The Starting Line - Eternal Youth (September 26, 2025) • Page 11

Awesome song

 

for a good portion of my 20s I fell into a sort of acceptance of the commonly held belief that music is never going to be as special or hit as hard as I get older as it did when I was younger and that all my favorite albums are destined to just be the ones I grew up on. and yeah, a lot of my favorite albums are still albums I loved when I was younger, but at some point I also had a major shift in how I experience music over the past few years. so even albums I loved in my youth, I am sort of experiencing them differently now, and some albums have risen in my estimation and some have fallen. I am also a musician myself and I think the more knowledgeable about music and the more I improve in that regard, the more holistic appreciation I have for music in general. I am paying more attention to what each individual instrument is doing, how it makes me feel, what it might be trying to convey with what it is doing, actually making an effort to read along with lyrics as I listen (I have always been a music-first listener and lyrics have largely been less important to me), analyzing how maybe the lyrics might support what the music is doing, the production and mixing etc etc etc.

and all this to say I feel lucky because I find I actually just have a greater love for music than I ever have, and I am more open-minded to new things than I used to be. there are classic artists I love now that I never thought I would be able to get into when I was younger, and there are albums that have come out in the last 5-10 years that I would hold up as just as impactful to me (some even more so) as my old favorites.

idk, maybe for some or even most people it’s just inevitable, and I am younger than some of y’all at 32 so things could shift again for me, but I have a feeling there is an element to it where it’s a mindset thing, or like muscle you have to actively work out (and as we get older and busier in life that’s often increasingly harder to do). I think I had to change something in myself to be able to truly meet new music where it was at, rather than expecting it to just meet me where I am at, if that makes sense.

 

Yeah, and there's times where something gets to hit you in a new way. I'm sure you'll touch on that in your feature too, but the music you fall in love with with your future partner, that can play. New memories of life and experiences. And the oldmanyellsatclouds in me is just starting to get a little bummed by how fast culture/internet/whatever is making us make up our minds on things. Flops declared week one. Career defining or ruining albums declared by the Internet before I've even played something twice. Something lost when we can't just let things - exist - for a bit without needing to immediately decide where it stacks up in history. You see it with movie releases. Pop competition. It just makes me feel a little insane when I feel like I've just started taking something out for a test drive and everyone else has already either moved on, or decided that the thing I'm discovering sucks/or is the best. Sometimes it takes months of listening to something before I go, oh, that's it, that's the angle, that's what makes this special. Or things I really liked right away fade, I don't come back to them, I never feel the need or urge to reach for it. I don't want to play it around someone and expose them to it/have their opinion on it.

Part of it is that I also very much feel like "culture" has left me behind. Even if things I like are popular and I can still pick a hit off an album or a band, I feel like how everything is consumed in culture has moved at a rocket pace now. 30 second clips. Background music while scrolling TikTok. Quick takes on video putting a number to an album after three listens. I feel ... my age. Everything is decided and everyone is on to the next thing so fast. It makes me feel like I'm aging even faster, 6 "moments" have happened before a week is over and it feels like I've lived 6 months.

 

bring back ipods.
bring back CD binders.

those albums earned your love; you only had so many options.

Also, the disappointment of spending money on an album and not liking it is hard to describe to someone these days. Jimmy's Chicken Shack was the first one I remember and it's stayed with me. Loved the radio single and was like "wtf is the rest of this!"

 

I remember buying albums I didn't like and having to convince myself I liked it cause that's all I was listening to that month lol. Sometimes, that made me let things grow too. Now if I'm not into something, instant off.

I would say it's harder for music to hit me the same way because sonically I've heard the stuff I've loved and most things are just new combinations of it. Saying that, the excitement, passion for new music and new bands hasn't changed much even if it's slightly more rare. Some bands haven't kept with me and some have for whatever reason. But if a band came out that had the sound of SILYM or BOATS I would enjoy those bands.

If I'm being honest, a lot of the "mature sad" bands like The Wonder Years and Spanish Love Songs and of that ilk don't interest me much as I get older. I'd rather listen to youthful fun stuff. I'm so glad that their sound retains being "fun" so far.

Starting Line needed a better representative singles for BOATS. But all their albums don't need comparison. They're diverse enough where quality of songs isn't the comparison but taste is. And I think that's the sound of a band that cares about progression with each album. When we're bored I think we just compare, like we complain. So, my opinion is a nothingburger lol, but it's worth discussing.

