I realized I didn't like Everything Must Go as much as I thought I used to because now the first hting that pops into my head when I hear that title is Andrew McMahon's song
They’ll very rarely play Everything Must Go, and they played Catholic Knees on a 2013 tour. I think that’s it.
I must have been asleep when New Again was released. I've been aware and anticipated every other release. I remember sitting in my living room when I saw it was available to download it (may have even been a leak?). I remember being completely surprised. And then underwhelmed. But still surprised.
To me Carpathia has a certain nostalgia value to it cos I'm sure they were on one of their "new singer, new direction", "no more dual vocals!" interview runs or whatever after Fred left (I might be completely misremember but still haha) and it was the first song they put out for New Again and I was so pleased that it still had the classic elements and back forth singing etc.
I'm super glad I got to see them tour on New Again when it came out, never would have guessed that'd be the last time they'd play any of it lol. I've lucked out and seen them with all of their line ups from Louder Now-on
If I was TBS, I too would skip playing anything from New Again. I want my audience to have fun, not be bored.
New again, sink into me, carpathia, and everything must go are all fantastic, but the rest of that album is a bit of a snooze, for sure.
I think a fair amount of New Again tracks could be fun live. I'd like to see the band give some of them another go because Adam's performing throughout the NA era really was abysmal.
I completely stopped caring about them during the NA era. I was late to a TBS, Weezer, Blink show and didn't care that I totally missed TBS
I went to 3 stops on that tour and missed TBS every single time Then I saw them at Mohegan the following year with All American Rejects, but I drank way too much and blacked out the whole show. The universe did not want me to experience the New Again cycle.
"sink into me" still rules. NS is not my fav by them but i can still put on the whole album and enjoy. to each their own!
New Again era was the only album cycle I never saw them tour. Like others, was supposed to see them open for Weezer and Blink but my show got postponed and the rescheduled date was AAR and FOB.
Forever bummed I didn’t get to see EMG live, and when the record first came out that was the only song I loved. Today I’d rank it like: EMG Swing Sink Into Me New Again Cut Me Up Jenny Lonely, Lonely Summer, Man Where My Mouth Is Carpathia Capital M-E Catholic Knees I might swap Jenny and lonely sometimes but I think few albums break into rankings as well as this one does, I’m pretty consistent with it.
According to John they got together a week before the pandemic hit and started writing stuff, but then it got put on hold and stuff. It was just them writing together. No producer or engineer.
It always bums me out massively when bands listen too much to their worst fans. AP bitched and moaned about New Again, so they don't play it. AP ignored Cocoon by Meg and Dia, so they left it out of the reunion setlists entirely. Everyone shit on A City by the Light Divided, so Thursday circled the wagons and made a really safe, meh record. The downside to having such a direct line to your audience.
A shame, New Again and Cocoon are both great albums. I feel a similar way about Armor for Sleep's Smile for Them. Not the greatest record, but it has a few amazing songs on there but they act like that album doesn't exist because of the bad reception.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to rain in anyone’s parade here. I wish I liked it. I do like that punchy guitar that’s going on in the verse at the very least. I think one of the fun things about TBS is the huge range of opinions on their discography.
They're such a weird band anyway. It seems like Ben has zero passion for music at all. Like he stopped having ideas for music so they just stopped and he's totally cool with it.