yup, and Didn’t See That Coming too. most of their b-sides rule, but the NA-era ones have a special place in my heart
I like the covers on New Again and Louder Now. Happiness Is would be fine but it bothers me how their name isn’t aligned with the H in Happiness. It’s just slightly off too lol the rest are pretty meh
I like El Paso more but if this demo was reworked a little more - it could have been a great second track for the record.
Boggles my mind why they they didnt put Mackey Sasser and You Should Have Waited on the album. Even Morning Sickness is 10x better than what became of You Got Me. Could've made self titled a solid album instead of their worst one.
i love “you got me” so much lol i think the demos need work but several of them are amazing yes. “you were right” is the one i think is better than most of the album
Mackey Sasser is so good and would have been a great replacement for Faith, which definitely a bottom tier TBS song. You Were Right is so good it’s mind blowing some of the tracks that made it instead. Morning Sickness could use a little work, but it’s great as well. You Should have Waited is a little over rated. It’s fine, but I’m okay with it living as a B-side. The original live version sounded a little more interesting to me.
Much like the other b-sides, it deserved its place in the main album. I always got Incubus vibes from the guitar parts.
Long Time Comin', Winter Passing, and Didn't See That Coming would have made New Again a much better album. It's insane how this is the case with all their albums since Louder Now (except Tidal Wave, which doesn't appear to have any b-sides).
Listening to New Again for the first time in a while. Swing is still a top-tier TBS song. Where My Mouth Is is a much better song than I recall.
I especially love that Macky Sasser seems to be, at least the way I'm interpreting it, about them/their relationship/the break up of the original band/etc and how they handled it.
Man, the decision to not feature Fazzi as much on this record was such a terrible and mind-boggling decision. When he makes a vocal appearance it's often the highlight of the song. Adam's vocals are sometimes just so rough and strained that I can't believe they didn't try a different take, tuning everything down a half step, or having Fazzi take a line or two. Adam sounds great when he's singing lower (like Where My Mouth Is) or really aggressively (Lonely, Lonely or Carpathia). But then there are parts like the verses of Sink Into Me or all of Cut Me Up Jenny where it's head-scratching.
And a lot of the times he did sing, his mic volume is turned down in the mix so it's more "background vocals" instead of "dual vocals", which annoys the F out of me. His parts in "Swing" need to be turned up a lot.
The best version of New Again probably looks like this: New Again Lonely, Lonely Winter Passing Summer, Man Swing Where My Mouth Is Long Time Comin' Didn't See That Coming Carpathia Everything Must Go Not 100% on that sequencing, but that's a solid collection of songs. Sink Into Me is fun but it doesn't click with me like it used to. Capital M-E does nothing for me and while I really like the bridge of Catholic Knees, overall it's not that strong of a song.