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Single Rider

by Jenn Champion

supported by
HadenGermany
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HadenGermany "Single Rider" is one of my absolute favorite and most listened to records of the last few years. Now also in my Bandcamp collection! I've spent so much time with these songs, these songs are a part of my life. Favorite track: Coming For You.
rubadub
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rubadub This is one of the best pop albums of the past ten years. Favorite track: Time to Regulate.
Jack music Life
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Jack music Life What's this pop beating on my rock ? O.M.G. it's coming for you. If only you knew. Favorite track: Coming For You.
billylunn84
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billylunn84 This song makes me fall in love every time it's played. Favorite track: O.M.G. (I'm All Over It).
M80 Records
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M80 Records I really enjoy this album. The vinyl cut was well done and the production sounds great. A lot of 80’s inspired beats and melodies with great emotional vocal delivery. Very memorable songs.
drewdanburry
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drewdanburry Love love love Favorite track: O.M.G. (I'm All Over It).
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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Single Rider on limited edition hot pink vinyl.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Single Rider via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $17 USD or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Single Rider in an attractive dig-pak format

    Includes unlimited streaming of Single Rider via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $13 USD or more 

     

  • Cassette + Digital Album

    Single Rider on Cassette

    Includes unlimited streaming of Single Rider via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $10 USD

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $10 USD  or more

     

1.
2.
3.
You Knew 03:13
4.
Holding On 04:19
5.
The Move 03:43
6.
7.
Mainline 03:23
8.
9.
Bleed 02:54
10.
Hustle 03:30
11.

about

Fans of Jenn Champion (formerly “S”) have praised her open-hearted lyrics, expertly-deployed melancholia, technical skill, and willingness to forgo conventions, but mostly they’ve praised her for making albums they could cry to. With the release of Cool Choices in 2014, Champion made what many considered the best record of her career, and a lot of people cried to it.

On Single Rider, Champion brings with her all those skills and vulnerabilities, but it is not a record for wallowing: it is a record for intense eye contact on the dancefloor. “Sometimes you are sad and you just want to dance about it,” said Champion.

Side B of Cool Choices presaged Champion’s agit-pop transformation. “Let the Light In” and "Tell Me" signalled her move toward a more electronic sound, but it was the digital single “No One” (2016) that marked the clear delineation. “I feel like a door got opened in my mind with electronic and digital music. There was a room I hadn’t explored before and I stepped in,” said Champion. While she’d initially intended to follow Cool Choices with “a rock record - guitar, a lot of pedals, heavy riffs,” plans changed. “I couldn’t pull myself away from the synthesizers and I realized the record I really wanted to make was more of a cross between Drake and Billy Joel than Blue Oyster Cult.”

Soon after the release of No One, Champion’s publishers partnered her with Brian Fennell, aka SYML, and the two co-wrote the song “Leave Like That” (featured on SYML’s Hurt For Me EP). The pair hit it off, and with nearly all of Champion’s Single Rider demos completed, the timing was perfect--she was looking for a producer. “I guess you could say I pursued Brian.”

Fortunately, Fennell was open to being pursued and the two spent the next five months working on Single Rider. “In the studio with Brian, I was more open than I had ever been.” With Champion’s vision and Fennell’s expertise, the record evolved from synthy roughs to a hi-fi dance album.

Despite the new direction in her sound, emotion cuts through on Single Rider in the classic Champion style, weaving simultaneously pleading-and-incensed vocals into anthemic pop songs. Champion wants her listeners to see that the rooms are all on fire and she has not given up. Taking a double “fuck you” approach to the world, to the patriarchy, all the things which screw you up and hold you back, she is dancing right on out of the disappointment apocalypse with her middle fingers in the air, and you can follow if you want to.

_arwen nicks_
Nicks is the head of podcasting at KPCC in Los Angeles and the former co-host of the Sub Pop Podcast.

credits

released July 13, 2018

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about

Jenn Champion Seattle, Washington

Jenn Champion carved her place onto burned CDs as a founding member of Carissa’s Weird. . Her 2014 Cool Choices and the 2018 follow-up Single Rider showcased her pop prowess. The Last Night of Sadness is a culmination of her skills presented to us as synth-wrapped grief. . Follow JENN CHAMPION OFFICIAL for current releases ... more

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