The Wonder Years - The Hum Goes On Forever (Sept 23rd 2022) Album • Page 3

Yeah sorry, I brought up that line but didn't say anything about him not singing it now. Dan seems to be really aware of tone deaf lyrics he's had in the past and acknowledges it. Seems similar to Hayley's line in Paramore's Misery Business

 

The Greatest Generation
Suburbia
No Closer To Heaven
The Upsides
Sister Cities
Get Stoked On It!

 

Suburbia
The Greatest Generation
The Upsides
No Closer To Heaven
Sister Cities

honestly they’re all great but i got into this band when they released Suburbia and it was instant how much i related to them. That album holds a special place to me, as do the other members of that “trilogy”.

hyped to see both albums at Slam Dunk.

 

hate to break it to everyone, I don’t think he’s stopped singing it. Looked at videos I took from the past tour and found this as well.

 

Weird. I watched the live stream from Boston and it was very obvious he omitted those lyrics.

 

The Blue Man Group won't cure depression is an all-time Arrested Development reference though.

 

TGG
Sister Cities
Suburbia
The Upsides
No Closer to Heaven
GSOI

 

TGG/SC (because I'm a coward and can't choose)
Suburbia
NCTH
Upsides

 

only ever been able to get in to select songs from these guys but this one been in my head all day

 

Giving rankings a go,

The Greatest Generation
Sister Cities
Suburbia
No Closer to Heaven
The Upsides

I think there are songs on NCTH that I like better than anything on Suburbia, minus maybe Came Out Swinging, but I think Suburbia is an overall more cohesive record, and certainly more important/influential to me overall.

This is also acknowledging that this is a “favorite child” scenario, I love them all dearly.

 

Suburbia
Upsides
NCTH
TGG
Sister Cities

But they're all good. I just find Sister Cities too dark and sad and I find the cry-singing a bit off putting.

 

Switch NCTH and the Upsides and this is my ranking

 

Sister Cities is like 90% of the way to being my favorite TWY album (and I’d definitely put It Must Get Lonely and The Ocean Grew Hands To Hold Me in my top 5 tracks) but that last 10% leaves me so cold that I basically never listen to it and it’s easily my least favorite as a result

 

what song(s) do you hate that much?

 

I've honestly never got the issue with Dan's vocals on Sister Cities. You want cry-singing? Go listen to Man Overboard.

 

It’s not the songs in a vacuum so much as the presentation throughout. Dan’s in a different lyrical mode with a lot more spacey metaphor than grounded narrative and I think that stuff is hit or miss. If I’m being generous I think the themes don’t really intersect in the way Dan probably thought they did when he was writing the lyrics, but if I’m being honest, I think some of the true meaning is masked by those metaphors that don’t really work for me. The mastering is such that I’ve never thought it sounds good on headphones I’ve owned. The “heavy” moments also feel so out of place to me, I’d probably cut We Look Like Lightning altogether (though that acoustic version is really good). I wish it just had another handful of edits more than anything I guess.

 

Tbh, I listened to Sister City a lot after my dog died and found a lot of the grief I was feeling was reflected back at me in the lyrics. We Look Like Lightning is great.

 

I honestly don't think I could rank their discography beyond obviously putting GSOI at the bottom, just because it's such a silly record (still pretty fun at times). I have such a connection to The Upsides that somedays it feels like my favorite record in the world, but that feeling is transferable to everything else they've done.

 

I more or less agree with that. I find Sister Cities to have the songs I personally like the least perhaps (Flowers, When the Blue Finally Came), and generally prefer the earlier sound, but still think some amazing songs on it and like the album as a whole

 

The vocal delivery is my big hangup with Sister Cities too, even though it’s got their most advanced songwriting easily

 

I've always viewed When The Blue Finally Came almost as an interlude/intro to Orange Grove. I can get liking it the least on the record though.

 

I really like Sister Cities and it sounds good but I think heart-wise it misses for me where their other albums just have more charisma.

 

Get Stoked On It, The Upsides and those early EPs are my fave.

 

Their early stuff is/was fun, but I’ve largely grown out of it. Suburbia and onward for me these days

 

Yeah, I don’t really listen to The Upsides much anymore outside of Washington Square Park. I love it and it means a lot to me, but it doesn’t resonate with me the way everything since still does. It’s a record that immediately transports me back to college, which I don’t mind on occasion, but I, like Dan and the band, have grown up and changed.

I’ll tell you, though, even though it’s pretty cringey now, I identified SO hard with “This Party Sucks” when that record came out. That was me, in every way.