Easily The Most Excessive Amount of Words You’ll Read On The Wonder Years’ “The Greatest Generation”
I’m the first person to call out The Wonder Years. It’s not that I have a problem with the fact that they’ve become the golden boys of pop-punk - the way that they’ve eclipsed the listeners of “underground” music is a product of brilliant marketing/managing tricks COMBINED with the consistently excellent music they’ve worked so ever diligently and publicly to produce. But the idea of their popularity and dissemination through the scene is another study, and considering that their methods get praised by many corners of the industry with every turn they make, I’m always trying to make sure that I view this band with the devil’s advocate hanging out on my shoulder. Given my penchant for critical thinking and desire to see all the sides of everything, I always want to make sure that I’m keeping myself from getting swept up in the hype and I worry a lot about letting their image and their extremely calculated public stances on shit sway me along into the masses of doe-eyed, adoring, anxiety-ridden, self-identified-as-socially-broken fans. But here’s the DISCLAIMER: I am one. And I have been ever since my literal Last Semester with The Upsides in the spring of 2010. I’ve seen this band 28 times in the last 3 years and watched their exponential growth and had plenty of thoughts and self-imposed emotionally damaging times regarding the transition from holding them as my own to having to share them with a demographic that I couldn’t relate to - but here I am, still writing about them, still listening to them, and I still waited with breathless anticipation to see how their newest record was going to be.

What I found to be the most staggering realization about this record was that, unlike the first two, it didn’t “CLICK” with me upon the first listen (and still hasn’t, at least not in the traditional sense) - but what it did do, upon first listen, was get me to think. About context, about symbolism, about structure. And that, to me, says almost everything about the band’s maturation and how well they’re achieving what they’re setting out to accomplish. The Greatest Generation isn’t just a new record, it’s a new type of experience for Wonder Years listeners. And it’s not a vastly different experience - it has a thick foundation of all of the great pop-punk shit that they’ve brought to the table in the past - but it’s just different enough to make me want to consider it differently than the past 2 records, to take it far more seriously than I was planning on doing.
After digging in, I found myself to be a big fan of the sort-of “vintage” aesthetic with which they’re…well, I guess Dan, is backlining on all his lyrics. From shit like the imagery of clothing-lines in the first song to the implementation of fixed symbols throughout the record (which, to me, is an awesome old-school literature technique that we don’t see nearly enough of in contemporary art), I’m really impressed with how well the ideas of vintage historical stylings are blended together with their brand of wide appeal pop-punk (the album art is a good indication of that as well). On Suburbia, I felt the Ginsberg thing was played up way too much while introducing the record considering how subtle the writer’s influence actually was on the content and structure of that album. Not to mention that I felt that it dramatized a lot of things that generally seemed trivial or too microcosmic or not deserving of how TWY’s songwriting tends to create elevating moments for just about everything it touches (ie, “Coffee Eyes” is, musically, an awesome song, but it’s about a diner and little else is open for interpretation there).

TGG, on the other hand, focuses the band’s ability to create HUGE moments and HUGE energy to address seminal topics and issues that fill the shoes of their musical aesthetic in a much more fulfilling way. For that kind of introspective writing, and for tinging the songs with historical war parallels and ideas that haven’t been and aren’t going away, I do think that this album has the potential to be TWY’s most timeless work to date. I’m not one for making sweeping assertions about how THIS RECORD IS CEMENTING A CORNERSTONE OF THE SCENE or THIS IS GOING TO REINVENT THE WAY THAT PEOPLE LISTEN TO POP-PUNK and blah blah blah - I don’t understand how anyone, especially under the age of 30, can consider themselves to have THAT much perspective at this age and point of their growth as a music fan to make such eclipsing and hugely impacting statements for music that’s coming out NOW. But I do think, compared to The Upsides and Suburbia and the item-by-item specificity those records have in identifying time/place/people, that The Greatest Generation is the album that I think will make the most sense to kids in 2023 experiencing the revival of late 2010’s pop-punk and emo. Kids probably won’t give a shit about Richie or his basement in 10 years - but they’ll always find meaning in fluid ideas like the presence of ghosts or blackbirds.

