Car Seat Headrest - The Scholars

From Shakespeare to Mozart to classical opera, Car Seat Headrest’s Will Toledo pulled from the classics when devising the lyrics and story arc of The Scholars, while the music draws, carefully, from classic rock story song cycles such as The Who’s Tommy and David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust. “One thing that can be a struggle with rock operas is that the individual songs kind of get sacrificed for the flow of the plot,” Toledo notes. “I didn’t want to sacrifice that to make a very fluid narrative. And so this is sort of a middle ground where each song can be a character and it’s like each one is coming out on center stage and they have their song and dance.”

It is a journey that listeners will want to embark on again and again as they absorb and discover the rich depths and clanging resonances of The Scholars.

 

This 2LP vinyl edition was produced by Matador Records in 2025.