Say Anything ...Is Committed (May 24th, 2024) • Page 30

the production quality alone makes the “it’d be good without the lyrics” point moot to me. it’s barely listenable as is. really dk what the fuck is going on because I know brad wood albums tend to sound good.

 

It's weird because the production sounds fine to my untrained ear on the first few singles that were released (like Are You In There), but then the rest of this album sounds like someone just left an iPhone in the room to record them

 

maybe the label asked for a new mix on the singles lol

 

I wonder what the reception of this is like for people who either don't care/are unaware of all the bullshit surrounding Max

But yeah like the songs themselves are not good hahaha, just wondering what other SA fans who are more forgiving think of this

 

What song? (I don't really remember OA either)

 

I think this record sounds worse than IDTII because it’s trying to sound more like s/t, yet instead of sounding clean and polished, it’s just a muddy, fuzzy mess. IDTII was trying to sound rough and the songs were written around it, this one was written for good production but sounds like dogshit.

 

This too. Psyche! and Are You (In) There don’t sound too bad, Carrie sounds alright for the most part, but outside of the three singles that have been out for a year-ish now, everything else sounds dramatically worse.

 

Yep I agree I remember I don’t think it is sounding ugly but I also remember it being the point and advertised as such, this album is clearly going for an IARB part two in terms of feeling (the first song is the kind of big sweeping declarative statement you’d expect from an album like that) but the production doesn’t even come close to matching that energy. The mishmash is what made it so hard to listen to when I gave it a shot. I’m gonna try and listen to the rest soon here since I haven’t smoked yet today so maybe I won’t freak out after being forced to think about the waning mortality of max bemis and in turn my own fleeting grasp on life

 

Fired Today makes me irrationally angry

 

worst case if you can’t make it through the whole thing, you’re not missing anything important.

 

I know I just hate talking shit about an album I haven’t even listened to fully lol I don’t really go around talking about albums I don’t like beyond a quick “I don’t like this” but you know this is like uniquely terrible in a way you don’t see too terribly often when it comes to bands I actually used to enjoy a lot

 

I saw a conversation on a PlayStation group on Facebook about new music releases, and they agreed that “Say Anything’s new album is a great return to the old sound,” or something to that effect.

That’s pretty far outside of the regular circle, I’d say.

 

The end of “Woman Song” with Max and Sherri chatting was kinda cute. I expected it to be a mess, but it was funny.

 

I just finished listening to the album. It’s not my least favorite Say Anything album. It’s far from my favorite.

The over-sharing and obscure reference heavy lyrics are the biggest cons for me.

 

This is by far their worst.

Max is off the rails

 

Medium take: He's always been off the rails. I think some of my reaction to this record is more of a symptom of myself being older and more mature than I was when IARB came out. After all, Say Anything's first single is about his grandparents fucking in a concentration camp.

In other words, if I heard Alive with the Glory of Love for the first time as a 42 year old I'm not convinced I'd like it like I did when I was 22.

Bemis' fans have been asking him to write another IARB for 20 years. Maybe that's what he did? IARB is very much an album about Bemis' experience with mental illness. And we lapped it up and wanted him to do it again and again and again. His illness was our entertainment. The mentally ill 20 year old that released IARB is now a mentally ill 40 year old with a bunch of kids getting CPS called on him.

Emo Kanye indeed.

 

This is about where I land with this. People loved the background of IARB being that Max was manic and out of control. It was always problematic. This just seems to be another chapter in that same book, one that has gradually grown darker over time, and here is a particularly disturbing instance in which he sells-out not only his own mental health, but his family too, for the sake of his art.

 

You said it better than I did. Agree 100%.

 

Watching the justifications are funny. 2004 Max was a guy that had a manic episode. He was a Jewish Summer Camp dude who was considered a musical prodigy before IARB. Not a guy with some weird CPS stuff on his kids, ripping off his fans, not knowing the words to his own songs sometimes...etc. These albums are not comparable. I follow that maybe he feels the pressure of his mania being a part of his success to drive his music, but sadly he's wrong.

 

I’d push back against the “He always manic” stuff. He wasn’t. For the most part, he seemed to maintain his impulses and mental health and seemed fairly clear-headed during S/T, Anarchy and Hebrews. He looked back on IARB and was pretty clear that was a very dark, hard time for him that he didn’t want to repeat. But you could see the wheels coming off around IDTII and Oliver.

 

If memory serves he was institutionalized around the time IARB was released. He didn’t have CPS stuff with his kids because he didn’t have kids, he didn’t rip off his fans because he didn’t have fans. But he *was* sick. That sickness was the foundation of one of the greatest emo records of all time which had him hailed as the voice of a generation at 20 years old. Not exactly the building blocks of living a healthy life while managing a mental illness.

All anyone has wanted from Bemis since is to capture the magic of IARB. But the magic for us was a struggle for him, and now here we are.

 

There’s no need to push back, it’s objectively true. He was institutionalized and everything.

You’re right, he seemed to be doing well through Anarchy and Hebrews (idk about S/T). Which sort of proves my point as these albums were largely maligned.

 

No one means he was always manic, per se. It’s just he was during IARB and has been trying to recreate the hype of that album for most of his career. He is outspoken about being creatively stunted by his medication / wellness, and a lot of the art he’s created over the years has centered specifically around that struggle — in being healthy with a happy family vs being manic and a creatively energized frontman. This is just a tipping point in that exact narrative.

 

Sorry, I meant to say push against the “He’s always been off the rails.” I don’t think that’s true. But I do agree that there was a weirdo contingent of fans that prayed for another manic episode so they could get another IARB.

 

I was just using short-hand based on the comment above mine.

I’m not Bemis’ doctor so I don’t know what he was diagnosed with and when or how it was treated. But from the time IARB was released the fact that he was struggling with some kind of mental illness was a centerpiece of his art.