#78

#78. Max Frost - White Lies (#42, 2013)

15th of 2013

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Sometimes we're a little betrayed by the truth. This is not the case. Unlike Miike Snow, Max Frost actually is just one person. I don't believe that his name was inspired by theirs, nor did he get it off of a hair dryer. His real name is Matthew Alexander Frost, so it's just a trendy shortening of that, I imagine. I can understand with a song like "White Lies", it would be easy to be cynical about this.

I don't know if there actually is a fascinatingly unique story to Max Frost, who seems to just be a guy who decided to make music and lucked out when one of his songs got discovered. I suppose the most interesting thing I found is that he was very interested in R&B and hip-hop music. He even initially was encouraged to sing hooks for a rapper but was reluctant to be part of it. I don't think he specifically said it's because he's a white guy from Texas, but it's probably what he means. Supposedly it's still a part of his sound but it's hard to hear much of it in his early stuff. His 2018 song "Good Morning" definitely matches the back story though. Ironically I do feel like the instrumental to his 2013 song "Be Who You Want to Be" sounds a little bit like one of his influences in D'Angelo, but specifically the song "Betray My Heart" which actually hadn't been released yet.

That's probably the most interesting thing with Max Frost, the way his music doesn't really fit into an obvious box. It's mostly that it's just not enough of any one thing to feel confident with it. I hear elements of pop, rock, dance, folk, blues, alongside Max's occasional rapid fire delivery and my brain just doesn't know what to do with it. I just opt for enjoying the music on its own merits here, because occasionally he has some fresh ideas with it.

"White Lies" is of course the main event. It might be the best example of that specific subset I mentioned with Thelma Plum's "Not Angry Anymore" (#194). The first thing you hear is that acoustic guitar that just feels so highly strung and thrilling. When Max Frost's voice enters the fray, you're taken aback by the way it's mixed, sounding too close to the microphone but kept back in the mix anyway. You could imagine him turning this into an in-your-face Michael Franti kind of performance (or otherwise what sombr does nowadays), especially on the second verse, but instead it's just this quirky sugar rush.

Other than "White Lies", I'm not sure Max Frost has done anything much of note. He didn't release his debut album until 2018, but prior to that he released two EPs. The second EP has the song "Paranoia" which triple j played a fair amount at the time, though it's lost in the sea of outweighed streaming numbers so it doesn't look like it's very notable on the whole. I guess I should shout out the song "Blind Fool" which is the least popular song on that EP, but the one that sounds the most like "White Lies". In general, he's just embodying that spirit of the person who could never quite repeat their first success, but that still gives him one more hit than the vast majority of people making music.