AMES, Iowa — Local midwest emo band Local Tennis released a new album titled “Oops! All Intros” which features 36 introductions to songs that appear on their other releases, confused sources confirmed.
“We went into the studio fully intending to write a fully realized album about growing up, relationships, and heartache,” said guitarist Jackie Villa. “We also wanted to have a few solid intros, so we brought in a bunch of TV and podcast samples and just sort of improvised around them. About halfway through, we realized that this was better than the songs we had spent months writing, which is sort of sad but we rolled with it. On day three of recording I was texting a few of my ex-girlfriends just to bait them leaving angry voicemails.
However, die-hard fans of the band seem less enthused than the members.
“It’s pretty clear these assholes sold out,” said longtime supporter Ty Grant. “They used to be about the music, and now they seem to be more interested in writing ambient songs around old clips of Alan Watts. But I’m not surprised, they already started to go down this road on their last album. If you count how many notes the guitarists tapped on that album and the one before, which I did because I’m an actual fan, you’ll see that the total tapped notes decreased by 12. Pretty clear they’re trying to jump to a major label in the next year or two.”
Yet others outside of the band have shared in the excitement of the group’s new direction.
“This is going to bring a whole new level of exposure to some great musicians who deserve it,” said Blair Melton, the head of the band’s label Tallyhoe Records. “Almost anyone who listens to music nowadays does so through TikTok videos or Instagram reels. And you just can’t make a meme out of an 8-minute slow build emo track. A bunch of intros, though? That’s going to move units enough units to buy my mom a new condo.”
At press time, Local Tennis announced they will be releasing a special edition single-sided 7” on Record Store Day that includes all of the outros from the original album.