Singer-songwriter Caroline Rose delivers a bratty send-up of toxic music industry dudes on “Hello Again, Jim” from their upcoming album, Gentling the Horse at the Walt Whitman Mall, out Oct. 23 via SUCK Records.
With its fuzz-blasted lead riff and piston-pumping drums, “Hello Again, Jim” runs on snark and defiance as Rose mocks how a guy’s 1990s “glory days” doing lines in the Viper Room bathroom has evolved into lame Hermés baseball caps and expensive cars with vanity plates. “I ain’t apologizing,” they sing on the hook, “You do not mean a thing to me/Do you think me a simp?/I carve my turkey thick not thin.”
“You know Jim,” Rose quipped in a statement. “The most ‘chill’ guy in the room but also dates 22-year-olds and drives a Porsche. Very calm demeanor brought to you by his wealth and power. Loves to appear alternative. Unfortunately there are about 9000 Jims in the music industry.”
“Hello Again, Jim” arrives with a music video, too, directed by Chloé Aktas, and featuring actor Jimmi Simpson (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Westworld). The black-and-white clip, punctuated with fun animations, finds Rose and their band performing the song in an empty bar with a barkeep (played by Simpson) who goes from wiping counters to rocking out.
Along with “Hello Again, Jim,” Rose released another single, “Calm,” which they described as a “sort of a sardonic take on feeling mentally unwell.” They added: “I oftentimes lean on sarcasm and humor to get a point across when it’s something that’s actually really hard for me to deal with. One of the recurring themes in my life is feeling like I have about 20,000 different voices in my head all saying different things and I feel remarkably ‘uncalm.’”
“Hello Again, Jim” and “Calm” follow two previously-released Gentling the Horse at the Walt Whitman Mall songs, “Chow Mein” and “Yip Yip Now.” Rose is set to hit the road this fall, joining Modest Mouse on a North American tour that starts Sept. 29 in Madison, Wisconsin and wraps Oct. 22 in Avila Beach, California.
