Band, I told my dad that I wanted an iPod. I wanted a feasible way to listen to all the music I had heard through these games, and the list of music I was eager to download was already piling up. Of course, I was into the edgier stuff like the radio-punk band Rise Against and the nü-metal torchbearers System of a Down, but I also found myself enamored of influential indie acts like The Strokes and Bloc Party. Throughout sixth grade, I spent all my free time listening to music and learning to play drums to the best of my ability. To be perfectly candid, my dad giving me an iPod on my 12th birthday was one of the most formative experiences of my life. Without it, I probably wouldn’t be writing this right now. It was a gateway into the world of music that I so desperately wanted to enter. Now, with all the music I could find at my fingertips, I was constantly scouting out artists and albums to fall in love with.

Sometimes, my mom and I would sit down to watch an episode of NBC’s sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live. Now that I was deeply into music, my favorite part of the show was, invariably, watching the musical guests. One Saturday night in April 2009, we sat down to watch yet another episode of the show, and neither of us had heard of this week’s artist, Phoenix. Now into my second semester of sixth grade, I exclusively listened to artists who fell under the nebulous “alternative” category, which included everyone from classic college-rock Brits the Smiths to the pop-punk delinquents Blink-182. I was so attached to listening to alternative music that I would deliberately avoid artists who didn’t fit the bill. So when there was a band I hadn’t heard of before, I would pay careful attention to their sound to discern whether I could listen to them or not. It was all remarkably arbitrary, but, then again, I was 12. That night in April 2009 when Phoenix took the SNL stage and launched into the jaunty “Lisztomania,” I was immediately hooked. So was my mom. We were amazed that we had never heard of this band, especially when I found out that they already had three full-length records and another one releasing just the following month. They also played the now-ubiquitous “1901,” a song that has come to define an era and a genre. In fact, Phoenix was so impressive that they played a third song, “Too Young,” from their 2000 debut United, during the show’s credits, a notably rare occurrence. It’s symbolic that the final song they played was one of the first singles Phoenix ever released, a sonic representation of how they’ve slowly but surely ascended through the indie-pop ranks.

As the band details in music journalist Laura Snapes’ oral history of the band, Liberté, Égalité, Phoenix!, their debut performance on SNL was nearly a catastrophe. Guitarist Chrsitan Mazzalai recalls that the computer controlling the MIDI sounds, which comprised approximately half of the instruments, wasn’t working: “We go on stage, ‘Ten! Nine! Eight!’ ‘Not working!’ ‘Seven!’ ‘Not working!’ ‘Six!’ ‘Not working!’ ‘Three, two, one – ’ ‘WORKING!’ Really like in a movie.” Christian’s brother, guitarist Laurent “Branco” Brancowitz admittedly didn’t realize how big of a program SNL was. “We didn't really know how important it was in American culture,” Branco tells me. “We had this kind of freedom because we are very naive, and, to be candid, we didn't know how important and how big it was. I'm glad it didn't go wrong in the end because it would have been very sad.” It also didn’t help that the band was extremely nervous before they took the late-night stage. “The producer came to us and said we’d loosen up with some wine, and we were like, ‘No! We want to be in control,’” vocalist Thomas Mars tells me. After they played their allotted two songs, they figured all was over. They could finally exhale a big sigh of relief and celebrate this milestone in their career. But then the producers asked if they could play a third song. “It was extremely stressful,” Mars says. “They asked us to play a song that we hadn’t played in five years, ‘If I Ever Feel Better.’ We said we couldn’t play that one, but we could play ‘Too Young.’ But we needed this very specific keyboard, which is a Roland JX-3P. I didn't want to play the extra song, so I said the JX-3P, which has a high price point and comes with a separate controller. And then 30 minutes later, NBC gets us a JX-3P, and we’re surprised they found it so quickly. In France, this is like the Holy Grail.” At that point, the band figured they had to play the song now. There was no question.

It’s strange to think of what would have happened had Phoenix’s SNL performance gone awry; many people, myself included, probably would not have discovered the band until much later. The group’s breakthrough LP, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, might not have had the colossal cultural impact that it did, particularly in the United States. It’s a dismal parallel universe that could have dramatically affected the band’s history. Thankfully, however, that wasn’t what happened at all. Phoenix made a massive splash with their live-television performance. Right after witnessing this spectacle, I rushed downstairs to my mom’s laptop to download “1901” and “Lisztomania” on iTunes, the former of which Phoenix ended up giving away for free. It’s difficult to imagine that this free single didn’t work wonders for the French quartet. “1901” was the perfect entry point for many unassuming fans, and it generated excitement for the new album coming out in May. There’s something about all of this that feels incredibly serendipitous. Everything fell into place, and Phoenix were absolutely ready to take hold of not only the indie world, but also the world at large.

