New Found Glory Band • Page 147

Steve Evetts

 

Forever II

 

oh god, worst produced NFG album to date

 

Steve Evetts is a very good producer that has produced some of the best pop punk albums of all time. The songs sucking on that album weren’t his fault.

 

Do you know if he’s a hands on, shape the songs type of producer?

 

Given how much it looks like we’re demoed before hand last time, it seems like very little. The songs that were good from that last album were just good songs (deluxe, puzzles), but the songs that sucked just weren’t well written.

 

Re-listening to Puzzles right now and puzzled (ha) how this didn’t make the original album. This could’ve been a damn single!

 

Would love a whole album of Will Pugh-produced songs

 

It’s wild to me they didn’t let him do the album after the cover album. I never got the full answer for why that happened. But, man, they shoulda trusted him with it imo. Still unsure anyone can make a song like “shook by your shaved head” work though, so many of those were doa imo.

 

I don’t doubt his bonafides but Forever was the first album he produced for them and those terrible lyrics got past him, so what did the band have him there for? I compare the lyrical content from Makes Me Sick with Sprinkle producing to Forever and its night and day. But who knows, maybe they don’t employ producers for help with lyrics, just the music.

 

I don’t think there’s all that great lyrics on ‘Makes Me Sick,’ so I think we’re gonna disagree on a lot. But I think Aaron Sprinkle is a very good songwriter and is able to enhance songs in very specifically him ways. He may literally do the best background harmonies in the genre. I also don’t think most producers have a lot of hands on lyrical direction with a band of this age and history unless they’re going to end up getting a co-writing credit, which I don’t think this band is all that interested in at this stage of their careers. To blame the producer for the lyrics seems misplaced anger. (He produced the last Wonder Years album and I’m not going to give him credit for Soupy’s good lyrics either.)

Saves the Day, Lifetime, The Cure, Every Time I Die, Allister, Home Grown, Bodyjar … the dude’s catalog is nuts. But the songs on those albums are good! That’s the big difference. If you wanna blame him for not telling the band to re-write songs or something, I guess you could, but with the budget they probably have these days, I don’t think they’re getting the same “sit in the studio for weeks on end and write and re-write with a producer” style that would lend it self to a producer saying that. I dunno, I think the album *sounds* just fine. The songs just aren’t good on the main album, and somehow are awesome on the deluxe version. (Which he also did.)

 

I think Will did the deluxe, no?

 

Yeah all good points. Can’t say I disagree, actually haha. I appreciate the thoughts. I like the sincerity of the lyrics on Makes Me Sick, though I will say.

 

He has it on his website: Steve Evetts, Record Producer

As far as I know Will just did From the Screen to Your Stereo 3 and I think some vocal engineering on the that album and the deluxe, maybe? I dunno for sure.

 

Spotify credits have Will as the producer. Weird.

 

I also remember Will being credited as producing the deluxe Forever songs…can’t cite a source though.

 

What I see on All Music:





Either way, ha, I don't blame the producer for that album being bad. I blame the songs.

 

My uneducated theory: Chad was going for this vibe on the songs where you are in a new relationship and it’s all sunshine and lollipops. You send cheesy texts, post pics with cringey captions etc. The lyrics may have been bad, I’m thinking (hoping?) Chad didn’t realize how over the top they’d be, but I think that was what they were trying to go for. Even the album art reflects this young, youthful love theme.

I liked Stay Awhile, Like I Never Existed and The Way You Deserve.

it’s too bad the lyrics were not great because Birthday Song has a really cool riff but is almost unlistenable because of lyrics. Trophy was catchy but the chorus makes me feel embarrassed.

like I said a few posts ago, the deluxe and acoustic albums were much better. Hoping that means they got the memo re: lyrics.

 

I can get past cheesy lyrics in pop punk, but that album was so full of awkward vocal melodies that very little of the songs worked for me.

 

If the whole thing is grouped as one album, yeah. But at least on Spotify, the deluxe songs are grouped as their own EP and have Will as the sole producer.

 

I've kind of blurred their last few albums together. Was this the one where the lyrics had WAY too many words per line?

 

YUP

 

Threw Makes Me Sick on and damn I love this album.

 

That’s exactly it. The vocal melodies routinely felt like they tried to cram as many possible words into as short of space as possible. Some very strange choices lol

 

Yep. And the lyrics are uncomfortably literal.