Joe runs through every album on his iPod, mostly in alphabetical order, and offers some brief thoughts. Check out previous columns HERE.
As I indicated in my New Year's Resolutions, I was going to try to delete some music this year. And I have been doing it; it's probably the only resolution I've actually kept so far. American Football was on my list of possible cuts, but I said fuck it and gave it one more shot. I'm happy to report that American Football is not bad enough to be deleted from my iPod.
In fact, it's pretty good, after a few listens! I guess I've never really connected with this album. Maybe I never gave it its proper due.
Labeled as "emo math rock," the time signatures aren't that complicated, but they do definitely go beyond 4/4 sometimes. The emo part is spot on, though. The lyrics read like some bad poetry I would write in high school. "The long-awaited kiss / how does it feel / to know / we've rewritten history." Hmm.
Some of it gets exciting, lyrics be damned. The busy drums pick things up significantly on "I'll See You When We're Both Not So Emotional," and the opener "Never Meant" starts things off strong. Otherwise, you can bank on not getting too hyped up over any of the songs. This is a tranquilizer album, not a stimulant album.
I feel like I'm talking too much about the negatives of American Football, when the truth is, I can find use for this mellow, contemplative record. This is driving-home-after-a-party music. This is sun-coming-over-the-horizon-at-the-ocean's-edge music. This is... well that's probably it. But it does have purpose and I do find myself sucked into the music and relaxing more and more each song.
American Football is labeled as a "cult status" record. The album was recorded and released in 1999 to limited fanfare. So limited, in fact, that the band broke up. But over time, more and more people fell in love with the thing. By the time it was reissued in 2014, the album landed at 68 on the Billboard 200. Not too shabby for a sad, interesting little emo record.
I wonder if the album would have been as beloved if it was just the first in a long string of similar American Football albums, or if this was a matter of less-is-more. Indeed, American Football released a second album seventeen years later, also called American Football. The 2016 album was reviewed pretty well, by the looks of it, but does anyone really remember it? And doesn't it tarnish the legend of the original album just a little bit?
Speaking as a guy who isn't over the moon about the original American Football, I don't really have the right to say one way or the other.
All I can say is I appreciate American Football for what it is (tricky, somber, relaxing), and so it stays on my iPod for the next time the mood strikes.
American Football
American Football
1999
As I indicated in my New Year's Resolutions, I was going to try to delete some music this year. And I have been doing it; it's probably the only resolution I've actually kept so far. American Football was on my list of possible cuts, but I said fuck it and gave it one more shot. I'm happy to report that American Football is not bad enough to be deleted from my iPod.
In fact, it's pretty good, after a few listens! I guess I've never really connected with this album. Maybe I never gave it its proper due.
Labeled as "emo math rock," the time signatures aren't that complicated, but they do definitely go beyond 4/4 sometimes. The emo part is spot on, though. The lyrics read like some bad poetry I would write in high school. "The long-awaited kiss / how does it feel / to know / we've rewritten history." Hmm.
Some of it gets exciting, lyrics be damned. The busy drums pick things up significantly on "I'll See You When We're Both Not So Emotional," and the opener "Never Meant" starts things off strong. Otherwise, you can bank on not getting too hyped up over any of the songs. This is a tranquilizer album, not a stimulant album.
I feel like I'm talking too much about the negatives of American Football, when the truth is, I can find use for this mellow, contemplative record. This is driving-home-after-a-party music. This is sun-coming-over-the-horizon-at-the-ocean's-edge music. This is... well that's probably it. But it does have purpose and I do find myself sucked into the music and relaxing more and more each song.
American Football is labeled as a "cult status" record. The album was recorded and released in 1999 to limited fanfare. So limited, in fact, that the band broke up. But over time, more and more people fell in love with the thing. By the time it was reissued in 2014, the album landed at 68 on the Billboard 200. Not too shabby for a sad, interesting little emo record.
I wonder if the album would have been as beloved if it was just the first in a long string of similar American Football albums, or if this was a matter of less-is-more. Indeed, American Football released a second album seventeen years later, also called American Football. The 2016 album was reviewed pretty well, by the looks of it, but does anyone really remember it? And doesn't it tarnish the legend of the original album just a little bit?
Speaking as a guy who isn't over the moon about the original American Football, I don't really have the right to say one way or the other.
All I can say is I appreciate American Football for what it is (tricky, somber, relaxing), and so it stays on my iPod for the next time the mood strikes.
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If this album sounds interesting, try this song: "But the Regrets Are Killing Me"
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Stray Observations
- Didn't mention the trumpet, which comes in exactly twice, and fucking kills it both times. Wikipedia describes this album as having jazz elements, and the trumpet sections are really the only times I agree with that assessment.
- Wiki also indicates that the band chose the song titles pretty much at the same time as designing the album packaging. Otherwise, to the band they were known as, like, "The B sharp song" or whatever. It's nice to have a band admit when their song names are completely arbitrary, as opposed to, like, Of Montreal's byzantine bullshit titles.
- FRONT COVER: It's the outside of a house from the college campus of the band members. The photo, too, was arbitrary, per the band. Here it is on google maps. Here is a video for "Never Meant" that takes place in and around the house.
- Not much here about what it means to be "American." So this makes American Football more like American Beauty, as opposed to American Band and american dream. In fact, this might be the LEAST American title, since only Europeans would call the sport "American football." We just call it "football." Fuck soccer!!!
NEXT TIME: American Idiot by Green Day
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