The band, consisting of Mars, Mazzalai and Branco, plus bassist and keyboardist Deck D’Arcy, released Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix at just the right moment. This was a record brimming with festival-sized indie-pop that seemed destined to be heard in big fields, which were integral to experiencing this era of indie music in the late aughts. When I saw them at Austin City Limits in 2018 during the tail end of their Ti Amo tour, they had the entire audience, which was huge, in the palm of their hand. They weren’t even headliners, but they performed for a sea of never-ending people. Phoenix’s set was mostly composed of Wolfgang cuts, and the audience responded enthusiastically to massive hits such as “Lasso” and “1901” and the popular non-singles like “Girlfriend” and “Rome.” The following day, my now-wife and I headed back home from Austin. From a distance, my wife spotted some guys checking out their luggage, and she said to me quietly, “I think that’s Phoenix.” Mazzalai, Branco, and presumably some of their touring crew were making their way through airport security, and we weren’t too far ahead of them. Ultimately, we chose not to say anything and leave them alone. While we were stopping to grab some snacks for our flight at a store just outside of the TSA area, they walked right by us, so I shyly uttered in their direction, “Hey, we enjoyed your show yesterday.” They heard me and talked to us for a moment in their thick French accents. When Mazzalai noticed our festival wristbands, he gave an understanding “Ahhhhhh.” The conversation probably lasted only 30 seconds, but there was something about running into half of the band almost a decade after discovering them on SNL in the spring of 2009. Meeting them was purely a stroke of luck, and discovering their music was similarly auspicious. Phoenix is a band all about seizing the right moment and delivering on all fronts. With Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, they did exactly that.

***

Phoenix had been signed to their record label, Virgin Records, for quite some time. At this point in their career, they were three albums deep. There was their 2000 debut, United, its electronic-leaning 2004 follow-up, Alphabetical, and the straightforward indie rock of 2006’s It’s Never Been Like That. The quartet was meant to do a fourth album with Virgin, but they collectively felt that Virgin didn’t understand Phoenix’s ethos. They were allowed to do virtually whatever they wanted, but it didn’t seem like the right fit. So they began searching for other labels to sign with. “It was a feeling of freedom because we had no contract,” Branco says. “We didn't have any record company. This feeling of freedom was really important. Also, [It’s Never Been Like That] had reached a wider audience than we had expected. We felt we had people around the world that listened to our music, and we pursued this feeling: ‘Let's try to make an album for those people.’ We did it with this in mind: to please that microscopic fraction of the world population.” Frankly, they were apprehensive because they were a bunch of thirty-somethings who had been releasing albums since the beginning of the new millennium. According to their former manager Simon White, many labels either declined Phoenix or said that they simply weren’t right for the label’s sound. XL, Columbia (a Sony subsidiary), Polydor (a Universal subsidiary), and Atlantic (a Warner subsidiary) had all rejected them. “A lot of people seemed hung up on the fact they were four albums in and hadn’t been really successful,” White explains in Liberté, Égalité, Phoenix!.

“People were saying back then that we were already too old, like, this was our fourth album,” Mars says. “There was a bit of survival instinct that kicked in, which was great for creativity.” Daniel Glass, an executive at Glassnote Records, received a phone call. He took a chance on them and listened to “1901” and “Lisztomania,” the latter of which Phoenix already knew they wanted to open the album with, given that it represented the album in its entirety. “It's one of the rare songs we've done where I don't really know what we could have done better,” Branco says. Maybe that’s why it also happened to be the first taste of Wolfgang that they gave to producer Philippe Zdar. Understandably, Glass was sold right off the bat. He already knew who they were and thought of them as a “cool band from France,” but he saw a bigger potential in them, particularly in radio and widespread commercial appeal. Now, it’s easy to see why he was thinking that. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is absolutely stuffed with hooks, hooks, and more hooks. From the infectious chorus of “1901” to the repetitious “farewell-well-wells” of “Girlfriend,” Wolfgang is undeniably catchy. It’s an album that sticks with you.

