How did Cigarettes After Sex capture Gen Z's attention?

Most dream pop bands might not dare to dream of billions of streams or sold-out world tours — but not all bands are Cigarettes After Sex.

The American group has been making alternative, atmospheric music together since 2008. While that longevity is a feat in itself, the band's profile has risen remarkably in the last few months, due to an uptick in listeners from one surprising yet key demographic: Gen Z.

Today on Commotion, music journalists Suzy Exposito and Reanna Cruz join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to unpack the unlikely success of Cigarettes After Sex, and why they're now bigger than ever.

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: Reanna, Cigarettes After Sex are working with this very old-school kind of aesthetic. Why has this band been embraced by Gen Z, you think?

Reanna: It's fascinating. I've pondered over this frequently, because Greg Gonzalez has gone on the record to be like, "My inspiration is Cowboy Junkies and Lesley Gore," you know? But I think part of it is connecting the vibe of their music with, frankly, platforms like TikTok, because TikTok and Instagram are built on young people romanticizing their life — capturing life in these little vignettes and then posting them to reflect on. Because you're putting the rose-colored glasses on and looking at your experiences like this, it suits music like Cigarettes After Sex, or rather the music suits scoring these moments in your life.

Their music is very dreamy. It's very romantic, I think, and I think a lot of people connect with that romanticization. A Cigarettes After Sex song is made by the pedals, the reverb, the simplicity, and that all culminates in a massive, romantic vibe. I keep saying vibe because without the vibe, the band wouldn't really succeed, you know what I mean? So I think that's why it's so big, because the vibe connects with young people's penchant to apply romance to everything in their lives.

Elamin: We should say, "vibe" is not an accidental word here. They are truly an atmospheric band, which is to say you exist within the general aura of the music that they create, that's what they're there for. There are pop acts that you listen to because you want to dance; this is not one of those acts. It's virtually impossible, I think, to move your body to a Cigarettes After Sex song, which is why Reanna keeps saying words like "vibe."

Suzy, Cigarettes After Sex have been around for some time, but it's interesting that the audience is growing. What's with the longevity, when so many bands in the streaming era seem to fade away quickly?

Suzy: I think it's just their versatility. They're very consistent…. It's sad and sexy at the same time. People love that. They could open for Nick Cave, for example, but they could also open for Lana Del Rey and that would make perfect sense. They have this mystery around them. They don't do videos, big glossy photo shoots, so they're able to occupy this nebulous space in music because they're not known for their personalities. They're known for the emotion that they evoke.

Elamin: Nor do I want to ever know them for their personality. There are bands where it's better for my relationship to your music if I never hear a word from you, because if I have to, then I start thinking about all the stuff that went into the music, and sometimes you're just not interested in that.

Reanna, Greg Gonzalez is not particularly afraid to get pretty sexually explicit. What do you make of Greg's approach to lyric writing?

Reanna: I mean, I don't think his lyrics are for me. I don't really connect with them. But I do think people connect with it because there's a clear lack of nuance. He speaks very directly, and if he speaks in metaphors, it's very direct metaphors that you can very clearly understand…. I think it resonates with young people because when I was in high school, I listened to a lot of folk punk, Midwest-emo-type vibe, and all of those bands speak in the same way where it's like, "I am communicating my emotions. I am speaking directly about what is happening to me at this moment about the object of my affection." 

So there's a tradition there, whether it's Lou Reed, whether it's Modern Baseball. It doesn't connect with everyone, but I think anyone can synthesize something in that lyric and resonate with it, you know? And I think it connects with people because people want to be spoken to directly and they want to understand what they're hearing.

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Stuart Berman.