Happy Weekend!
I wrote yesterday about the mixed reaction I had (along with everyone else) about Bush's Razorblade Suitcase. It was an album I loved at the time, but of which I have since become skeptical. In contrast, today's post is about an album with which I was initially quite disappointed but have since warmed to greatly. The suspect in question? On A Wire by The Get Up Kids.
I've previously given long winded dissertations on The Get Up Kids and how much their music meant to me, especially at a time in my life when music like theirs could really lift my spirits. I was, as a teenager, head over heels for the group, devotedly listening to Four Minute Mile, Something To Write Home About and the b-Side/outtakes collection Eudora. At the time, I was gasping for more material, having worn out those albums in my ears. As great as they were, I could hardly wait for their next album to come out. When the group released On A Wire in the spring of my senior year of high school I was perplexed, to say the least. A quiet album full of unfamiliar sounds, I felt that I had little to relate to in it. Where were the raging anthems and howling cries of anguished teenage angst?
They outgrew them, it turned out. In turn I would as well.
While I scratched my head at the time, I understand now that band had simply gotten tired of playing the kind of music they did, night after night. Shows like that will drain the life out of you, even if you enjoy it, let alone being on the road non-stop. So the band took a step back and examined their perspective, beginning to write songs from a new creative place. The results were more measured, the kind of album you put on while cleaning your apartment, not while enduring the angst of teenage melodrama. Songs were softer. Their playing was more restrained. I was, as a die hard fan, completely confused. Certainly I wasn't the only one who felt this way, given their track record in light of this shift in tone.
But I persisted.
I gave the album a chance, listening to a song or two, here and there. There were songs that immediately jumped out as solid and enjoyable - the single 'Overdue', with it's soft strumming and cooed melody, or the closer 'Hannah Hold On', which fit easily in their canon. 'Walking On A Wire' really struck me then, and has only grown more powerful as I've grown older, the mixed emotion and tone playing so strongly. Still, though - the album felt like it wasn't written to with my audience in mind. Years later I would get a better sense of why.
As I edge closer to 30, like the band that wrote the album, I appreciate the slowing down. I dig the songwriting on display and the experiments the band made. The Get Up Kids took a hell of a risk with On A Wire and while it may have hobbled their momentum, it was an inevitable and necessary step. They've never really gone back to the hurtling anthems of their glory days, but then who ever does? They've grown older and more insightful and the songs reflect that. There was a feeling I got, listening to this album as I left my entire life behind to leave home, that the band was writing to that idea. A huge chapter in my life had come to a close and the same had happened with the band. They were done being the emo-rockers they had been revered as, and simply moved on.
Truth be told, I didn't get it when it came out. I felt betrayed and let down, like a magical thing had vanished from the earth. What I found instead, was the band had hidden something in plain sight. On A Wire is actually a great album, I just wasn't ready for it yet.
I wrote yesterday about the mixed reaction I had (along with everyone else) about Bush's Razorblade Suitcase. It was an album I loved at the time, but of which I have since become skeptical. In contrast, today's post is about an album with which I was initially quite disappointed but have since warmed to greatly. The suspect in question? On A Wire by The Get Up Kids.
They outgrew them, it turned out. In turn I would as well.
While I scratched my head at the time, I understand now that band had simply gotten tired of playing the kind of music they did, night after night. Shows like that will drain the life out of you, even if you enjoy it, let alone being on the road non-stop. So the band took a step back and examined their perspective, beginning to write songs from a new creative place. The results were more measured, the kind of album you put on while cleaning your apartment, not while enduring the angst of teenage melodrama. Songs were softer. Their playing was more restrained. I was, as a die hard fan, completely confused. Certainly I wasn't the only one who felt this way, given their track record in light of this shift in tone.
But I persisted.
I gave the album a chance, listening to a song or two, here and there. There were songs that immediately jumped out as solid and enjoyable - the single 'Overdue', with it's soft strumming and cooed melody, or the closer 'Hannah Hold On', which fit easily in their canon. 'Walking On A Wire' really struck me then, and has only grown more powerful as I've grown older, the mixed emotion and tone playing so strongly. Still, though - the album felt like it wasn't written to with my audience in mind. Years later I would get a better sense of why.
Truth be told, I didn't get it when it came out. I felt betrayed and let down, like a magical thing had vanished from the earth. What I found instead, was the band had hidden something in plain sight. On A Wire is actually a great album, I just wasn't ready for it yet.