But this record wasn’t created in a vacuum. It’s vital to look at Phoenix’s background and their previous three releases to better understand how they arrived at this moment. They had released a couple of singles before: the 1997 distorted rocker “Party Time” with its B-side “City Lights” and the 1999 instrumental electronic track “Heatwave.” Although “Party Time” eventually found its way onto United, both of these singles are stark departures from the core indie-pop sound that many listeners now associate with the band. Even on United, their signature style is still in its nascent form. It’s an excellent record with plenty of mainstays, but you can still hear their sound developing. Phoenix staples like “Too Young” and “If I Ever Feel Better” are the key signifiers of this: that United held its own. Still, the French quartet was toying with a variety of genres, displaying their proficiency with one only to discard it on the following track. All of this is best encapsulated in the album’s tour de force, “Funky Squaredance,” which is broken up into three discrete sections. There’s the Auto-Tuned, honky-tonk twang of its first part, the funky ‘80s groove and slap-bass of its second part, and the rock-guitar heroics of its third part. The sheer ambition of this song alone is impressive, and it’s no wonder that Phoenix still incorporate it into their modern setlists, playing the first half of “Too Young” before kicking into the final section of “Funky Squaredance.” Some could interpret United as disjointed or even unfocused, which it can be at times. But I would argue that Phoenix were still finding their identity and discovering which path best suited their vision.

Their sophomore effort, Alphabetical, stuck to just one direction, but they didn’t quite nail that style. They started making it the day after their final show for United, but it still marks the second-longest period between any of Phoenix’s releases, one year shy of the five-year wait between Ti Amo and Alpha Zulu. All of its members look back on Alphabetical as one of their weaker albums despite the fact that it took them so much time to make. “We wanted to achieve perfection, in a way,” Branco explains in Liberté, Égalité, Phoenix!. “That’s why it took so long.” They wanted to do something that sounded modern, and that’s why they were so enamored of D’Angelo’s classic second album, 2000’s Voodoo. This deep desire to create something contemporary resounds throughout Alphabetical’s first moments, namely on opener “Everything Is Everything.” It’s one of the LP’s standout tracks and one of the album’s two singles. There’s a rooted syncopation to it, replete with the early-2000s pop reference points such as rhythmic, acoustic guitar and triangle hits. But, underneath all of the crisp, punchy sonics, you can discern Phoenix’s anxiety. It runs like an undercurrent through the otherwise ebullient music. They were striving for an impossible standard: perfection. It’s why they were overworking themselves, masking exhaustion with clean production. Alphabetical may sound great, but the songs aren’t nearly as memorable as they are on United, It’s Never Been Like That, and, of course, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. Because they labored so meticulously over Alphabetical’s strive for perfection, they went in the opposite direction for their third record. What if they just jumped in the proverbial deep end of the pool to see what happened? They didn’t want to overthink themselves, and that notion crystallizes on It’s Never Been Like That.

Whereas Alphabetical is sleek and glossy yet uncertain, It’s Never Been Like That is simple and messy yet self-assured. This is Phoenix’s “rock” record, where they relinquished all conceptual bent for an album straight from the heart. “Every record is a reaction to the previous one,” Mars tells me. “You're trying to do something that you didn't try before.”

Consequently, it’s one of their finest works to date, and it has gone on to become a fan favorite over the years. From the Strokes-esque swing of “Consolation Prizes” to the instrumental melancholy of “North,” Phoenix display their multidimensionality as a band. It’s worth noting, too, that Alphabetical abided by sumptuous R&B sonics, and It’s Never Been Like That jettisoned professionalism for something more heart-wrenching. This isn’t to say that Alphabetical is bad; it’s still a good record, but, ironically, it lacks the refinement of their other releases. You also have to factor in the zeitgeist. 2006 marked a time where artists like The Strokes reigned supreme, and their style permeated everything around them. It’s especially funny considering how The Strokes influenced Phoenix on It’s Never Been Like That, but Phoenix influenced The Strokes on their 2011 album, Angles. On songs like “Under Cover of Darkness” and “Taken for a Fool,” the indie-pop flair of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is readily apparent. For what it’s worth, the record’s influence was omnipresent at the time, with its polished guitars and synth-drums popping up on other artists’ records (literally, thanks to the band giving away stems) and driving a new subgenre to the mainstream. With three albums laying the groundwork, Phoenix was ready for the next level.

***

Naming the record Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix was symbolic. It’s widely considered Phoenix’s masterpiece. Despite the title’s allusion to classical music, the late producer Philippe Zdar kept insisting that the band take their music in as modern a direction as possible. “We knew what he meant [by ‘modern’] and that he was pushing very hard and with a lot of enthusiasm, so it was hard to resist,” Branco remembers.

