NME’s latest stars of The Cover, Lifeguard, have created an exclusive playlist to accompany the story’s launch – check it out below.
The Chicago indie-rock band are on this week’s (April 6) edition of The Cover, a manifestation of NME’s commitment to supporting emerging talent across the globe on a weekly basis. Every week, a rising artist will feature on The Cover – you can read Lifeguard’s profile here, written by Huw Baines and featuring photography by Atiba Jefferson.
Alongside The Cover, Lifeguard have curated a playlist featuring song titles that rhyme with their band name. ‘Rhymes With Lifeguard’ features tracks by the likes of Lou Reed, SOPHIE, Brigitte Fontaine, Pulp and more. Listen to the full playlist on Spotify below and on Apple Music.
Lifeguard’s Cover story arrives shortly after the release of their maxi-single ‘Ultra Violence’/‘Appetite’ – an 11-song, 12-minute project they say confounded their label, Matador Records. “When we sent it to the label, we got the exact response we wanted: ‘This is going to do very poorly – the algorithm’s really going to dislike this,’” Kai Slater says. “Then they said: ‘How are we going to playlist this? It’s confusing, no one knows what a maxi single is, and these songs are 11 seconds long, so they won’t even track on any databases.’ And we were like, ‘You read our mind.’ We hate that algorithm. We hate all of those rules.”
A focus on physical media, community and collaboration is a throughline in the band’s journey and appearance on The Cover, with the trio discussing the scene in their hometown of Chicago and the importance of sharing art outside of the algorithm. “I really like the idea of going underneath any social media or digital information,” says Slater, who also runs the zine Hallogallo. “I think zines are never going to lose that; they’re only going to get more essential in the [current] landscape of America. You can see it all starting to go down the drain in terms of censorship and the hold it has on expression.”
Read Lifeguard’s full Cover story here and find out who else has been on The Cover here.
Every year, NME produces 50 Cover stories, showcasing the future of music via in-depth profiles and exclusive photoshoots. Check out our coffee table book NME The Cover 2024-2025, which features the likes of Kneecap, Lola Young, Amaarae, LE SSERAFIM, Oklou and many more.