B-Side Guys

Pretty Rude’s “The Caller” opens their debut album Ripe with the sound of feedback tuning itself into coherence—a fitting metaphor for a song about negotiating with the fraudulent optimist living in your head. James Palko’s latest project emerges from the ashes of Talking Meds and Perspective, a lovely hand to hold, carrying the weight of two decades spent chasing musical dreams that may have been elaborate self-deceptions.

The track builds its theatrical framework around Palko’s admission of influence from Pulp’s grandiose moments, but grounds itself in slacker rock’s deliberately casual approach to ambition. This tension creates space for a conversation most musicians have but rarely articulate: the moment when your inner cheerleader reveals itself as a grifter who sold you a bill of goods about artistic fulfillment. Palko frames this realization through call-and-response vocals that feel less like classic rock bombast and more like arguing with yourself in traffic.

What emerges isn’t bitter resignation but a kind of rueful recognition. The song’s production mirrors this emotional complexity—moments of amplifier noise dropout punctuate verses that could soundtrack a coffee shop, while choruses swell with the kind of conviction that makes you believe your own hype all over again. It’s the musical equivalent of knowing you’re being manipulated by your own hopes yet falling for it anyway.

Palko’s engineering background serves him well here, creating layers that reveal themselves gradually rather than demanding immediate attention. The track functions as both opening statement and thesis: if you’re going to spend decades pursuing something that might be entirely delusional, you might as well make it sound good while you figure out whether you’ve been conning yourself the whole time.

“The Caller” succeeds because it refuses to resolve its central tension. Instead, it inhabits the uncomfortable space between self-awareness and self-deception, suggesting that perhaps the conversation with your optimistic alter ego never really ends—it just gets better production values.