The Wonder Years - Sister Cities (April 6, 2018) Album • Page 14

Personally I think the guitar work on the last two Fireworks records was something special in it's genre. Great chord structures as well.

The slide guitar at the end of "The Wild Bunch" is one of my favorite musical moments of that time.

 

I love NFG and fireworks but the masses are not a good indicator of quality. If they were, the Transformers films would be considered high art.

 

Because people like different stuff?

 

the obv answer is because New Found Glory came around when "pop punk" was Top 40 radio popular and it's, you know, not anymore... and hadn't been for years by the time Fireworks came around.

 

Eh, they'd be considered popular. Which they are.

 

Right I agree, but the original comment I was responding to said "If Fireworks were as good as NFG," not "If Fireworks were as popular as NFG."

 

Lots of pop-punk bands are still finding success. Some are finding a lot of success.

 

I assumed "good" was a place holder for "well liked" in that sentence not an indicator of objective quality, since it was followed with a statement about "more people going to shows."

 

If you don’t like fireworks and think they’re a generic pop punk band please listen to the song “teeth” , which might be the closest thing to Stay What You Are in existence that isn’t actually Stay What You Are.

 

Yeah I don't know, I just took it in conjunction with the additional statement about not getting the Fireworks hype to mean the comment was directed toward the bands' relative quality

 

for sure, but then we get into "what is pop punk", rinse, repeat. and at that rate, what is "success"? i would say Fireworks found success. a successful band doesn't necessarily do it forever.

 

Doesn't that kinda bolster the generic argument when your best example is that it's a carbon copy of another band?

 

I dunno, I could probably talk about what "pop-punk" is and how it's morphed and changed and grown (and regressed), and what I'd call success in the music industry all day (from a raw numbers and/or influence perspective; if we're talking a band that's happy with what they did, then that's cool for them too).

 

I think where Fireworks really shines is in their songwriting. Oh, Common Life waxes on youth, loss of innocence, and loss in a way that really bottles the emotions of those themes better than most.

 

One of my favorite shows I've ever been to was the Suburbia release show in Philly. Gospel had just come out and Fireworks brought the goddamn house down and then TWY came out, pieced back together everyone's blown minds, and then absolutely destroyed us all over again. Great night.

 

I get the comparison for Fireworks and NFG on their first album (produced by Chad Gilbert no less) but after that I feel they grew into their own "sound" more so than other contemporary pop-punk bands of that time.

 

And Hostage Calm was great! That was an awesome show

 

What I mean to say is that both SWYA and Gospel were albums where pop punk bands evolved into something way more interesting.

 

I’ll be with ya doing the same

 

What's interesting about sounding like an album we heard in 2001? I don't get how that makes the argument they've done something special.

 

Gospel and OCL are the two "pop punk" albums that have had the biggest impact in my life. Gospel might still be my favorite album ever, and I can listen to it today and still be blown away.

 

Fireworks have done nothing for me. A few songs on their first release were cool in late high school. Fell off very quickly, didn't fuck with the releases everyone fell all over. There are very few bands from that era of pop punk that stick out to me at all. Honestly prefer songs by like Man Overboard and A Day To Remember more than most of the others.

Haven't enjoyed a Wonder Years release in forever. The first Aaron West tape was dope though. Respect Dan as a person and lyricist. The Upsides and Won't Be Pathetic were super influential for me in late HS/Early college but I never return to that either. Maybe I'll enjoy this

 

Note to self. Ask people to give me money and then trash the bands they like.

 

savage

 

Jason has a right to his opinion, but there's no reason to get upset about it. Anyone who has spent time with Gospel or OCL knows that calling them an NFG copy is legitimately laughable.