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**Kaputt by Destroyer: A Masterpiece of Nostalgic Decadence**

Dan Bejar has always been pop music's most reluctant genius, a Vancouver-based enigma who spent the better part of two decades crafting increasingly obtuse indie rock under the Destroyer moniker while moonlighting as the sardonic voice in The New Pornographers' candy-coated power pop. But nothing in his sprawling, deliberately difficult catalog quite prepared listeners for the sublime curveball that was 2011's "Kaputt" – an album so audaciously committed to its yacht rock fever dream that it transformed Bejar from cult curiosity into something approaching a household name, at least in households where people debate the merits of Steely Dan's deep cuts.

The journey to "Kaputt" began in the wake of 2008's "Trouble in Dreams," where Bejar first began flirting with smoother textures and more accessible melodies without entirely abandoning his penchant for literary wordplay and deliberate pretension. But where that album felt like tentative steps toward accessibility, "Kaputt" represented a full cannonball dive into the pristine swimming pools of 1980s sophistipop. Working with longtime collaborator Joshua Wells, Bejar crafted an album that sounds like it was beamed directly from some alternate timeline where Hall & Oates were fronted by a philosophy PhD candidate with a serious Bowie obsession.

Musically, "Kaputt" exists in a genre-defying sweet spot that critics have variously labeled as "chillwave," "soft rock revival," and "hipster yacht rock," though none of these terms adequately capture its particular magic. The album's sonic palette draws heavily from the glossy production techniques of early-80s pop, complete with gated reverb drums, silky saxophone solos, and synthesizer washes that shimmer like heat mirages over sun-baked concrete. Yet Bejar's voice – that distinctive, conversational croon that always sounds like he's sharing secrets at a cocktail party – anchors these potentially saccharine arrangements with an undercurrent of world-weary melancholy.

The album's crown jewel is undoubtedly "Bay of Pigs (Detail)," a nine-minute opus that unfolds like a fever dream of disconnected imagery and stream-of-consciousness observations over a hypnotic groove that could soundtrack a midnight drive through neon-lit city streets. It's the kind of song that shouldn't work – too long, too weird, too committed to its own internal logic – yet it stands as perhaps the finest achievement in Bejar's entire catalog. "Chinatown" serves as the album's most immediate pleasure, a perfect distillation of the "Kaputt" aesthetic with its talk-sung verses and irresistible saxophone hook that burrows into your brain and sets up permanent residence.

"Suicide Demo for Kara Walker" showcases Bejar's gift for marrying his most abstract lyrical tendencies with genuinely gorgeous melodies, while "Song for America" and "Blue Eyes" demonstrate his ability to craft what sound like lost AM radio classics filtered through decades of cultural decay and renewal. Even the album's more challenging moments, like the sprawling title track, reward patient listeners with layers of detail that reveal themselves over repeated visits.

The critical and commercial success of "Kaputt" represented something of a vindication for Bejar's long, strange trip through the indie rock underground. Here was an artist who had spent years deliberately alienating potential audiences with increasingly esoteric releases, suddenly connecting with listeners on a scale he'd never experienced. The album appeared on countless year-end lists and introduced Destroyer to festival stages and venues far larger than the coffee shops and small clubs that had previously been his natural habitat.

In the years since "Kaputt," Bejar has continued to confound expectations, following up his breakthrough with albums that have ranged from the orchestral chamber pop of "Ken" to the electronic experiments of "Have We Met." None have quite recaptured the lightning-in-a-bottle magic of "Kaputt," though this seems entirely intentional – Bejar has never been an artist interested in repeating himself.

Today, "Kaputt" stands as both Destroyer's masterpiece and one of the defining albums of the 2010s indie landscape, a work that managed to be simultaneously nostalgic and forward-thinking, accessible and challenging, sincere and ironic. It's an album that proved sometimes the best way forwar