At the risk of stirring shit up.....I just HAVE to comment on the last page: Are y'all really gonna pretend you think "trying too hard" = "trying hard", act like that criticism is intrinsically ridiculous, and then call THAT dude condescending when he explains his case? Come on. You know what trying too hard means. Just because he's criticizing your (our) favorite band and you disagree doesn't mean you have to act so aloof as to what that sentiment means.
Even by his definition it's a silly criticism. Has nothing to do that its about our favorite band. I think when any artist is criticized for being "try hardy" or whatever is just a pretty weak criticism.
it is kind of a ridiculous criticism. i do think @vidiviciveni was a bit condescending to @KennedyBN but as stated above it was a big misunderstanding so thats no biggie. I just dont understand the trying too hard criticism. It makes no sense. I understand trying something and failing at it, but trying too hard is a weird critique. It implies that them giving everything they have into an album is a bad thing.
So as someone who claims these guys as probably my favorite band and who has been listening and loving their music since Bleed American came out.... I'm ashamed to admit that I somehow missed Stay On My Side Tonight and then never put it into rotation. I just listened for my first time and well..... It's unsurprisingly excellent!
I get it with how it applies to him. But I don't think the same criticism works for an album. Like Leto comes across as inauthentic like he is "trying really hard" to be cool or something. I don't think that same thing can really be applied to an album. Sure a bands personality maybe... But not the music itself.
I don't agree with it in this scenario at all, but I do see how the criticism can be valid in some situations. Ken and I had a conversation about this on Twitter a few weeks ago and decided that Leto was the epitome of "trying too hard."
I don't mean trying too hard as in giving too much effort, but in the sense that, to my ears, their sound became a bit forced. Which as someone else mentioned in this thread can come off as inauthentic, and to me it did. You could almost predict what Chase This Light would sound like before it came out: big crunchy opening track, a few pretty mid tempo numbers scattered between some more uptempo bits before an epic sprawling closing track. And of course I'm overanalyzing here - these are all things I love about Jimmy Eat World songs. It just felt more and more like deja vu with each album - still churned out great songs but I felt less impact from them personally. Which is why I feel like a deviation like Here It Goes works so well for this band, when they experiment they usually knock it out of the park. See below for example. Their 3 song run of Disintegration, Over and Closer is to my ears the best they've done. Haven't matched those sort of dynamics in their music since.
Let's make a chart of what "trying hard" means and then which albums are trying to be which albums. Then we can finally have some clarity.
I do wonder if JEW would ever push the envelope a bit with a harder sound or if that would just be a disaster. I think it would be rad.
Nah, a band that is trying too hard is a band that's forcing something that isn't authentic to their sensibilities. I do think it's a ridiculous criticism of Jimmy Eat World in this scenario, but it isn't a ridiculous criticism in and of itself. If you really didn't understand what he was saying that's my bad, I just took it as people intentionally misconstruing a statement out of die-hard JEW fandom.
I don't know what this means. Yeah, albums often have both some mid tempo songs and some more upbeat ones. Why is this a criticism?