SAD13 with NYSSA at Smiling Buddha (961 College), Sunday (November 13), doors 8 pm, all ages. $13.50. ticketfly.com.
Sadie Dupuis is best known as the charismatic frontperson for Northampton, Massachusetts, indie rockers Speedy Ortiz, but soon she might be just as recognized for her new solo project, Sad13. Though the moniker can be construed as a playful way of spelling her first name, Dupuis intended it to be pronounced Sad Thirteen. It hasn’t caught on.
“Everyone seems to think that [it’s pronounced Sadie]. I guess I need to hire a marketing team,” she says with a laugh over the phone from her newly adopted home of Philadelphia.
Dupuis doesn’t seem too concerned about what people call the project. She’s more focused on getting her songs heard. Just released on Carpark, her debut album, Slugger (a reference to Satoshi Kon’s anime series Paranoia Agent), was written in opposition to hits like Christina Aguilera’s Genie In A Bottle or Brandy and Monica’s The Boy Is Mine, she says.
“There were certain specific topics that I hadn’t really heard in songs before,” she explains. “For instance, a positive song about a women’s consent, or a song about combatting jealousy in [female] friendship. So I decided to write them.”
Her objective was to fill a massive content void in modern music – in addition to consent and jealousy, she sings about sexual and romantic autonomy, enjoying love after destructive relationships and exclusionary gender politics. Dupuis recorded and produced Slugger during a two-week sublet of her friend’s place in Philly.
“When I start writing, I think about who might be hearing the songs and the kind of impact they might have,” she explains. “But really the genesis of most of these songs is just wanting them to exist in the world for myself. I couldn’t think of many other albums that explore these topics, and I wanted one to exist. So I guess [I felt] it’s up to me.”
Mostly eschewing the twisting guitar dynamics of Speedy Ortiz, Slugger is surprisingly accessible, using synthesizers and heavy pop hooks to sugar-coat the politically charged songwriting. (She’s bringing a full band to the Smiling Buddha.)
Dupuis doesn’t see why politics and pop can’t be friends.
“I don’t think political music has to be inaccessible,” she says. “A lot of the year’s bigger pop records have been political. Both of the Knowles sisters have put out pretty amazing politically oriented records. And the same goes for a lot of the punk political music I listen to, like Priests or Downtown Boys.
“So it wasn’t so much my trying to find a way to make these topics accessible. It was more that I wanted to work on a pop record, and I happen to explore these topics in the songs I write.”
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