The Wonder Years Band • Page 152

Chaser is probably their best hook to this day. what a jam

also personally really miss the triple vocal attack they had going on TGG

 

Funeral is great because of the refrains tho

 

Chaser has a guitar solo, it's goated, as the kids say

 

They really don't do it for me. They don’t sound natural in the context of the song at all imo

 

Maybe I’ll go back to it. My barometer is stopping what I’m doing to check the title of the song, and I did that for Devil and Chaser only

 

I don’t remember who but someone on ap once said that devil wasn’t a big step for them because it was just a pop punk song with piano instead of guitar and I might’ve come around to that opinion. Not super big on that one now that they’ve got a song like flowers where yr face should be

 

The themes on TGG hit hard with me at the point of my life when that album came out, similar to how hard some of the lyrics on After The Party hit me as someone who was on the final quarter mile of their 20s when that album came out. Will always hold TGG in highest TWY esteem. but again, they're all good albums.

 

update on NCTH listen through. Patsy Cline is completely forgettable, I Don't Like Who I Was Then rules, and I know Cigarettes and Saints rules, so we're 3/4 so far.

 

my 2nd favorite TWY song behind Devil in my Bloodstream

 

I think their catchiest song is definitely "Teenage Parents"

 

"I'll bury your memories in the garden, I'll watch them grow with the flowers in spring. I'll keep you with me."

Probably their best lyrics up to this point.

 

Every TWY album is better than the one that came before it for me, and they're really the only band that I feel that way about. Whenever they put out a new album, it really becomes the only album of theirs that I want to listen to for the most part (although I did listen to Suburbia for the first time in a while recently and it's still an amazing record as well)

 

I don't remember what Pasty Cline sounds like but those lyrics are top notch.

 

I've always found the callbacks in Funeral to be pretty moving and essential

 

Yeah so this should probably be stated anytime I'm talking/arguing points on albums. Whether I like a song or not is 90% dependent on if I like the song musically and if I like the melodies. If I don't like what the song actually sounds like, I could not care less what it is saying lyrically. Most of the time lyrics mainly just help me like a song I already like more once I figure out what they're saying.

 

Cigarettes & Saints may still be their best song ever but The Ocean Grew Hands To Hold Me is up there too

 

Bluest Thing on Earth is fine, and is kind of the first time we see them leaning a little more alt and away from pop punk that they really leaned into on Sister Cities. A Song For Ernest Hemingway is pretty dang good. Best recorded vocals from Matt? Probably. Thanks for the Ride is really clunky, from the lead guitar to the chorus. I'd be fine if that one was cut.

 

Stained Glass Ceilings is trying too hard to be serious like Cigarettes and Saints, but it just doesn't land, and somehow they made Jason Butler sound like a bad singer. Have they ever had a male guest feature actually sound good? The dudes from FYS sound weird on Suburbia too.

 

TGG came out at a time when I was finishing uni, not liking my full-time employment opportunities, not enjoying my part-time job at that point, feeling detached from my high school friends (I'm Australia, most high school kids go to college in the same city they grew up in), not making too many new friends at uni, and on the whole, was quite depressed.

Thematically, that album hit me like a tonne of bricks and I related to it in a way I don't think I have with any other album ever, both before or since then. It was the first full Wonder Years record I'd heard, and it blew me away. At that time in my life, songs like There There, Passing Through a Screen Door, the Devil in My Bloodstream and I Just Want to Sell Out My Funeral cut to my core. They still do to this day.

Add in songs like Dismantling Summer, Teenage Parents, Chaser and The Bastards.... songs I related to a bit less, but were still bangers, and it's probably the most important album of my life. I still think the lyricism is great, and the songwriting on tracks like the closer (still their best album finisher) is why it still matters to me.

I can understand people maybe not vibing with it as much approaching it from an older age, but as a 19 year-old who felt lost and wasn't ready to grow up but was forced to, it hit home in a way no other album could. And I still think it holds up incredibly well.

 

Cannot believe people don’t like TFTR. Perfect pop punk song

 

SC > TGG > Upsides > NCTH > Suburbia

 

This is exactly my problem with it, Jason sounds like he has a mouthful of marbles. It’s awful

 

I Wanted So Badly to Be Brave is a pretty mediocre song with an above average bridge. You In January? It's... fine. Doesn't really stand out at all. Pretty much trying to be a closer that isn't a closer. Palm Reader has the same problem as Stained Glass Ceilings, it's trying to sound like this big epic rock song and the chorus just doesn't work at all for me. The closer is what it is.

So my problem with this is that *most* of the straightforward pop punk-y songs are fairly good, but when they try new stuff it doesn't work at all for me on this album. I feel much, much better about their experimentation and further straying from pop punk on Sister Cities, which is why this album will always be an awkward in between phase between TGG and SC for me.

EDIT: also it still frustrates we get the "we're no saviors, if we can't save our brothers" refrain in 3 of the first 4 songs and it never shows up again.

 

The no saviours part I agree with. It's like the modern Who Sell Out where the jingles just stop partway through and are forgotten forever more.

 

Moved straight to Sister Cities since it's been a while. Right out the gate Raining In Kyoto and Pyramids of Salt are so good. Pyramids is a prime example of them trying something totally different than anything they've done in the past and nailing it. It's almost like TWY said "let's try to write a Foxing song" but it still came out very TWY.