Rising emo-pop artist Talker grapples with identity in the vibrant video for "Suck Up"
Celeste Tauchar’s got hooks. The rising songwriter known as Talker turned heads with last year’s Horror Films, a moody EP that punctuated its atmospheric electro-pop with cathartic bursts of dissonance, but the L.A. native’s latest singles—check out “Learning The Feeling” and “Keep Me Safe”—amplify that release’s emotional bloodletting with anthemic choruses that thunder through the cheap seats. Talker’s new EP, Wax, drops next month, but today The A.V. Club is here to premiere Tauchar’s gorgeous video for her latest banger, “Suck Up.”
Directed by Jake Goble, the kaleidoscopic clip mirrors the song’s themes of ephemeral identity and the frustrations of emotional inconsistency. “I’m a thousand versions of myself when I wake up/ and I don’t think any of them will ever be enough,” Tauchar sings, articulating a feeling not solely reserved for the young and itinerant. Like most of Talker’s music, “Suck Up” is also an absolute riot—Tauchar cinches up her verses so tight that her spring into the chorus is nothing short of ecstatic.
“‘Suck Up’ is a song that has really resonated with me lately, and I think a lot of people will feel the same,” Tauchar tells The A.V. Club. “We’re all multifaceted people with so many sides to us. Sometimes it feels like those sides don’t all line up. And sometimes I wish I were someone else entirely, but I try to just fake it—almost sucking up to whatever version I am on a given day so that I’ll like myself.”
Speaking of the video, she continues, “It’s a visual representation of some of these version of myself. Me spilling my guts in therapy, sitting by myself next to the snacks at a party (always), and a few others. All of these versions are the real me even if they don’t always feel like it. Since writing this song, though, it’s funny—I think I’m fully realizing each of these sides of myself and they’re finally (slowly) coming together. And somehow they all make sense.”
Wax is due out on March 6, and “Suck Up” officially hits streaming services tomorrow. Pre-save it here and check out the EP’s artwork below.