After a brief stint at college in New York City, Cosentino returned to the West Coast and began recording lo-fi demos with Bruno, whom she met in the Los Angeles music scene.

[3][4] She was approached and offered record deals from major labels in her teens, but resisted as they desired to mold her into a "pop princess" type.

Brown attempted to act as a "big sister" to Cosentino, who seemed "sort of depressed, missing music, [and] feeling a bit weird about some of her friends.

[2] Pocahaunted achieved minor success (at one point opening for Sonic Youth), but Cosentino left the project to pursue creative writing at the Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts in New York City.

[2] Studying journalism and creative nonfiction, she read Joan Didion, David Foster Wallace and other authors she enjoyed and she interned at The Fader, where she penned a fashion column.

[6] Cosentino lived in Brooklyn and all but abandoned her musical pursuits, and soon fell into a mundane routine and seasonal depression in her second semester, feeling miserable.

[4] Having grown up on the very sunny and warm West Coast, she found the city "stressful, congested and cold," and based much of her nonfiction on California.

[2] Returning to La Crescenta, she lived with her mother and began work as a part-time sales associate for Lush, but felt immediately inspired to write new music, using her acoustic guitar to cope with anxiety.

After their first experience recording with live drums and "real" production, they made a conscious effort to stray away from their original, more lo-fi and hazy sound.

[2] A collection of 7-inch singles on Art Fag and Black Iris alerted Adam Shore, owner of buzz-generating website The Daily Swarm, who became the group's manager.

[3] Margaret Reges writes that Best Coast had "become something of a sensation by the time 2009 came to a close"; the band enjoyed a bit of attention from the media (notably from Nylon), and Make You Mine made its way onto a few year-end lists.

[3] The duo recorded their debut album, Crazy for You, for Black Iris at Mexican Radio Studios in Echo Park, California from January to April 2010.

"[2] Alongside the quick success came an intense level of scrutiny, Internet haters and venom from selected critics, some of whom viewed Cosentino's material as anti-feminist.

[11] The duo had a desire to create a record that "nobody was going to call lo-fi," and Bruno reached out to his former boss, producer/composer Jon Brion, known for his work on Kanye West's Late Registration (2005).

Brion, who admired Crazy for You and its production, planned to stay out of the way during sessions, hoping primarily to bring out Cosentino's vocals and emphasize the low-end of the mixes.

"[9] Brion equipped the duo with vintage analog gear, and attempted to make use of the studio's Les Paul-designed reverb chambers.

In October 2017, the band headlined the first VintageVibe Festival with groups such as Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears and Nick Waterhouse in Palm Springs, California.

[8][29] Pitchfork Media writes that "Best Coast carry enough influence from 90s California pop punk that they would've been right at home on a late-90s Warped Tour stage.

[50] The band's second album, The Only Place, was developed with a variety of influences: traditional country music (such as Loretta Lynn, Dusty Springfield and Patsy Cline), Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and Drake's Take Care.