I like one of their albums a lot. Nothing To Prove. I even got it on vinyl a few years ago. But it's also been a really long time since I've listened to it (like the Hazen Street album) so now I don't know what to think anymore...
I was really, like…. mad at NWAF for a long time haha. The mid 00s saw lot of their contemporaries either adapting and growing with their audiences, or falling by the wayside because they couldn’t keep up. It was tough to watch my favorite band backpedal on a sound that I saw as the start of their future after Coming Home, and took years for me to come around and admit that backpedal or not, they still had the spark. It may not be as strong front to back as the golden years, but it shared a lot of what made them so special. The melodies and guitar leads especially felt intentional and pored over in a way that’s pretty clearly absent from most of what they do these days. I feel the same about Radiosurgery tbh — it was an odd, sugary swing of them to take but at the backbone was some very strong songwriting Makes Me Sick reeled me back in for a minute, but unfortunately showcased a lot of what will probably keep me from ever really loving an NFG record again regardless of raw musical quality — really bad lyrics. Especially with years of added context, a lot of the shit on that record is yikes
Could you provide an example? I'm genuinely curious if I'm missing something terrible, lyrics-wise, from that album.
I wouldn’t say there are as many downright clunkers as Forever & Ever had (though “if a psycho said this was the end, I think I’d believe it” is quite the head scratcher), but there are plenty of gross ones — look over Your Jokes Aren’t Funny, Happy Being Miserable, The Sound Of Two Voices, and Say It Don’t Spray it with Hayley in mind
I've never listened to those songs through that lens, and I've never seen this take before now. The lyrics are pretty general/vague, but I guess I can see what you mean? Maybe I'm totally missing it though.
Those songs in particular are a collection of which Chad talks about how much younger than him she is, accuses her of luring him into a relationship to take advantage of his fame (lol), cheating on her and how he’s a serial cheater incapable of being better, and shames her for dealing with depression. Miserable and Voices are pretty indisputably about her (the former’s direct counterpart being Paramore’s “Rose Colored Boy”). The other two are likely to be about her as well using context, but even if they’re not, they’re likely about some woman out there and seem like not very chill things for full grown men to write about them
Hailey was literally in studio with them when they were recording Makes Me Sick and calling Happy Being Miserable one of their greatest songs….
This is what I was trying to figure out with the timeline…I recall seeing her post with them while recording and being stoked on the songs, as well, now that you mention it.
Don’t see how that would change a thing, in any case can we not?? Lol. Getting into this well treaded topic was obviously not the intention of that post
Lol you brought it up and when someone pointed out how incredibly unlikely your assertion the lyrics were about her was, given they were still together when the album was recorded, you respond with this. Cmon…
Them being “together” disproves nothing. Even if I played this game like I was wrong about the specific woman these songs are about, y’all are really trying to act like these aren’t childish, misogynistic lyrics by a guy who has a history of toxic patterns with women — not a great look. He’s literally still on about it on an album they put out today lmao So, not posting in here anymore, you can stop quoting me
I’m pretty sure the only one that has nothing to do with the writing of lyrics/music is Ian. He was on a blink fan podcast a few weeks ago and briefly discussed how he thought of an idea of a song based on how he was feeling at the time and called up Chad and they spoke on the phone for like 45 minutes and then Chad ended up writing I think it was either Stubborn or Persistent.
I think I also remember when Makes Me Sick came out Jordan had made a post on social media about how it was the most personal song he wrote.
Right or wrong I think that moving forward any song about a bad break up with a girl or a similar topic fans will automatically think it’s about Hayley much like how blink fans thought every song in the Skiba era was about Tom.
Listend to this today twice. Eh. NFG doing a purely acoustic album, and not a "stripped down" or "soft album" like coming home, is kinda boring. The songs sounds kinda samey. Any of one of those could be on a normal album and it would be fine but 7 some of these bad boys in a row is unnecessary. I'm seeing them next week on the acoustic tour and gotta be honest....I have low hopes. As silly as it sounds, their stage banter/comedy/story teller game better be top notch.
I feel like there's a lot of assumption that certain lyrics are autobiographical, about Hayley or both Obviously we know certain ones in Make the most of it are because they're very specific to Chad's situation. The Sound Of Two Voices is always cited as a song where "Chad admits he cheated!" because of the line "it put me in a stranger's bed, it hurt who I love the most" yet Chad himself has come out and said the song is about "I went to a show and the singer of a band was talking to their fans from stage and said, 'Hey, do what you want in life to make you happy,' and raised their beer. It struck a nerve with me because if someone in that crowd was a recovering alcoholic, then that's the last thing they would need to hear, because what they would want is to drink to be happy. But they might have destroyed their lives from it. The song is about thinking more and knowing that maybe what we think we want for ourselves isn't always what's best for ourselves. Being vulnerable to your weaknesses. Not being afraid to have limitations that are good for you" Say It Don't Spray It has never struck me as being about Hayley. More calling out a friend/ex friend, similar to Nothing To Say. It would seem odd to have a number of songs bad mouthing your soon to be ex wife, on the same album as songs such as Short and Sweet with the chorus being "I don't deserve someone as beautiful as you' and Blurred Vision with "you're the one love". Aso Heaven Sent.
I wonder if this "album cycle" will be on the shorter side given the nature of this type of record. Like if this one is sort of an "in-between" record.
I think the guys need to take a break. They've been pumping out material so consistently throughout their career and to me, this is 2 "ok/flops" in a row. Thats very unlike nfg. Their discography until makes me sick was next to perfect.