Supermodel by Foster The People

Supermodel, Foster the People's second album, landed on Columbia in March 2014 as the follow-up to 2011's Torches, and it's a pop record with a bone to pick. Mark Foster, whose vision drives most of it, co-produced with Paul Epworth, and the band worked on the songs across 2012 and 2013, many of them begun while they were still out on the road behind the debut. It's a concept album about the rot under modern pop culture and the consumer treadmill, with Foster taking aim at capitalism's uglier face and, by his own telling, trying to have it out with God along the way.

The sound turns away from Torches toward acoustic instruments and textures drawn from musical cultures around the globe, with Cubbie Fink on bass and Mark Pontius on drums. "Coming of Age", "Pseudologia Fantastica" and "Best Friend" went out as singles, a 130-foot mural went up in Los Angeles, and a documentary series shared the album's name. Critics were split; the fans held on.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.