This was not Zdar’s first time working with the group, and he had an intimate understanding of Phoenix. He initially met them through Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter, who once had a band called Darlin’ (named after the Beach Boys song) with Branco and the other future Daft Punk member, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo. The members of Phoenix already knew Bangalter and de Homem-Christo fairly well, so when Mazzalai called Bangalter for producer recommendations for United, Bangalter suggested they work with Zdar, who was making music in the electronic duo Cassius. Phoenix maintained this relationship, but it wasn’t anything close. When it came time to record Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, they had tried numerous recording locations, but nothing was really working out. After several failed attempts at fostering their creativity, they relocated to Motorbass, Zdar’s studio. At the time, Zdar wasn’t supposed to be producing Wolfgang, but whenever he would appear at the studio while Phoenix was writing and recording, Zdar took a vital interest in their process. He would make suggestions, and Phoenix would always accept them. They had not worked with him since United, but they found that Zdar was quickly becoming the group’s de facto fifth member. Slowly, overtime, Zdar officially became the producer of the record, and his presence was influential, to say the least. “Philippe would come into the studio and be very excited about what he was hearing,” Mars recollects. “And then he naturally turned himself from a friend who would advise us, sort of like a bit of a guru, to a producer.”

In YouTube videos documenting the recording process of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, Zdar repeatedly says that he would tell the band to embrace modernity. What he meant was that he didn’t want them to rely on a conventional bass-guitar-drums instrumentation. Instead, he wanted them to think outside of the box and try something that they hadn’t really done in the past. Further elaborating on his philosophy, he explains just what “modern” means to him, citing Picasso in everything but name: “to do as if we were children.” Part of the reason why Phoenix doesn’t look back quite as fondly on Alphabetical is that they were in their heads a lot of the time. With Wolfgang, however, they blended the swiftness of It’s Never Been Like That with the sleekness of Alphabetical. There are keyboards and synths galore on Wolfgang; plenty of the drums heard on this record are keyboard-generated, after all. When discussing “Lasso,” a song remembered for its iconic drum intro, Mars says in YouTube footage that he had “become an expert at playing the drums with a keyboard.” In a 2010 interview with Rolling Stone, Mars says that the band “had this obsession with music that sounded new. A drum machine was much more important than a real drum.” “Lasso” stemmed from Mars playing the drums on a keyboard, and it probably helps that Mars was originally a drummer. Phoenix’s touring drummer Thomas Hedlund plays a bit of acoustic drums on the track, too, which makes “Lasso” the epitome of the album’s acoustic/programmed hybridity. Also, one of the group’s goals was to ensure that the listener couldn’t discern whether the drums were real or programmed.

“With MIDI keyboard drumming, I could do all these things and come up with different patterns that aren’t possible on an MPC or on a drum kit,” Mars tells me. “The MIDI keyboard was a good moment of total freedom. All of a sudden, you have these new possibilities of making something. When you play drums, there's something that speeds up the process of songwriting. The MIDI keyboard had the best of both worlds. You had that freedom. We could jam together with just these computers and keyboards.” Even judging from a song like “Lasso” alone, it’s clear that Zdar’s outlook reigned supreme. He really wanted Phoenix to make an album that merged the band’s first three LPs, and that’s precisely what the end product sounds like.

In fact, Zdar held such a strong voice over the album that he was able to keep an entire song that the rest of Phoenix wished to discard. “Fences,” now considered one of the group’s finest tracks, is there only because Zdar fought to keep it. Phoenix had been working on “Fences,” but it was still in its elementary stages. Zdar took a trip to Ibiza with his girlfriend, and they spent the summer there together. While he was in Ibiza, Phoenix sent him a finished version of “Fences,” and Zdar and his girlfriend listened to it endlessly for the entirety of the vacation. The song likely resonated even deeper with the proximity of the beach, intensifying the track’s sunny atmosphere. When the producer eventually returned to France, Phoenix no longer liked the song. Zdar was stunned, especially given the fact that he and his girlfriend had it on repeat all summer long. “He went on holiday with a set of maybe 20 demo tracks,” Branco recalls. “And when he came back, he had fallen in love with a few of the songs. I’m sure ‘Fences’ was one of these.’”

“It was love at first sight for him with this song,” Mars says. “He was trying to stay honest with us, and he was so worried about disappointing his girlfriend, that they would listen back to it and be like, ‘Oh, no, you ruined it,’ which is always something you struggle with. The charm of a demo is almost impossible to replicate. When we record something on a voice recorder, it compresses it in such a way that it's so charming.”

Zdar and the band got into some intense discussions about “Fences,” with the producer making the argument that Phoenix needed to have some more tunes with a mid-tempo feel. He heard its potential, and he desperately wanted the band to follow through on it. He believed in the song so much that he played drums on it himself, and he played poorly on purpose. Although the drums don’t sound sloppy, they certainly sound loose, which lends the song a bounciness and a levity that suits the airtight performances on the rest of the record. Although Zdar started off as more of a friend, Phoenix found that his sagaciousness and constructive criticism helped dispel long bouts of writer’s block. “When he was producing us, he wouldn't do it from a technical point of view, but something much more abstract and very positive and loving,” Branco says.