 

Ha! Definitely had a similar reaction to Jimmie’s Chicken Shack.

 

Dude, if you're talking about Bring Your Own Stereo, you should give that album a shot again! haha. It's legit one of my favorites. "Silence Again" and a couple others are still on a bunch of playlists I make haha.

 

But my counter to that is I still find music I love and have carried with me in the same way. Turnstile's Glow On quite literally re-sparked a love of music in me like I was 15. I adore One More Time... in a very similar way as I do early Blink albums, they define my old-ass. I just kinda let it sit in a different place. It's me, again, new, different.

I can't put even 100 plays of an album up to the ones I've been playing for years; they just need a patina before I'll know. I need the time. The life experiences. And I feel so much pressure everywhere on everything to decide faster. To have an opinion immediately. To praise or dismiss. To rank, score, and put it on the shelf forever decided upon. It's a bad Taylor Swift album. No one cared about that album so it's not good. The slower album ruined the band so I never gave it a chance and now only post under the artist's instagram account snarky comments.

I have just this aversion to it all that's starting to spike.

I mentioned that to someone that asked me to review an album recently and I flat out had to tell them they had to get it to me earlier because I need so much time with something before I can even start to think about how to review it. How to find an angle. I can't get there with a week lead time and have it be good or up to my standards.

 

"Do Right" is good. The rest of that album is Jimmie's Chicken Doo Doo.

Getting that album the same Christmas as Cheshire Cat and Killing Time did it no favors.

 

When an artist I adore releases a new album, I remind myself it doesn't have to top the last album, or my favorite from them. I just have to enjoy it. It sounds a bit silly/stupid, but just keeping that perspective allows me to enjoy so much more music. Not sure that really is the same as the current conversation, but thought I'd throw in my two cents, lol.

 

I came here to talk about the new song from The Starting Line only to see one of my most beloved albums from the late 90s catching strays smh

 

I'm so mad it's never been put on vinyl. I'd snatch it up so quick.

 

Do Right is like, the 8th best song on that album

 

Song rips, love the keys in the chorus.

 

What I'm finding as I move deeper into the series is that the essays are longer, because my relationships with the songs is just more complex. It's not just "this was the first song that made my heart race," or "this was the song I listened to the first time I got my heart broken." With these later ones, I'm reckoning with death and loss and grief, or the complete collapse of our modern world, or the twists and turns my life has taken that I never expected. Music fits incredibly profoundly into all those things for me, but it's less of a straight emotional line than "teen angst song that reminds me of growing up."

One thing I've liked about this project (combined with largely not being on social media anymore) is that I've totally been going at my own pace with music listening this year. Do I want to spend the day listening to that old Bon Iver album on repeat because I'm writing about it? Great! Do I need to wait a week or two after release to catch up with an album? Fine! I feel like I've mostly tapped out of the "take cycle," and that's been honestly such a relief.

(Also, it's funny to me, considering how quickly people seem to move on these days, that the Hot 100 is more stagnant than it has been at any other point in my life. What the fuck is happening with the charts?!)

 

This is the way.

 

I thought I'd miss Twitter more, and like, I probably would have been able to get wider reach/engagement with this series if that platform were still functional/not a cesspool of human garbage. But man, not being on Twitter has saved me so much time, so much stress, and so much irritation at people's stupid ass music takes.

 

Just get yourself something that repeats "industry plant" "nepo baby" "jack antonoff" and a half dozen other buzz words on repeat and you'll have the same experience.

 

…. boredom?

 

Lol, the endless Jack Antonoff hate was so funny, especially because it was almost always from pop stans who would then inevitably turn around and praise something he'd produced for a different artist.

 

I don't understand the question.

 

I joked in the Hailey Williams thread that the right move was to not announce he produced it until everyone is on record as having loved the song/album/music. The 'ol run around. Get them on record!

 

Also throw in, "this is trash", "this is fire", and "song slaps". With or without the emojis. And then, "so and so or such and such is goated". It's always the same recycled garbage.

 

My bad lol

Was jokingly answering boredom as an answer to your question why we are so quick to rank things here haha

 

wow this new song is so good. like replay it 3x in a row good.