Taking Back Sunday Band • Page 547

TAYF
WYWTB
Self titled
Happiness Is
Louder now
—
Tidal wave
—
—
152

(listened to new again once when it came out and have never revisited it)

self titled is pretty much perfect, happiness is is good but has endured less to me over time, louder now has always been overrated (although with some bangers), tidal wave is mostly a skip, 152 is awful and the most boring thing they’ve ever done

 

el oh el

 

So you've chosen violence.

 

Loving self-titled and hating 152 is truly, as the kids say, “cursed.”

 

You can call 152 a lot of things but “boring” cannot be one of them.

 

Self-titled is just Louder Now with the same shitty EV production but worse guitar playing.

 

and WAY worse songs

 

Eric Valentine is not a shitty producer, I stand my ground.

 

Eric Valentine is a legend. The shade on him in this thread – almost solely this thread – is baffling.

 

watching the 3 hour long video of him and Stephen going through "Semi Charmed Life" was sooo cool and interesting. Eric shares all of his knowledge and tips and everything.

 

Only thing i can shit on Valentine for are his drum tones being absolutely dreadful on those TBS albums... but that argument is as old as New Again being their best album, so is that where we are on this thread again?

 

I also don’t like Eric Valentine’s bass production and some of the guitar tones he uses aren’t great either. Case in point- the opening guitar melody on “Sad Savior” is decent part that sounds terrible imo.

 

Valentine has produced some really great records. Third Eye Blind and Songs for the Deaf are two all time albums for me that sound great. But I don’t think his approach worked for TBS. I’m not as critical of how they sound (the drums and the bigger arena tones of the guitars don’t bother me on LN or S/T), it’s more that damn near every demo that came out from those sessions sounds more interesting and more authentic to the band than what ended up on the records themselves.

 

This "New Again is their best album" is some sort of meme / inside joke right? No one actually believes that, right?

 

I'm quite the TBS stan, but Best Places is probably the only song from Self-Titled that I'd include on a Taking Back Sunday Essentials playlist. It's way overshadowed by everything before and after and I just look at it as a rebuilding album.

Also, First of the Century came up on shuffle the other day and wow do I miss Straylight Run and hearing John sing like that.

 

Lenny’s back?

Lenny, when we getting the Fred announcement?

 

No, i genuinely love that album to pieces for personal reasons despite its flaws hah

 

Right???

 

I don’t think it’s their best album, but I do really like it. If I had to rank their albums, solely based off what I reach for the most right now, it’s probably:

152
Where You Want To Be
Live at Orensanz
New Again
Happiness Is
Louder Now
Tell All Your Friends
Tidal Wave
Self Titled

I’m probably playing 152 so much because it’s fairly new, but I really do love that record. I’m pretty confident that WYWTB is my favorite TBS record though.

another take: “little devotional” is probably my all-time favorite song from them.

 

I don't know!

 

I've been a little out of the loop the last couple months (new dad! yay!) and haven't really heard much. But I saw that TBS and Say Anything are playing a show together. I wonder if Fred will perform double duty or if he's still quitting Say Anything to play with TBS as was originally the plan.

Or maybe the whole TBS thing fell apart and I'll come off like a big fat liar to all you people in which case I will be too embarrassed to ever show my face here again

 

I find it awesome that there is no "official consensus" while ranking TBS albums, all rankings are really different. With other bands they may be little differences but almost always people agree in their top 3 or 4 albums, or their worst albums.
For me it would be something like this:

WYWTB
152
TAYF (probably because of nostalgia)
Tidal Wave
Louder Now
Happiness Is
Self Titled
New Again

 

Little Devotional is one of their best songs, and I’ll never understand why they never played it before the 20th anniversary tour and why they haven’t played it since.

 

Congrats on becoming a new dad!