Directly after “Fences” on the tracklist is “Love Like a Sunset, Pt. 1,” an epic, instrumental piece that Phoenix had been wanting to write for a long time. It’s almost as if the band tacitly knew that Wolfgang would earn them an exponentially bigger audience, and they knew that now was the right time to fully indulge in all their creative impulses. Still, the word “impulse” suggests a kind of impetuousness and thoughtlessness, which is far from the case with both parts of “Love Like a Sunset.” The band members have said that they were incredibly methodical with its structure, and it was by far the most difficult track to write. Phoenix sorted through roughly 30 parts that they came up with, and they would piece these parts together like a puzzle to see what the best sequencing would be. They originally wanted “Love Like a Sunset” to be 19 minutes long, which, in hindsight, may have been a little excessive. It’s still a long track, especially when you think of it holistically rather than as two disparate parts. Everything blends together seamlessly, and they even recorded the guitar parts in a garden so that they would capture natural noise, such as birdsong. They also wanted to include a “Big Bang” moment in the middle, where everything could start fresh and lead into the second part with vocals. Lyrically, this is how “Love Like a Sunset” functions, as well. It could refer to either the beginning or the end of a story, with the sunset signifying new beginnings and the closing of a book simultaneously. Phoenix knew from the start that, if they were to do this long, instrumental piece, it would have to be the centerpiece of the record. It divides both halves of the album, creating a break and transition from “Fences” into “Lasso.” At first, Zdar wanted “Love Like a Sunset” to be the grandiose ending, but then he realized that it was the perfect “second beginning” midway through Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.

With songs such as “Love Like a Sunset,” “Rome,” and “Girlfriend,” Wolfgang is a remarkably romantic record that blends classicism and modernism. But, even though Phoenix was ready to make their big break, they held onto the inexpensive gear, such as “crappy instruments” and “beginner guitars.” For example, Zdar liked the idea of using a “crappy drum machine” alongside “perfectly recorded” guitar and bass. It’s similar to the idea of using a small portion of an unpleasant scent in cologne or perfume. A small amount of a strange or even odious ingredient contrasts and augments the pleasant aspects. By placing an otherwise inexpensive drum machine alongside the most pristine guitar and bass recordings, it gives Wolfgang a beautiful polish that makes it stand out. “Rome'' is Zdar’s favorite song on the album, and it surprisingly came together at the very last minute. But it’s precisely because this is the technique he used when producing that track; it skillfully blends the high-brow and low-brow into one glorious package. Phoenix took this approach on “Girlfriend,” too. All the band members are staunch admirers of keeping first takes, particularly when it comes to vocals. This is because those first takes often contain a mysticism that repetition and perfection can take away. With Mars keeping all of his first vocal takes, Phoenix says it is like “listening with the heart,” and it creates a “magical moment” that would be otherwise impossible to recapture with another take.

Lyrically speaking, Mars remains as cryptic and impressionistic as ever. In a Rolling Stone interview, Mars speaks about how they all “love nonsense” because “it’s a luxury [they] don’t have in French.” When it comes to syntax and grammar, English lyrics allow for a lack of lucidity that can make the words all the more intriguing and puzzling. Aside from the idea that Mars’ lyrics are deliberately vague, it can even be difficult to parse what he is saying to begin with. For a long time, I misheard the “for lovers” refrain toward the end of “Armistice” as “four albums,” which makes all the more sense given that Wolfgang is Phoenix’s fourth studio album. 12-year-old me, who at that point most commonly listened to bands like Blink-182 and Fall Out Boy, thought “pictures” in “Lisztomania” was, actually, “bitches.” Then I Googled the real words. Still, it’s comforting to know that I wasn’t alone in mishearing Mars’ lyrics. Chris DeVille, my editor at Stereogum, wrote in his 10th-anniversary essay on the album that he initially thought the lyrics for “1901” were “fallin’, fallin’, fallin’, fallin’” rather than “fold it, fold it, fold it, fold it.” After all, Mars almost didn’t want to include an official lyrics booklet with the album because he liked the idea of listeners having different interpretations, even if they were entirely incorrect. Laura Snapes, the aforementioned Phoenix oral history author and music journalist at The Guardian, points toward Mars’ equivocations as a key selling point. “The words are perfectly weird,” Snapes says. “It feels like you can never pin the album down even when you know the melodies by heart, and I think that elusiveness is captivating.” As Mars told me himself, “On Wolfgang, when I started writing lyrics, there was more freedom now that I was embracing the awkwardness more, and I was not trying to make it sound coherent or perfect. By the fourth album, it was easier because there was more of a balance and there was more freedom to the process.” Basically, Mars could make his lyrics as weird as he possibly wanted to.