In terms of musicality, it was Drew Beringer’s first thoughts that described it as “weary but uplifting” and that description really hit home for me - it’s an exercise in raking excellence in over exhaustion and it sounds raw yet simultaneously full-bodied and well-rounded. And that’s a trait that characterizes all the songs. That sort of homogenized feeling that leverages itself into the structure is great in terms of cohesion, but can be a dangerous line to walk when thinking about differentiating songs or identifying standouts. And despite the weary attitude that glosses the entirety of the record, each song, at the very least, has IT’S MOMENT. And those moments are fucking fantastic! I could delve into all the places where I found myself double-taking or catching my breath or sitting up straighter or gripping my pen a little tighter - but music listening and interpretation is a personal experience and all in the eye of the beholder. I did, however, want to highlight one of my favorite moments because it falls in line with the idea of maturation that I wrote of earlier - “I came here looking for a fight” is sung not as proudly as, say, “I came out swinging from a South Philly basement;” instead, it’s presented more with the recognition that coming out swinging, with the intentions of fighting, might be more destructive than productive. And that sort of perspective, that change of thought, that’s the growth right there that I want from a band that I’m keeping close to my side as I’m trying to grow up myself. And the ferocity with which it’s delivered, both vocally and rhythmically? Get the fuck out of here. It’s downright incredible!

So many of the songs ring as so epic that it’s sometimes tough to discern the flow of the record - it’s an endurance listen, and you want it to pay off in the final clashings. And what they’ve done with their closer CAN certainly be considered legendary (re-writing snippets of every song prior into a long waterfall of a medley), but I want to think about the implications of such a decision. The song opens wonderfully, and I’m definitely a fan of how effectively the softer vocals have been weaved in throughout the album as a whole, but the purpose of the medley sort of confounds me. We just heard all these songs…doesn’t it seem a little overkill in carrying them back for the sole purpose of creating closure on the final track? While I can appreciate how well it’s done from a songwriting perspective (because truthfully, the way that the lines are re-written and re-sung to fit together at the end really does sound breathtaking), it read to me as bombastic and self-involved. An album’s closer is, traditionally, a place where if your statement’s made, it’ll definitely be heard, and the fact that they dedicated such an important slot of the record to re-hashing themselves could be taken as a self-satisfied celebration to where they’ve been and how they feel about it. Maybe that presence of self-assuredness is what’s helped get them to the successful songwriting levels that they’ve undoubtedly grasped on TGG, but hey, for me, a little humility can go a long way.

TL;DR: It’s great. It’s well-constructed, it’s got awesome moments, it’s enjoyable in both casual and serious listening capabilities. It also might be really important in the grand scheme of things, so you should probably get on that.

A Labor of Love - in defense of Fall Out Boy’s “Save Rock and Roll”

Fall Out Boy’s let a lot of people down over the years. Being a fan of theirs  - a dedicated, true-blue, beating heart fan - it’s not an easy task to take on, to stick to, to maintain. Every band that wants to achieve any sort of longevity with their career has a fine line to walk between letting themselves grow as artists and creating music that’s going to resonate with fans, and the evolution that FOB has gone through has exposed them to a wide array of audience types - many who have grasped on, lived, loved, and then fallen off due to stylistic changes or growth out of “that kind of music” or what have you. I’m not here to defend the sonic qualities of Save Rock and Roll, the enjoyment of music in it’s physical wavelength form is of personal opinion and can’t be won with an argument of words. But, I’ve been reading a lot of people writing off their newest effort for all the wrong reasons - saying it lacks heart, it’s too simple/mainstream, it’s not as sharp as previous work. Well, I’m here to try and deconstruct why all of that simply isn’t true. Fall Out Boy has been my favorite band for the last 11 years (even just writing the words “favorite band” aren’t enough - I will never be able to articulate how deeply they are a part of me) and as a friend once said to me, “having a favorite band is a labor of love sometimes.” I’m not without my own criticisms of the record and of the way they’ve done things over the years, but goddammit if I’m going to let this record go without my own assessment on its context and on the reasons for why it exists.

I would argue that one of the only things the band knows with absolute certainty how to accomplish is what it means to be ambivalent, and with that ambivalence comes a certain sense of subversion. Their one consistent agenda over the years has been to inspire people to ALWAYS look below the surface, to always crawl through the obvious to find another kind of meaning. It’s human nature to want to categorize things, peg them as this-and-that, neatly shuffle them into respective corners and call it a day. FOB beats back that idea with this record by presenting their take on their own struggle (is struggle too melodramatic a word? Is “too melodramatic” even an issue when it comes to FOB?) to be themselves, to be a band, to find their place in the world.

Look, it’s no fucking secret that the content of their songs dating back as early as FUCT have centered themselves around the idea of fame, popularity, scrutiny, and what it means to exist under those circumstances. I’d even posit that the fascination with those themes stems directly from the fact that FOB DEFINED the way they wrote lyrics by stepping outside themselves, taking a look, and assigning themselves a characteristic in the form of some self-deprecating object (“My insides are copper” “I’m all scars” “My heart is on my sleeve, wear it like a bruise or black eye”). The point is that this band has forever been both hopelessly self-aware AND obsessed with examining the ways in which they fit in the context of the world - it started small with TTTYG and only grew as their audience did - and for me, the fact that Save Rock and Roll is an exercise in continuing their context study and how their music fits in the world in its current state seems like the most natural progression they could have.

