Month: July 2020

Back to 2012 (Re-Ranking the Best of Lists)

Back to ...
Jason Tate

2012, only eight years ago, but it feels so much further away. It was the year the world was supposed to end, and yet the current state of things feels far more apocalyptic than almost anything from 2012.

Looking at the AbsolutePunk list from this year throws me in two different directions. First, it’s a year with a lot of really great rock albums. From The Menzingers, The Gaslight Anthem, Japandroids, Every Time I Die, and many others. And second, it’s the year of Fun.’s Some Nights. For whatever reason, I forgot that all of this was happening at the same time. In my head, I never associated The Gaslight Anthem’s Handwritten happening while Fun. was blowing up across the country. It’s weird how time can play tricks on your brain like that.

At a high level, this staff complied list feels pretty representative of where the music scene was in 2012 and where we, as a publication, were starting to try and branch out a little more with our musical tastes. You see Taylor Swift’s Red on this list, an album that would do very well in our best of the decade list. And you also will find Frank Ocean and Kendrick Lamar making appearances.1 And then it’s also a year where a lot of heavier music and scene staples were putting out releases. Every Time I Die released Ex Lives, Code Orange Kids released Love is Love / Return to Dust, and Yellowcard put out Southern Air next to Anberlin’s Vital. Whereas last week had me coming to the realization that a lot of the albums in 2011 were great albums that often ended up becoming my least favorite of the bands’ respective catalog, looking at my list from this year is virtually the opposite. This is the year of albums that would, in time, make a run as being my favorite release from some of the bands that feature. It’s my favorite Japandroids record, I think I’ve come to conclude it’s my favorite Yellowcard record, it’s my favorite Every Time I Die record, it’s my favorite All-American Rejects record, and mewithoutYou, Now, Now, Stars, and The Menzingers all make a case as well. I don’t think it’s my favorite The Gaslight Anthem record, but there are times where I think it’s the best Gaslight Anthem record. When I think about the run The Gaslight Anthem had, and include Brian’s work with The Horrible Crowes, it feels like everything was leading to that record. And along with with Fun.’s Some Nights, it is probably what I most associate the year with in my head.

Read More “Back to 2012 (Re-Ranking the Best of Lists)”

  1. And it was the year of that one Mackelmore album everyone kind of liked for a while.↩

Interview: Tom Mullen

Tom Mullen
Adam Grundy

This past week, I was able to have an enlightening conversation with Tom Mullen (of the Washed Up Emo podcast) ahead of him releasing the next Anthology of Emo book. In this interview, Tom and I chatted about what the word “emo” means to him today, the process he goes through for preparing for an interview or podcast, and vivid memories Tom has of experiencing emo culture. As much as I know about emo and punk music, Tom Mullen puts my knowledge to shame with his expansive understanding and first-hand experience of the scene, and I learned a great deal from just a short conversation with him.

The first volume of Anthology of Emo was wildly successful and it sold out its initial run of physical copies. Volume Two features exclusive interviews from his Washed Up Emo podcasts with artists such as Jim Adkins from Jimmy Eat World and Chris Conley from Saves the Day, among many others. Both Volume One (reprinted) and Volume Two are available for pre-order here.

Read More “Tom Mullen”

Drew Beringer’s AbsolutePunk.net Reviews

AbsolutePunk.net
Drew Beringer

Hey remember AbsolutePunk.net? Once upon a time I used to write a lot of reviews. Hard to believe, I know. Jokes aside, Twitter and Jason’s “Re-Ranking The Decades” series dialed up the nostalgic side of me. I wanted to see if I still had some of the reviews I’d written over the past decade or so. Turns out, my iCloud Drive has a lot. Now I won’t be re-publishing every thing I’ve ever written (some of these documents deserve to stay buried in the depths of my hard drive), but I wanted to share the reviews that brought about a ton of lively discussion and debate on the records that defined that site and a lot of our musical interests. Cool? Cool. Now to see if I can bring back scene points….

Read More “Drew Beringer’s AbsolutePunk.net Reviews”

Dave Grohl Pens Essay in Defense of Teachers

Foo Fighters
Jason Tate

Dave Grohl, writing at The Atlantic:

Every teacher has a “plan.” Don’t they deserve one too? My mother had to come up with three separate lesson plans every single day (public speaking, AP English, and English 10), because that’s what teachers do: They provide you with the necessary tools to survive. Who is providing them with a set of their own? America’s teachers are caught in a trap, set by indecisive and conflicting sectors of failed leadership that have never been in their position and can’t possibly relate to the unique challenges they face. I wouldn’t trust the U.S. secretary of percussion to tell me how to play “Smells Like Teen Spirit” if they had never sat behind a drum set, so why should any teacher trust Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to tell them how to teach, without her ever having sat at the head of a class? (Maybe she should switch to the drums.) Until you have spent countless days in a classroom devoting your time and energy to becoming that lifelong mentor to generations of otherwise disengaged students, you must listen to those who have. Teachers want to teach, not die, and we should support and protect them like the national treasures that they are. For without them, where would we be?