Taking Back Sunday Band • Page 524

Louder Now really holds up for me.

 

Louder Now is still my favorite. It aged surprisingly well.

 

Happiness Is is their best album. Shoot me!

 

Couldn't agree more

 

Learning how to play what’s it feel like to be a ghost to shake the cobwebs off on playing guitar and wow am I rusty but damn that song is so much fun to play

 

Hi Eddie!

 

I pretty strongly disagree about the dual vocals being a mainstay for this band. I mean, we haven’t gotten them in heavy dose since LN. They’ve delivered five records without it (outside of an occasional song or parts of a song) & even if you don’t like those records as a whole, they’ve proven well enough that they don’t need dual vocals to write good songs.

I would be curious as to why though. They can obviously do it, as evident most recently with The One, so it’s pretty clearly a deliberate effort to move away from that to focus more on harmonies and flourishes.

 

TIL that's not Nolan screaming lol

 

IMO Matt Squire’s production on Erase Me is a hell of a lot better than the production the band did on Voyuerist (one of my favorite records by them too) lol

 

It was Fazzi and Matt Rubano who were trying to get weird with it and I loved it personally. They needed to switch it up but between going with the wrong producer and pushing back on some classic TBS sounds/styles - they held themselves back a little bit on NA

 

It’s better than any of the records they’ve put out post-NA ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Happiness Is holds up pretty well though and is easily their best record with Nolan and Shaun.

 

i always thought it was adam.

 

As someone who religiously read liner notes back in the day (I was super cool), none of this is news to me.

 

Oh it’s less about the production and more the influence he had from what we could see in the studio videos. Vividly remember him listening to a demo and being like "guys all the breakdowns, we have to cut that shit out" or something lol

 

yeah I remember in that doc Chris coming in with a new idea really excited and Squire just shuts him down and it really bums me out

 

LN is gr8, but tayf really has become a second blink untitled for me (as in: after all these years could still listen from start to finish every day)

 

180 from Orensanz is everything. Forgot how much I used to listen to it.

Also worth watching for the end of the little interview with Mark where he's praising Adam.

 

I think when self-titled came out, they said they didn't want to do it if it didn't feel natural to the song as they were afraid of it becoming too much of a gimmick or something like that. I think there's probably some middle ground between not doing it at all vs. it being gimmick-y, and sometimes I do wish we got a bit more of that back and forth, but I do kind of get what they mean by the songs they're writing now not really needing it.

I remember when they dropped Flicker, Fade and being excited about the use of it there.

 

I remember when they first dropped the teaser for The One and it was John’s post-chorus verse and it seemed the song might be a John-led song at first.

 

Okay fine I guess I’ll watch Live from Orensanz again.

Also, despite the auto-tuning on it, Live from Bamboozle 2009 is really great. It’s also quite Eddie-heavy as well. His guitar is quite loud in the mix for a change which is nice.

 

I don’t think I’ve listened to Live from Bamboozle in quite some time so listening to it at my desk right now and so far this rips. I wish Adam could still sound like this

 

The duel vocals rarely felt gimmicky to me on the first three albums. Ironically, sometimes it feels a little gimmicky when they do it now because it’s too often just John repeating what Adam just sang, whereas before it was more often a natural call and response style.

Though Adam and John both have more gruff sounding voices now, so the contrast isn’t as stark these days too.

 

It’s been so long since I listened to the Bamboozle album. I remember it being great.

 

I love that part of the song. Honestly moments like this and then his verse in Tidal Wave are the only things I am not crazy about hearing when it comes to the idea of Fred filling in for him on a tour, and part of me would be more interested in hearing Nathan do a bit more of the vocal duties in that case. I like the moment when his mic is turned up and you can really hear him.

 

Oh yeah, I agree with it never having seemed gimmicky before, but apparently one or multiple of them got it in their head that if they started writing to solely incorporate it into the songs, then it would be?

But it really was like their defining "thing" at the time, and I do miss it. I remember when the Maine put out Loved You A Little, John O said he wrote that song with the dual vocal TBS approach in mind (before he knew Adam was on board), and man...that was a good song that used it really well, and I had kind of maybe hoped that doing it and then spending all of Sad Summer with the Maine performing it would spark the idea in their heads again. (Though I guess 152 was complete by the time they went on tour so maybe for whatever comes next? Maybe?)