This week we mention what we’ve been listening to lately, we review The Young Veins album, Take A Vacation!, and discuss cross-media pollination between books and music.
Next week’s album review:
The Circle in the Square by Flobots
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Jon’s drawings still make me giggle. Thank you for having me on!
Thank you for joining us! It was a blast.
Really enjoyed hearing other people’s opinions on this album. Actually had the pleasure of seeing The Young Veins live, and they put on a pretty cool show. It is a great collection of retro sounding tunes. My three favorites in order is probably Young Veins (Die Tonight), Cape Town, and Dangerous Blues. It totally captures the era in terms of sound. I like the unproduced sounding music on tracks and felt that it added to the authenticity of the Music that they were styled after. If you really want to see the importance of this, look at the band Best Coast and the difference in the vocals between the two albums.
My biggest flaw of the album is that it’s not quite a risky album. It feels a little safe in spots. Take a Vacation is a good piece of music but doesn’t strike me lyrically as much as Change or Cape Town does. Also it doesn’t quite innovate the genre as much as Panic! At the Disco’s album Pretty. Odd. did. That album is the split point of the band but what it did so well is that it took 60s and 70s sounds music and made it feel modern. It even took a turn and had a Bluegrass sound (Folkin’ Around) that added to the diversity of the album. And there isn’t anything wrong with Take a Vacation and it’s desire to emulate that early 60s sound. I just wish that there was more of an attempt to really make it new. Some tracks like Young Veins and Defiance do this well but other fall short.
Hey thanks a bunch for the comments! Great insight, and it certainly supports Jon’s point in the podcast—he should be so pleased. And I’m definitely gonna have to look further into Panic’s “Pretty. Odd” to see those 60s/70s sounds you describe. I had never associated the group with that particular sound, even when I saw them in concert (which is why I was so shocked by The Young Veins’ work.) But if it’s the split-point, as you say, that could explain a lot. All in all, I completely agree that The Young Veins “fell short” of making it sound new, but indeed I think that was the point, which is what made it so tough for all of us to rate…. (Though I’d still promote the opening track, “Change,” as one of the edgiest tracks, musically-speaking.) Anyway, we’ll get into our respective rating systems in the coming week, which should be fun, and calamitous! Glad you enjoyed!