Tegan and Sara Give Alex Lahey’s “You Don’t Think You Like People Like Me” a Full-Circle Upgrade

When Alex Lahey’s debut EP B-Grade University arrived in the summer of 2016, it did more than introduce a sharp new alt-rock voice. The record was energetic, immediate, and catchy enough to push her straight into Artist To Watch territory. Ten years on, Lahey is revisiting that first statement with B-Grade University (Reunion Edition), a reissue that adds five tracks and reframes the EP less as a time capsule than a living document.

Out July 17 via Dead Oceans, the new edition folds in remakes with Tegan & Sara and Slowly Slowly, plus “bathroom” and “bedroom” versions of two tracks and a live Like A Version recording from triple j. It’s the sort of anniversary release that can feel like label housekeeping on paper, but Lahey’s approach gives it a clearer purpose: a chance to hear the songs under different lighting, and to measure just how durable they still are.

The most striking addition is a new take on “You Don’t Think You Like People Like Me”, now threaded with Tegan & Sara. Remakes of older material often arrive with their own little apology baked in, as if they’re asking listeners to admire the gesture more than the song. This one doesn’t need that kind of goodwill. The new arrangement sharpens the track instead of sanding it down, and the sleek keyboard line brings a little extra drama and playfulness without disturbing the hook that made the song hit in the first place. If anything, it underlines how sturdy the original writing already was.

There’s also a neat bit of symmetry in the Tegan & Sara connection. In a note from one of the Quins, they recalled hearing Lahey for the first time and thinking, “oh — this is the artist I wish I was, but don’t quite have the lungs to pull off being.” They added that touring together a decade ago revealed Lahey as not only a strong songwriter and performer, but “weird and very funny,” which, in their telling, only made her more formidable. The new version of “You Don’t Think You Like People Like Me,” after all, follows the old side-stage-to-recording-studio arc with a kind of plainspoken satisfaction.

“Going from watching her sing ‘You Don’t Think You Like People Like Me’ from side stage to singing on it for the ‘B-Grade University’ ten-year re-release feels like a full-circle moment,” they wrote. “If you don’t know Alex yet, congratulations — you’re about to have a new favorite. Just remember we knew her first.”

That last line lands with the kind of teasing authority Tegan & Sara have always made sound easy. It also fits the broader logic of the reunion edition, which isn’t really about nostalgia so much as redistribution of context. A song that once helped define Lahey’s arrival now comes back with a second life and a second set of voices attached to it.

%%LINK:https://teganandsara.substack.com/p/dream-dump-with-alex-lahey|their new