TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:
This is FRESH AIR. Summer is here, and our rock critic Ken Tucker thinks the sound of summer is the sound of women who've had it with problematic men. He's focusing on the band HAIM, consisting of three sisters, as well as a pop singer who emerged from TikTok fame, Addison Rae. They all practice what Ken is calling emotional passive resistance. Here's Addison Rae.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HEADPHONES ON")
ADDISON RAE: (Singing) Put your headphones on. Guess I've got to accept the pain. Need a cigarette to make me feel better. Every good thing comes my way. So I still get dolled up. Guess I've got to accept the pain. Need a cigarette to make me feel better. Every good thing comes my way. So I. So I put my headphones on. I put my headphones on. Listen to my favorite song. Listen to my favorite song.
KEN TUCKER, BYLINE: It may be that the mood of summer 2025 - the vibe, if you will - is defined by Addison Rae's song, "Headphones On." Over a dreamlike swirl of keyboards and light percussion, Rae sings, guess I got to accept the pain. Then she puts her headphones on and uses the music to drown out all the bad stuff happening to her and the world all around her.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HEADPHONES ON")
RAE: (Singing) Guess I've got to accept the pain. Need a cigarette to make me feel better. Every good thing comes my way. So I still get dolled up. Guess I've got to accept the pain. Need a cigarette to make me feel better. Every good thing comes my way. So I. So I put my headphones on. I put my headphones on.
TUCKER: Addison Rae is a TikTok famous dancer who's parlayed her influencer influence into a pop music career. And there are a couple of songs on her new album called "Addison," that capture the zeitgeist. During a recent BBC radio performance, the three sisters who formed the band HAIM did a cover of "Headphones On" that both acknowledged Rae's cleverness and then surpassed it musically, which is only what I'd expect from HAIM, which has just released some of the best music of the group's career.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DOWN TO BE WRONG")
HAIM: (Singing) Down to be wrong. Don't need to be right. I left you the keys. I left on the lights. I locked myself out of the house. I'm on the next flight. You can't talk me out of it. Yeah. From the window seat I can see the street where we used to sleep. It was all a dream. You thought I would fall back in your arms. But I lost my heart. And the future's gone with it. Oh, I bet you wish it could be easy to change my mind. Oh, I bet you wish it could be easy but it's not this time. I ain't coming back.
TUCKER: That's "Down To Be Wrong," which, along with the new album's title, "I quit," presents HAIM's thesis that sometimes the most productive thing you can do is to decide to do nothing. Over Alana Haim's thick guitar lick, Este's pulsing bass and Danielle's slamming drums, the band plays with the notion that letting a mediocre relationship die - not working strenuously to repair it - is healthy, its own act of assurance and assertiveness. Like Herman Melville's "Bartleby, The Scrivener," HAIM finds power in simply saying, I would prefer not to. Maybe that decision will prove to be a mistake, but as they sing, down to be wrong, don't need to be right. And yet, I should hasten to add, it's not as if the Haim sisters never feel any pain, as on this song, "Cry."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CRY")
HAIM: (Singing) Seven stages of grief, and I don't know which I'm on. I'm past the anger, past the rage, but the hurt ain't gone. You just told me what I wanted to hear. Never gave me more than almost nothing, Honey, year after year. And I wish that I could just hate you how I want to, but Baby, I can't. So I just cry, cry, and I don't know why. I just cry, cry, when I realize.
TUCKER: With its lush, harmonic hook, "Cry" is classic rock. It's like a great song by The Eagles if the Eagles ever had one moment of genuine curiosity about women. And it's not as though everything here is about sad, mad or bad decisions. Sometimes it's a celebration of things going romantically very right.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ALL OVER ME")
HAIM: (Singing) Your place or my place, it doesn't matter to me. Your lips, my tongue, they're intertwined. You want us locked in, and I'll give you my sympathy. But that's one thing I won't define. So take off your clothes.
TUCKER: HAIM revitalizes that old slogan of baby-boomer feminism - sisterhood is powerful - and extends it by reaching out to a young act like Addison Rae, offering encouragement and comradeship. And so, whether it's Addison noise canceling her pain or HAIM telling a useless boyfriend I quit, this is the summer of emotional passive resistance, and it sounds very tempting.
MOSLEY: Ken Tucker reviewed new music by HAIM and Addison Rae.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RELATIONSHIPS")
HAIM: (Singing) Relationships. What's all this talk about relationships?
MOSLEY: Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, actor Leslie Uggams. She was first considered remarkable for starting her career at 6 years old and has sustained that reputation for decades, still acting at the age of 82. We'll look back at her career from Broadway to "Roots" to "The Gilded Age." I hope you can join us.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RELATIONSHIPS")
HAIM: (Singing) But I keep asking why, why, why in this relationship.
MOSLEY: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Briger. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorrock. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Therese Madden directed today's show. Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson (ph). With Terry Gross, I'm Tonya Mosley.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RELATIONSHIPS")
HAIM: (Singing) Goes like, goes like, goes like. You've got to tell me the truth if you don't want to try. Goes like, goes like, goes like. I hear a voice in my head and it keeps asking why am I in this relationship? Baby, how can I explain when an innocent mistake turns into 17 days relationships? Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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