I’ve heard a lot of complaints that the snark isn’t there anymore, that the biting cynicism and snap-tongued one liners that everyone wants to train flashlights on aren’t surfacing. It’s something that I won’t necessarily disagree with; the songs seem to be only tinged with sarcasm instead of steeped in it. But instead of gouging sharp lines of smirk here and there throughout the music, what I’ve found instead is that this record boasts a more general attitude, and a consistent one - something that hasn’t really been present on past FOB records. How long can these musicians ride out the momentum of writing angry poetry? (“Are you ready for another bad poem?”) And it’s not like they completely threw out the book and started writing in vague minimalist bullshit and they CERTAINLY didn’t dumb down the lyrics (Big Sean’s appearance notwithstanding - ugh) - the Wentz-isms are STILL there if you’re looking hard enough for them. Unfortunately, no one wants to think twice or look closer into what they’re consuming and will write it off as a flopped FOB effort because they wished there were more lines about hips and headaches.

The general attitude that I speak of can only really be identified as the effort the band states in the title, Save Rock and Roll. Yeah, you bet your ass I rolled my eyes at it, too, when I first heard what it was to be called. But again, I kept thinking about FOB’s obsession with metafame and the idea that they had subverted the mainstream with all their commercial success - when “Sugar” shot up the charts they became our mole, they were our man on the inside, they were behind enemy lines. FOB could honestly be regarded as popular culture’s biggest troll of all time - consider the fact that four fucking hardcore kids from the Midwest were able to infiltrate mainstream music and start a REVOLUTION. I mean, it wasn’t necessarily a GOOD revolution that accomplished anything of actual value - I believe they are single-handedly responsible for the neon craze, for instance - but nonetheless, it was a generational and cultural footprint and it’s impossible to deny the impact they had on pop AND rock music from like 2005-2008 or so. The self-deprecating music videos with heavy-handed messages about being a famous band are a legitimate form of satire, and one of the best things that I’ve found about being an FOB fan is trying to determine the target of the satire - whether it be at themselves, the industry, the fanfare, etc. The layers and dimensions of the entire thing are pretty staggering and moreover, they invite you to think about what the fuck you’re listening to, to what you’re enjoying, to the reasons defining your experience.

All that in mind, it’s important to place the existence of Save Rock and Roll within those sensibilities and recognize it for the effort it actually WANTS to be, and not the effort that everyone immediately THINKS it is. People will be horrified at what they perceive as audacity when they consider the record title and the subsequent themes found in the music - I want to purport the idea that it could just as easily be identified as sarcastic or subversive. OR be taken seriously! The ambiguity is the whole point! I understand that musically speaking, it’s not for everyone. The mainstream appeal is completely undeniable and raises my own questions of staying power and influence. But, I think it’s absolutely essential to remember that FOB went to GREAT LENGTHS to keep all this shit a secret, to write and record without scrutiny, to take themselves into a non-judgmental artistic place that they hadn’t been able to secure for themselves in a long time. That to me speaks volumes of the effort and I’ve already relegated my unwavering respect to the record for that fact ALONE. But, I love this band mercilessly and I have nothing but adulation for the way that they’ve pushed themselves to grow over the course of their career. This isn’t a record about the by-and-large of saving rock and roll, it’s a record raising questions as to what the fuck rock and roll should even begin to entail, it’s a record about examining the fluidity of the definition of rock and roll. I implore everyone who ever gave a shit about this band to keep that in mind if they decide to give the record a shot. There’s so many awesome things to come out thinking critically about your music for even a few minutes, and FOB, if nothing else, provides music and an image RIFE with opportunity to do just that.

Put on your war paint. Whether you’re crusading with or against Fall Out Boy is a decision THEY want you to think through.

POZ Show Review: Fall Out Boy - 02/05/13

propertyofzack:

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*This review was composed by Adrienne Fisher and edited by Erik van Rheenen

Fall Out Boy, in a drastic avalanche of news that appeared early Monday morning, is celebrating its welcomed return from hiatus with a few small venue shows all across the country. With tickets going on sale an hour after the announcement for shows happening Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights, it was easy to deduce that the fevered rush to get tickets was going to carry over right into the floor of the rooms in which the shows were being held. Such was true for Tuesday night’s gig in New York City, taking place at The Studio at Webster Hall – essentially the basement of the larger concert hall – boasting a fluid capacity of somewhere between 300 and 400 people. Everyone who fought Ticketweb’s servers that Monday morning to ensure their spot at the show didn’t just care about Fall Out Boy, they cared about Fall Out Boy A LOT – and the proof was in the pudding as soon as the beloved Chicago four-piece took the stage promptly at 9 p.m.

