Aggi - Aggi Hates You (Completely)
Artist: Aggi
Author: Sarah
Date: 05/06/2025
Listen: Bandcamp (Jigsaw Records) | Bandcamp (Rizkan Records)
On a per-minute basis, this might have an argument for being the greatest indiepop album of the 21st century. I'm sure that's bound to be a controversial statement (after all, this century has albums like Dear Catastrophe Waitress and Antisocialites), so let me explain. Over the course of not quite 17 minutes, Aggi manages to give us an entire career; they've even got a narrative arc to their development!
The first half of the compilation consists of their "Spill My Blood" and "College Friend" singles, which are fairly derivative of Henry's Dress. They've got an absolutely massive-sounding bassline, the guitars are screeching louder than a pileup on the highway, one of the singers even sounds remarkably like Matt Hartman! And yet, they're so good at it that any concerns I might typically have about overly-derivative bands are totally wiped away. It's honestly noise pop as it was always meant to be; gone in under two minutes, but the ringing in your ears is with you all day.
Moving on, the middle of the compilation is their split EP with Saturday Night Karaoke, a band with whom I have approximately no familiarity. In this split, they tone down the noise quite a bit ("Heather" isn't even noisy!) in exchange for more and better hooks. In particular, "Punk Boy Meets Punk Girl So What" is a cute little duet that easily could have turned plodding in the wrong hands, but instead remains charming. At times, this EP feels almost like an entirely different, but equally excellent, band compared to the Aggi of their first two singles.
And finally, we've got the "The Pains of Being Stupid at Heart" single as the culmination of their career. Unfortunately, I don't really have much to say about this one. The songs don't really catch me, and in particular the final track is a disappointment. It's 3 minutes long, which is basically prog by Aggi standards, and the title accordingly suggests that it's going to be a medley of two songs. And well, it is, but the songs are neither noisy nor catchy. The introduction from Jigsaw Records informs me that the singer's Stephen Pastel impression is an example of the band's "good sense of humor", but I'm not laughing. That being said, these two songs still play a valuable role in the way they sharpen my appreciation for everything that came before them.
In any case, it's this album that singlehandedly got me to take notice of the Indonesian indiepop scene. Not that I'm particularly well-informed (my knowledge doesn't really extend that far beyond Aggi, Sharesprings, or Brilliant at Breakfast), but it effectively drew my attention to just how little I really know about the broader world of indiepop. In a couple years, maybe it'll turn out that that realization makes this one of the most important albums of my life. At least, I hope so!