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Review: fun. – Some Nights

fun. - Some Nights
Craig Manning

I can still remember the moment when I realized that fun. were going to be ubiquitously, annoyingly, stratospherically huge. It was February 5, 2012 and I was sitting on a ratty faux-leather sofa in my college apartment, hanging out with my roommates and watching the Giants beat the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI. During one of the commercial breaks, I heard an already familiar (to me) wall of synths and tinkling pianos, and a soon to be inescapable (to everyone) chorus hook that loudly declared: “Tonight/We are young/So let’s set the world on fire/We can burn brighter/Than the sun.”

That 60-second TV spot, an ad for the 2012 Chevy Sonic, effectively launched this trio of pop-rock polyglots into outer space. “We Are Young” already had a little bit of buzz building behind it at that point, having featured prominently in an episode of Glee that aired in December 2011. But it was the Super Bowl placement that, to quote the song, set the world on fire. A week later, “We Are Young” topped the Billboard Hot Digital Songs chart. 16 days after the Super Bowl, fun. released Some Nights, their sophomore album, which contained “We Are Young” in the track-three slot. The album sold 70,000 copies in the first week and debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard charts, despite generally mixed critical reviews. By March 17, “We Are Young” was the No. 1 song in the United States – a status it maintained for six weeks.

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‘Encanto’ Still Tops Charts

Jason Tate

The Encanto soundtrack is still the number one album in the country:

The Encanto soundtrack stays firm at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart for a sixth nonconsecutive week on top. It is now tied with Adele’s 30 for the third-most weeks at No. 1 in the last five years. Only Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album (with 10) and Taylor Swift’s Folklore (eight) have tallied more weeks at No. 1 since January 2017.

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Liner Notes (February 19th, 2022)

Tree
Jason Tate

Well, well, well, we meet again.

This week’s newsletter details the music and entertainment I consumed over the past week and has some other random things scattered throughout. And, as always, there’s a playlist of ten songs I think you should check out.

This week’s supporter Q&A post can be found here.

If you’d like this newsletter delivered to your inbox each week (it’s free and available to everyone), you can sign up here.

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Review: The Menzingers – On the Impossible Past

On the Impossible Past
Brett Bodner

I’ll never forget the first time I heard On the Impossible Past. I had a copy from a friend who told me for months to check out The Menzingers and that this album would blow my mind. I was in my car getting ready to head to work, when I finally decided to fire up the record on my iPod. At the time I was 23, I was in my first year out of college, working a job I hated and was missing the great times I was having with friends months earlier. As I put the car in drive, the words “I’ve been having a horrible time, pulling myself together,” spilled out of my speakers and time stopped. “Good Things” immediately wowed me and all I could do was turn up volume up. 

On that drive to work, I never made it past “Burn After Writing.” I kept going back to “Good Things” and repeatedly listened to the opening two tracks bleed into each other. It wasn’t until my ride home where I discovered “The Obituaries” and what the rest of the album had to offer. Listening to On the Impossible Past in full for the first time was truly an out of body experience for me. The storytelling by singer/guitarist Greg Barnett and singer/guitarist Tom May swept me off to a different world that took place years ago; I was getting drunk in the back of a Lions Club, I was getting drunk with Casey before I did dishes and then I walked home single, seeing double. 

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