Opening the night with “Thriller” (and Jay-Z’s pre-recorded spoken introduction), the band launched into an epic 90-mintue set of fan favorites spanning across their entire discography, despite the fact that some of the best tunes are coming up on their 10th birthday this year. The room was so packed that those who dared to stage-dive beneath the low ceiling of the Studio spent full songs buoyant across the crowd, unable to even find a crack between audience members to slide back to the floor. Bassist Pete Wentz often spent breaks between songs encouraging the frantic audience to step backward in order to leave those pressed against the stage a moment or two to breathe, recognizant of the situation but still overall encouraging the rowdiness specific only to shows without a barricade. After all, everyone in the room was aware of how unique and intimate the night was, and Wentz had the house in tears as he encouraged all attending to take mental photographs and “to remember how perfect this moment is, and how perfect you all are right now.”

The band itself sounded fantastic, well-rehearsed, and simply put, huge, overcoming some minor gear difficulties coolly and quickly, and mostly focusing on working the hell out of the small stage space available to them. The 360 degree spins, rhythmic pop-punk jumps, and sidelong grins toward the audience were by no means in short supply. But it was perhaps Patrick Stump’s stage presence that was the most entertaining and engaging of all. His confident grasp on his duties as frontman was somewhat of a surprise and altogether an absolute delight; it’s clear that the days of hiding his eyes beneath the brim of a hat are gone for good as he stomped, paraded, and shredded through the set during the moments that he wasn’t belting out lyrics without missing a single note. The stage conversations between him and Wentz were two-sided, casual, and filled with joking banter, as well as leagues of warm words for the audience on both their appearance and dedication to the band.

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Fall Out Boy Reunion Sparks Mass Suicide

jadedpunk:

Tragic news in the music world today: This morning’s announcement of Fall Out Boy’s forthcoming reunion sparked numerous fans to take their own lives. Read their heartbreaking final tweets below…

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carlyhoskins: Keith, Charlie and Adrienne (by Carly Hoskins) 2012/12/01 The Spotlight, Amityville, NY thats me! taken by my darling dog#.

carlyhoskins:

Keith, Charlie and Adrienne (by Carly Hoskins)
2012/12/01 The Spotlight, Amityville, NY

thats me! taken by my darling dog#.

jesstobrazil: carlyhoskins: Adrienne and Jess (by Carly Hoskins) 2012/10/26 Holiday Inn, Gainesville, FL howsyouredge.com never thought I’d be one of those people whining about how they miss Fest, but like… I miss Fest.

jesstobrazil:

carlyhoskins:

Adrienne and Jess (by Carly Hoskins)
2012/10/26 Holiday Inn, Gainesville, FL

howsyouredge.com

never thought I’d be one of those people whining about how they miss Fest, but like… I miss Fest.

A quick Fest 11 retrospective, a brief symposium on Hostage Calm, a fast spiral into rumination on self-reflexive issues and a bunch of other bullshit

I’m hitting a bit of a wall in my writing about Fest for more “professional” channels. Maybe writing about.. like.. things… casually in here will get me a little loosened up.

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Stream Hostage Calm's new album 'Please Remain Calm,' out this Tuesday.

My best friend wrote this and she is one of the most intelligent, awesome, thoughtful, empathetic, and eloquent people I’ve ever known. Also, Hostage Calm has truly got something to fucking say in this record and they themselves deserve every second of your attention. Such wonderful humans.

jesstobrazil:

The stream for this record went live yesterday, but I wanted to wait until I was able to give it the focused, concentrated, and attentive listen I thought it deserved. I didn’t want it to fade into the background; I didn’t want its message and theme to be lost amidst keyboard clicks or the whirr of an open car window. So tonight, I sat down with the stream and an open tab of newly-posted lyrics and gave it the proper setting to permeate my brain. I’ve only listened once so far, but I’m kind of bowled over with how important this record is to me and my peers, and how much of a dialogue shift it has the potential to bring to punk.

The themes prevalent in Please Remain Calm have not been a secret for the past several months, and Hostage Calm has been admirably and respectably outspoken about their political beliefs for the entirety of my time listening to them. That’s one of the reasons I am so drawn to their music (and their peoplehood) - it helps that I agree with them, but they also state everything with such eloquence and conviction. As someone who values perspective and empathy as much as she values language and humor, they’re basically a dream come true.