Mars may lean toward ambiguity, and his real lyrics may be hard to ascertain, but that doesn’t mean the words are indecipherable. “Lisztomania,” for instance, is incredibly self-referential. It explores the idea of serendipity and attaining what you want in life. In the song’s bridge, Mars repeats “time to show it off” in what the band describes as the “pirate” section because of its more aggressive instrumentation. It’s almost as if Mars knew his band was at its zenith, and he wanted to take advantage of the present moment. The other gargantuan single, “1901,” is also meta from the standpoint that it’s about Paris, a city that the four members grew up on the outskirts of. “Past and present, 1855-1901,” Mars sings in the second verse, tracing his upper register on the song’s title. This time period alludes to the five Expositions Universelles that Paris hosted during that specific timeframe. During its 1889 edition, the Grand Palais and the Eiffel Tower were built. The track’s second verse directly references the Eiffel Tower’s construction (“Watch them build up a material tower”) and the locals’ skepticism of its longevity, pointing to the fact that it was supposed to be demolished once the Exposition Universelle was over (“Think it’s not gonna stay anyway / Think it’s overrated”). There’s an unabashed, nostalgic, and anachronistic romanticism that permeates the song. In a live performance for SPIN, Mars says that Paris is “still nice, but 1901 was better” and that “1901” is a “fantasy about Paris.” Speaking of romanticism and dramatization, “Rome” compares the dissolution of a relationship to the fall of the Roman Empire (“Two thousand years remain in a trash can / That burned a cigarette somewhere / Ashes ‘til it falls, falls, falls”). Likewise, “Armistice” likens the falling out of a romantic relationship to a peace treaty in a war (“Our daily compromise / It is written in your signed armistice”). Mars unites the micro and the macro, the personal and the global. He may be hard to understand, both intentionally and unintentionally, but that didn’t preclude Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix from deeply resonating with music critics.

Perhaps the most prescient album review of the bunch is Ryan Dombal’s piece for Pitchfork, which bequeathed Wolfgang with the coveted Best New Music status. In the second paragraph, he describes Phoenix as a “bona fide ‘should be bigger’ band,” and he’s absolutely right. It’s no wonder that this was the album that catapulted them to new levels. Other reviews, strangely, are notably less laudatory and, almost by extension, lack Dombal’s foresight. In AllMusic’s review, the writer says that placing “1901” and “Lisztomania” so early in the tracklist means that people will most likely neglect the rest of the album. Given that songs such as “Lasso,” “Girlfriend,” and “Rome” populate the latter half, that sentiment holds little weight. Still, the writer wonders if “they’ve just hit their stride,” which is partially true. Phoenix had three albums, and Alphabetical was huge in Norway for one reason or another, but they certainly hit a significant career milestone with Wolfgang. Alex Young, the now-editor-in-chief of Consequence (née Consequence of Sound) gave it a B, ultimately concluding that the record is “too funky,” which is a bizarre criticism, especially given that Wolfgang isn’t funky and being “too funky” isn’t an intrinsic flaw. He also compares “Fences” to Fleetwood Mac, which is equally questionable. Even in NME’s four-star review, the writer finds fault with the album’s second half. Gavin Haynes writes that “it wouldn’t be a Phoenix album if it didn’t sag a bit in the second act.” Though this may ring true with Alphabetical, this statement doesn’t stand the test of time with United, It’s Never Been Like That, or Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, all of which save some of their best songs toward the end. It’s bizarre to think that quite a few critics didn’t know how this album would become an established indie classic. It can be difficult to tell when an album will become a classic, though, and that’s distinctly true when a record just comes out. Regardless, it feels like some of these critics were missing the point of why Wolfgang eventually became part of the indie-pop canon. In his anniversary piece, DeVille puts it brilliantly: “Phoenix had always dabbled in electronic music, and on this album they merged that history with the organic guitar-pop they’d more recently perfected.” Phoenix were not only drawing from the past, but they were also paving a path toward the future, encapsulating a delightful blend that showed where indie music was soon headed. As Mars himself told Stereogum in 2009, the band’s “last record was about our present; this one is about our future.”

