Take Offs And Landings

At the beginning of the 2000’s, Rilo Kiley was a fiercely independent band, having released an EP under their own Rilo Records label. But, even with only very minimal touring outside of southern California, their brilliant live show and excellent songcraft started to attract a fair amount of national attention inpublications like Harper's Bazaar and Rolling Stone, and even some airplay on MTV. The band initially self-released Take Offs and Landings before signing to Barsuk, who promptly reissued the album. Rilo Kiley quickly joined the ranks of labelmates Death Cab for Cutie and other acts such as Bright Eyes, The Shins, and The Decemberists as early ‘00s indie rock exploded into the mainstream.While the band stopped releasing albums after 2007’s Under the Blacklight, their popularity has continued to grow in the subsequent years. In celebration of the 20th anniversary, Stereogum recently posted a lengthy feature on Take Offs and Landings’ influence over the current landscape of indie rock, quoting Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield and noting “The way millennials have reminisced about Rilo Kiley’s personal impact often mirrors the language Generation X has used to describe the riot grrrl movement only a decade before. If Kathleen Hanna’s goal was to tell women in her crowds that their anger was justified, [the band’s primary songwriter and singer Jenny] Lewis represented the opposing side of the same coin via Rilo Kiley: It’s OK to be unabashedly and emphatically sad.”