As I said, the themes of this new record have not been kept a secret, and they are themes that my peers and I struggle with on a daily basis. I’m a 26-year-old college graduate that has seen very little professional (and consequently, personal) growth since she earned her degree in January 2009. When I graduated, I had zero interviews and took up a part-time clerical position that ended back in April because of a buyout. By a stroke of good luck, I was offered a social media volunteer position with a local nonprofit in 2011 that would ultimately become the most pertinent (yet still unpaid) experience on my resume. I live at home; my parents still support me (thank goodness). I’m at the age when society promised I would have something to show for my efforts besides a degree that isn’t even framed because I’m not even sure if I’m still proud of it (and I can’t afford a nice one to do it justice if I am). I did everything right. I went by the book. We all did, and we’re all still experiencing this postponed adulthood and are the first generation to not be as successful as our parents. We feel abandoned, left behind, uncertain, weighed down (pun intended), misguided, disillusioned, confused. Somehow, we often feel like we’re the ones who fucked up.

Suddenly, all of the childhood proclamations of “YOU CAN BE WHATEVER YOU WANT!” became bullshit. For some reason, doing what we want to do, and are trained to do, is a completely intangible concept. So if we can’t do what we want to do, and we can’t do what we’re able to do, what the fuck are we supposed to do? Settling seems like the only option - and it’s a disgrace that older generations think that’s okay. They call us lazy and spoiled and entitled. It was their lie and we have to pay the price for it, because they were too greedy to facilitate a market and culture vibrant enough to handle the new leagues of young people entering it.

Please Remain Calm addresses these issues head-on with the clinging desperation and frustration that I see in myself and my fellow agitated 20-somethings, punks and “normals” alike. It is truly a fantastic record.

But what amazes me so much about this record, and what really prompted me to write about it in the first place, is that punk in its purest form is anti-establishment and rooted in owning our role as outsiders, as misanthropes, as being outside of the mainstream. In my experience, at least, this is the first time that a punk band has gone in with the purpose saying, “Wait a minute - we WANT to be included in society. We WANT to experience the success we were promised by our elders. We WANT to be involved in the process, the conversation.” And that is fucking huge and really important to me.

I’ve been going to shows, supporting my scene, even booked some shows for 13 years. I’ve lived this music and scene for officially half of my life. However, even in a scene rooted in welcoming different types of people, I often don’t know where I fit. I’m not tattooed (yet); I don’t work in a record store or coffee shop or bike shop. I’ve never (successfully) managed a ‘zine. I had a pretty tepid, suburban childhood and family life. I came to music, and ultimately to punk, because I was bullied by my classmates for my weight, and of course experienced heartbreak and self-esteem issues and backstabbing and everything else that makes a girl latch onto MxPx and The Ataris. My struggles are nil compared to countless others. I’ve never really subscribed to the physical and cultural expectations associated with punk music (thought I did have a pretty sweet pyramid stud wristband in high school). I’ve always felt sort of in limbo - because my ideologies, my politics, my philosophies are all perfectly aligned with this subculture. But I’ve always wanted mainstream success to support the lifestyle I truly love, and I no longer think that this desire is uncommon.

I think that Please Remain Calm is the soundtrack to a shift of dynamic and dialogue. This isn’t an anti-government, fuck your God, we’re-not-like-you record. This is a record that demands that the mainstream, the establishment pay us some mind and not count us out because we prefer to spend our Saturdays sweating in basements instead of doing whatever the hell people that aren’t us do (because I really don’t know). To me, at least, that is a new and something that this generation can relate to far more than the extremism we’ve seen in the past (on both sides). It’s becoming cool to give a shit, to be aware, to want to be involved in the process and not completely removed from the society under which we still ultimately must operate. It’s realistic, it’s progressive, and it encourages mutual cooperation and respect.

My personal politics are pretty radically far left, but I realize that I must co-exist with millions of people whose personal convictions differ greatly from mine. I will think I am right until my dying breath, but I know I have to be realistic. Of course I wish I could overthrow the two-party system. I, for some reason, think we can do better. But I also realize that progress is a slow process and, in the meantime, we have to work within the confines of what we’re offered as citizens, as punks, as people. And that is what I love about Please Remain Calm - we’re finally admitting that we want to be included.

real words

Every once in a while I click into Tumblr and remember that I used to write really, really long-winded and detailed entries about personal self-growth and potential for my future and reflections on events past and a bunch of other wordy shit.  I then wonder how much of my creative spirit has been curbed because of this widespread societal depression or if it’s just because I’m not pushing myself hard enough (and really, in my head, I never am).

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