Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino Laments Solo Album’s Commercial Failure

Bethany Cosentino’s solo career isn’t going quite as well as she’d initially hoped, with the former Best Coast frontwoman saying she’s “so disappointed” with how her debut solo album, Natural Disaster (which arrived back in July) fared commercially.

READ MORE: 'It's Easier To Just Try To Numb It': Bethany Cosentino On How Life In Music Led To Her Sobriety

Cosentino was candid in a video shared on TikTok earlier this week, where she opened up about the struggles of being a burgeoning artist in 2023, when “content” is sometimes prioritised over art itself. She conceded that she’d previously “debated having this conversation”, but eventually grew frustrated with the way her album cycle has unfolded.

She explained (as transcribed by Stereogum): “As you may or may not know, I put out my first solo record earlier this year in July. It’s called Natural Disaster. If you follow me, you probably already knew because I’ve just been trying to fucking sell it to you for so many months. I put so much of myself into this record – into the writing of this record, into the recording of this record. I left fucking California for the first time ever to make a record. Like, I walked away from my identity. I walked away from Best Coast, and I said, ‘I’m gonna go be Bethany. I’m gonna go make this thing.’ And I have to be really fucking honest with you, I am so disappointed with the way things have gone.”

The indie-pop artist was quick to note that she doesn’t blame anyone in particular for the album’s failing, saying the situation merely reflects “the state of the music industry”.

“And to you,” she added, “it might seem like it’s done well because I have a lot of press. There was a lot of press, and that’s because I have a great publicist and also I’m interesting. People like talking to me, and I like talking, so I think it works. I mean, the truth is that I’m so grateful that I even got to make the record, that the record came out, that I got to play a show, that I’ve gotten to play a few shows. But it really sucks to feel like you put all of yourself and so many years of your life into this creative project and then to just have these expectations and have these desires and have them completely fall flat.”

Cosentino went on to lament “the amount of fucking selling yourself that you have to do” as an up-and-coming artist, with “the amount of videos you have to make” and “the amount of promotion that you have to do” taking up a significant amount of her mental energy. As for how it all affects her album, she continued: “To then just be like, ‘Cool. My record came out, and it basically went away...’ I mean, no, it didn’t go away, right? It exists forever. You can listen to it anytime. I can listen to it anytime. But when we look at it and evaluate it in terms of the commercial success lens, yeah, it kind of already went away.”

From there, Cosentino addressed commenters that would inevitably ask her why she doesn’t just return to Best Coast. She admitted that “Best Coast for me, at this point, feels like trying to fit into a pair of pants that I don’t fit into anymore”. She clarified that she still “love[s] what I’ve created” and her former bandmate, Bobb Bruno, but she finds it “really hard to do something that doesn’t feel like you anymore”.

“Sure,” she said, “I could’ve just completely changed the sound of Best Coast, but, like, I didn’t wanna do that. I wanted Best Coast to be able to be its own thing and Bethany to go be her own thing.”

Rest assured, Cosentino will continue to make music. She went on to say in her video: “There have been so many days since I put this record out that I’ve been like, ‘Do I really wanna do this anymore? Am I even doing this anymore? Should I just go move to the woods and have a baby and, like, become a therapist?’ But honestly, like, I don’t think I know how to do anything but make music.

“Sure, I can do a lot of things, but it’s the one thing that, like, makes me feel alive. And I’ve been so privileged all these years to have the thing that makes me feel alive be my job. But it’s been hard. It has. And, you know, I think that one of the things I’ve always been the best at doing is just telling the truth, being honest, being vulnerable, probably oversharing.

“I don’t wanna sit here and have you think that I’m a failure because I’m not a fucking failure. Like, I’m doing fine. But I did think that the record was gonna do better. I did think that I was gonna get to go out on tour. I did think that I wouldn’t be feeling the way that I feel right now. And maybe that’s on me for having too high of expectations, but I don’t even think it’s that. Like, I believe in myself. So when you believe in yourself, you should have high expectations. You should have big dreams, big goals.”

In closing, Cosentino said she still holds Natural Disaster in the highest regard – “It’s my favorite record of the year,” she boasted – and left her fans with an important message: “If you really love something, do it. Don’t give up. Don’t overthink it. Don’t say, ‘Well, I should just do the other thing that works already.’ No. Do the thing you wanna do. Make the thing you wanna make. You know what? If it doesn’t work out, that’s okay. I’m so grateful for the career that I have had and that I will continue to have.”