''Household Name'' is the third studio album by American

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...

band

Momma ''Momma'' is an American comic strip by Mell Lazarus that ran from October 26, 1970, to July 10, 2016. Publication history ''Momma'' was Lazarus' second strip; he had been publishing the syndicated strip ''Miss Peach'' since 1957. Debuting o ...

. It was released on July 1, 2022, by

Polyvinyl In polymer chemistry, vinyl polymers are a group of polymers derived from substituted vinyl () monomers. Their backbone is an extended alkane chain . In popular usage, "vinyl" refers only to polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Examples Vinyl polymers are ...

and Lucky Number. The album was produced by Momma multi-instrumentalist Aron Kobayashi Ritch.

Singles and promotion

"Medicine", the album's first single, was released on November 17, 2021. The album's second single, "Rockstar", was released on February 22, 2022. The band announced the album alongside the release of the third single, "Speeding 72", on April 19, 2022. Two more singles, "Lucky" and "Motorbike", preceded the album's release. Followed by a brief tour of the UK in May 2022, Momma toured the United States during the summer supporting Snail Mail directly followed by a headline tour in the fall with support from waveform*, Pardoner and teethe to promote their album. They toured the United States supporting

Surf Curse Surf Curse is an American indie surf rock band formed in 2013 in Reno, Nevada, and now based out of Los Angeles. Created by Nick Rattigan (lead vocals and drums) and Jacob Rubeck (guitars), the band now also includes Henry Dillon and Noah Kholl ...

in November and December 2022. In 2023, they toured the United States with

Death Cab For Cutie Death Cab for Cutie is an American rock band formed in Bellingham, Washington, in 1997. The band is currently composed of Ben Gibbard (vocals, guitar, piano), Nick Harmer (bass), Dave Depper (guitar, keyboards, backing vocals), Zac Rae (keyboar ...

and Europe and the UK with

Alex G Alexander Giannascoli (born February 3, 1993), better known by his stage names Alex G or, formerly, (Sandy) Alex G, is an American musician, producer, and singer-songwriter. He started his career with DIY self-releases on Bandcamp and began build ...

Influences and inspirations

Momma was influenced by

alternative rock Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ...

and

grunge Grunge (sometimes referred to as the Seattle sound) is an alternative rock genre and subculture that emerged during the in the American Pacific Northwest state of Washington, particularly in Seattle and nearby towns. Grunge fuses elements of p ...

artists and bands from the 1990s while making this album, such as

Liz Phair Elizabeth Clark Phair (born April 17, 1967) is an American singer-songwriter. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Phair was raised primarily in the Chicago area. After graduating from Oberlin College in 1990, she attempted to start a musical career ...

, Pavement,

Nirvana ( , , ; sa, निर्वाण} ''nirvāṇa'' ; Pali: ''nibbāna''; Prakrit: ''ṇivvāṇa''; literally, "blown out", as in an oil lampRichard Gombrich, ''Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benāres to Modern Colombo.' ...

The Smashing Pumpkins The Smashing Pumpkins (also referred to as simply Smashing Pumpkins) are an American alternative rock band from Chicago. Formed in 1988 by frontman and guitarist Billy Corgan, bassist D'arcy Wretzky, guitarist James Iha and drummer Jimmy Chamb ...

and

Veruca Salt Veruca Salt is an American alternative rock band founded in Chicago, Illinois, in 1992 by vocalist-guitarists Nina Gordon and Louise Post, drummer Jim Shapiro and bassist Steve Lack. They are best known for their first single, " Seether", that ...

. The band described their album as "the rise and fall of a rock star and the tropes and tribulations that come with the arc." and were inspired by relationships, the music industry's flaws, the archetype of a rock star and changes in their lives, such as breakups, while writing the album.

Critical reception

''Household Name'' was met with generally positive reviews. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

score of 76, based on ten reviews. Aggregator

AnyDecentMusic? AnyDecentMusic? is a website that collates album reviews from magazines, websites, and newspapers. Primarily focused on popular music – covering rock, pop, electronic, dance, folk, country, roots, hip-hop, R&B, and rap – albums are adjudg ...

gave it 7.6 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus. ''Household Name'' was praised by critics upon its release for its sound reminiscent of 90's rock. The album appeared on several year-end lists in 2022.

Track listing

Personnel

*Assistant engineer - Hayden Ticehurst *Bass - Kevin Grimmet on all tracks except "Speeding 72" *Cello - Dorothy Carlos *Double bass - Sebastian Jones *Drums, electric guitar and string arrangements by - Zach Capitti Fenton *Lacquer cut by Chris Muth *Mastered by Chris Allgood and Emily Lazar *Photography - Daria Kobayashi Ritch *Producer, mixed by, engineer, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, baritone guitar, percussion, string arrangements, drum programming, keyboards, sampler and ambience - Aron Kobayashi Ritch *Vocals, backing vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar - Allegra Weingarten *Vocals, bass on "Speeding 72", backing vocals, electric guitar, baritone guitar, piano, artwork, design - Etta Friedman

References

External links

*{{Citation , title=Momma - Household Name , date=July 2022 , url=https://www.discogs.com/release/23892347-Momma-Household-Name , language=en , access-date=2022-12-23 2022 albums Momma (band) albums Polyvinyl Record Co. albums