Heartbreak No. 5: Be Your Own Pet Breaks Up

mariasci | December 29, 2008 10:00 am

Be Your Own Pet seemed to be following a great little trajectory for themselves: release an energetic and appealing debut album on Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace! label, build up goodwill, then leak a jaw-dropping song from your sophomore release and wait for it to hit big. But when the album came out, it was short three songs, and worse, two of them were the best on the album. Ecstatic Peace!’s distributor, Universal, which also releases albums by 50 Cent, claimed the lyrics were too violent, and it seemed like an act of sabotage. Though the song made it to release via XL’s Get Damaged EP, it didn’t help matters much, and the band broke up.

“Becky” is absolutely the song of the year for me, a catchy and raucous tale of teenage murder and betrayal that obliterated the sincerity and melodrama that, for better or for worse, dominated the year’s music. It was not the year, I guess, for something so spunky, and while I hope it one day will be, Be Your Own Pet are one of the year’s most regrettable casualties.

80 ’08 (and heartbreak)