'The People': Chloe Bilstad's World Premiere Skips Along to a Retro-'Singles' Grunge/Pop Beat
The daughter of an old graphic designer friend finds her inner voice in a swirling confessional for up-and-coming Gen Zers
Hopefully, self-produced, home-grown music-video singles become a trend that sticks, especially lovely, lyrical notes like Chloe Bilstad’s “The People,” which premiered on social media yesterday. She’d love for it to blow up the Internet, so go ahead and go to town.
The song and the vibe spark traces of the opening bars of Cameron Crowe’s 1992, grunge-inspired rom-com hit, “Singles,” the part where the girl just misses the guy under a moody Pike Place afternoon, and is worth the clicks.
Bilstad is the thoughtfully creative, multi-talented daughter of a graphic arts designer/drummer friend of mine named Scott. We used to work for an RV magazine in Lynnwood, WA in the late ‘90s/early 2000s, until we didn’t, and went our separate ways, pursuing adulthood and eventually growing our families…he in Seattle and me in Mukilteo.
Scott was understated, mild-mannered — unless you tried to touch his computer screen (“Hover! Hover!”), extremely smart and kind, and one of those quiet wise-asses who suffered no fools. He would draw cartoons of me (I’ll post throughout this impromptu review) by request, for the magazine and for fun…
I think Scott’s originally from Indiana. He moved to Seattle a year or so before my son James was born. After he left the RV publication to do his own thing, building websites for other people, moonlighting as an indie-alt drummer, Scott welcomed his own firstborn, daughter Chloe, into this world.
Unlike my son, Chloe was super-shy, with big, wary, unwavering eyes like knuckle-down marbles. She never said hi to us at the two birthday parties we went to, or the time they came over to our housewarming party when James was about three.
She just stared, clinging to her dad.
So, when I saw Scott (who never posts) drop an IG story about his daughter’s upcoming music video premiere a few weeks back, I perked up, curious.
I never heard a peep out of her as a little girl. What would her voice sound like at 18? Has it been that long? What’s the video about? Who were her friends? Where did she go? What did she want to be?
Most of the answers crept out in the tony tune’s confessional pop circles, soft around the world’s jagged edges, deriving their lift from an infectious, grunge-strummy fade — the ‘90s Mother Love Bone-weary soundtrack of an entirely different, disoriented, disquieting generation from Seattle — and sweet, surprisingly accomplished vocals that took gentle swipes out at that world, as if in a constant state of re-discovery.
Her voice? Lacquered, clipped, British posh, and clear as a bell (dropped in the middle of quiet anguish) in places. A very good voice, indeed.
“Your friends all care
Whether you want ‘em to or not
The People wanna know
So just give ‘em what you’ve got…”
The music video, co-directed/produced/edited by Chloe, features her friends acting out scenes from a cozy, lively Halloween party at someone’s big-city loft, while she (dressed up as an angel) alone rustles up the courage to overcome her fears by joining them and possibly the young man trudging toward the apartment from the down-and-out streets.
Before the song ends, she is gone, mirroring the patchwork quilt lyrics that want to stay and say more, but cannot.
Her voice…a mix of all the cool girls this side of Top 40 bourgeoisie — Diane Birch, Avril Lavigne, Liz Phair, and Fiona Apple in their prime — full of buoyant hope, soft savvy accord, effervescent youth, confident maturity, as if she’s already there in her mind, but can’t quite find the nerve to go the rest of the way…“make up excuses as to why you didn’t show…let it all out, riptides only ripple in, now, until you feel a little less broken.”
There is a feeling of warmth, intimacy…safety…in that Halloween party, as well as an open-door policy to come and go, no judgment. Her friends also serve as her comfort zone, whether she does indeed stick around by the time the young man finds his own nerve to go up to the party, or chicken out.
“So go to a party on a Saturday night
Or write it all down,
whatever’s all right with me
Make up excuses as to why you didn’t go
‘Cause the People, the People wanna know…”
I don’t know about her, but to me, the song and the video seem to go together perfectly as the introspective’s inner voice, rung aloud, in a rivulet-orchestrated mantra, drip-dip-dripping modular rain clouds down a sunken, reflective mirror…in a push-pull relationships between what a shy girl wants and eventually does, falling back in an emotional rhythm of her understanding friends and The People constantly isolating, judging, labeling, pointing, indicting her as forever the shy little girl who cannot find her voice in any party.
The very existence of “The People” proves them wrong, giving us a touching glimpse of Chloe Bilstad putting herself out there, sharing a beating, moving, compelling heart…when she could’ve kept her feelings, hopes, and dreams to herself.
Not so shy after all…