***

The one-and-a-half years that Phoenix spent making Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix paid off wonderfully. It was the first record of theirs to be certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). “Lisztomania” likewise went Gold while “1901” took it a step further and went Platinum. Its songs would soon appear in car commercials, Gossip Girl, and video games. These songs had longevity, too. “1901,” for instance, wouldn’t hit its peak at No. 84 on the Billboard Hot 100 until January 2010. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix also won the Grammy for Best Alternative Album, which helped propel “1901” to the No. 1 spot on the alternative charts. These songs would become so ubiquitous, in fact, that “Lisztomania” became the impetus for a controversial lawsuit revolving around copyright and fair use. It also got ripped off in a McDonald’s advertisement, and a video of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dancing to the song during her collegiate years resurfaced in 2019 when she became a famous politician. According to Hype Machine, Phoenix was the most blogged-about band in 2009. They became so popular that they ended up giving away the stems, the individual tracks and instruments for each song, from Wolfgang for other artists to use. The Royal Concept, a Swedish band that started making music in 2010, took full advantage of it. They even went so far as to virtually replicate Phoenix’s sound to an eerie degree, but that’s besides the point. In any case, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix was a major breakthrough for Phoenix and deservedly so. It’s arguably their best record, and it’s a record that gave them crossover potential into mainstream realms. It probably helped that the album was released on Memorial Day in the United States, kickstarting the summer and its go-to soundtrack for indie fans throughout the country. “I think they definitely helped push indie toward embracing more pop sonics and structures,” Snapes says. In an offhand comment, she wonders if it had any influence on Tegan and Sara’s Heartthrob, which she’s confident influenced cultural juggernaut Taylor Swift’s entry into bona fide synth-pop on 2014’s 1989. Through this lens, you could argue Phoenix has had an effect, however subtle, on not only indie music but also globally dominant, commercial pop music.

Almost based off Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix alone, the French quartet would headline Coachella in 2013 right around the release of Bankrupt!. In fact, Mars says they were offered the headlining slot after their non-headlining 2010 performance at the festival attracted huge swaths of people. “The whole show was so much fun to play, and so many people came to see us that [the festival bookers] said, ‘Next time you come, you headline. You just tell us when you want this to happen,’” Mars says. As exciting as the proposition was, Mars didn’t quite know how to feel about it. “I wasn't really thrilled about it because the idea of competing with yourself was not the most thrilling perspective.” It’s something that they would wrestle with on Wolfgang’s direct follow-up, as well.

They’ve stated that the title of Bankrupt!, though, stems from their sense of creative depletion and their burgeoning feelings of vacancy. Maybe they had poured all that they possibly could into Wolfgang, and they were left spiritless afterward. Though Bankrupt! is still a decent record, it fails to hit the sundry high moments of its predecessor. Even today, Phoenix seems like a questionable headliner for what is arguably the most prominent musical festival in the country. That same year, however, the other headliners were Blur, The Stone Roses, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. In hindsight, this seems like Coachella’s final grasp at wholeheartedly embracing music with guitars in it. As of this writing, Coachella 2024 features headliners Doja Cat, Tyler, the Creator, and Lana Del Rey. The first time I saw Phoenix wasn’t until they were touring 2017’s Ti Amo. It wasn’t a sold-out show, yet the venue, the Midland (capacity of 3,000) in downtown Kansas City still felt small for a band that had headlined Coachella just four years ago at the time. Coachella has changed, and Phoenix’s headlining performance still stands today as somewhat of an anomaly. Perhaps that’s why the band felt the need to bring out a celebrity guest, the rightfully defiled predator R. Kelly. Phoenix has since apologized for collaborating with him at Coachella and for including him on a remix of “Trying to Be Cool,” one of Bankrupt!’s singles. As I mentioned earlier in this chapter, the second time I saw them was at Austin City Limits. They were a non-headliner replacing Childish Gambino, who had to cancel his performance due to an injury around a week before the festival started. Despite not being a headliner, their crowd was never-ending. It stretched out into an interminable sea of people, and it was encouraging to see that, though they weren’t as big of a draw as the polymath Donald Glover, Phoenix still had appeal. Mars himself even reflected on the colossal crowd, holding a hand above his forehead to block out the glaring sun and see as many faces as he could.

In the case of Bankrupt!, though, Phoenix were slated to headline the festival before the album was even finished. “This particular show was a bit stressful because it was at the beginning of the tour for Bankrupt!,” Branco says. Still, he found it “enjoyable because you play small venues in the U.S., and then theaters, and you enjoy every little increment of it, and so when we played Coachella, it sounded less terrifying and less weird.”

But the performance simultaneously rushed their process and pushed the band toward a sound that felt unnatural. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix was amiable and poppy in terms of its sonics, but there was an undercurrent of scrappiness to it that lent it a peculiar charm for a record so gleamingly polished. For example, the drums are part of what stands out so much about Wolfgang. With that instrument alone, Phoenix achieved an analog-digital hybrid that existed in its own liminal space. You can’t tell what’s programmed and what’s acoustic. Mars’ keyboard-drums performances, combined with Zdar’s technically precise production, straddles the line between indie and pop in tandem. With Bankrupt!, it seemed like Phoenix missed the mark a bit. They lost some of what made Wolfgang such a masterpiece. They may have purchased the mixing console used on Michael Jackson’s Thriller, but as Branco’s and Mazzalai’s “crappy” guitars show, using the flashiest gear in the world doesn’t instantly result in compelling music. I think that Phoenix were aware of that, but they were hoping that using a piece of important musical history would help catapult them to the next level. They did headline Coachella, but it was more so because of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix that they did.

Snapes describes the success of Wolfgang as “a double-edged sword. It made them into a gigantic band, and they became massively influential, something they were really aware of.” Snapes says that, when she spoke with Phoenix for her book, the “one reason they gave away the WAP stems for people to remix was to busy the competition with poring over their past while they tried to move on.” In terms of Bankrupt!, it was their “disgusted, abrasive, absurdist reaction to that kind of noxious fame, a stance that inherently prevented it from being as big.”

They rectified their trajectory somewhat on Bankrupt!’s two follow-ups, 2017’s Ti Amo and 2022’s Alpha Zulu. Rather than aiming for unalloyed flash with nothing else, Phoenix returned to stellar songwriting for both of these records; on the former, they added a fleck of Italo-disco and catchy grooves. Songs such as “J-Boy,” “Fior di Latte,” and “Telefono” demonstrated that Phoenix wasn’t an obsolete relic of 2009. They could try out new things and do them well, ultimately assuaging the concerns and issues that fans had with Bankrupt!. It truly felt like they were back, and they even had a published oral history around this time with Snapes’ Liberté, Egalité, Phoenix!. It felt like a celebratory moment and a victory lap, but, sadly, one of the key figures in Phoenix’s story was not alive to see its publication in October 2019. Philippe Zdar fell to his death from a balcony in Paris on June 19, 2019. To Phoenix, Zdar was far more than just a talented producer. He was also a mentor and a lodestar. He helped them realize their full potential as a group of musicians and close friends. It would be impossible to write about Phoenix without discussing Zdar’s importance in the band, and it would be impossible to write about the holistic rise of indie-pop in the late aughts and early ‘10s without talking about Zdar. Through this lens, Zdar was not only integral to Phoenix, but he was also central to the growth of a new subgenre, and its embrace of modernity and sleek production, that would inevitably define a period in time. Zdar’s death was a monumental loss for music in general. Touring behind their latest record, Alpha Zulu, Phoenix dedicated the record itself and the live show to Zdar. Today, they’re carrying his torch.

Looking back at the band’s famous performance on Saturday Night Live, it feels like a pivotal moment for myriad reasons. In some ways, it feels like the catalyst for me writing this. Without Phoenix, I may have never fallen in love with bands such as Passion Pit or M83. It’s difficult for me to imagine an alternative universe in which I never saw them on SNL, and if I can even conjure that other outcome, it’s not one that I want to think about too much. Phoenix is an incredible band, and their track record, for the most part, has been impressive for its consistency and variety alike. But there is something ineffably special about Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, something special that I’m trying to put into words through this, but it’s a phenomenon that remains largely indefinable. I’d like to think that that’s my underlying goal as a writer: to describe the indescribable, to explain the inexplicable. Writers can try to materialize something through the sheer force and will of our prose, but there are some things that extend beyond that purpose. During my junior year of my undergraduate degree, I took a course on music journalism. My professor shared a famous, unattributable quote with us: “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.”

As a music writer, I intrinsically understand that there are some experiences that slide out of our discursive prowess. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, to me, is one of them. It may be only an album, and this all feels slightly lofty to conceptualize one album in this way. But its unequivocal popularity and cultural impact signifies something larger: a welcome shift in culture from careless cynicism toward faithful optimism; protesting the financial policies that led to endless foreclosures in 2008; and, of course, the shimmering, earnest indie-pop that would energize youth culture and contribute its colorful aesthetics to everything from social media like Tumblr to retail outlets like Urban Outfitters. I can try my best, but it’s something no one will ever be able to truly capture. Maybe Thomas Mars got the closest to that. He hit the nail on the head when he uttered one of the most memorable lines he has written to date. It’s a lyric that connotes a sense of community. It’s a lyric that distills the essence of how Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix blurred the lines between indie and pop, leading both to fold into each other. It’s a lyric that brings people together, whether you fully understand Mars’ diction or not, right before the song’s unforgettable chorus springs into action: “From a mess to the masses.”