Joe runs through every album on his iPod, mostly in alphabetical order, and offers some brief thoughts. Check out previous columns HERE.
The narrative, as written now by music critics, is that the Gaslight Anthem blew up with their seminal 2008 album, The '59 Sound, and it was all downhill from there. This narrative was created because the band itself slowly crumbled from 2008 till their break-up in 2015, according to frontman Brian Fallon, and so now, everything Fallon does can be considered a "comeback." And I'm not here to say that I know more about the situation than he does. I can imagine it's tough to spend every waking moment of your life for a decade with the same four people. Bands break up. That's how it goes.
But the narrative of reaching the pinnacle with The '59 Sound and slowly fading away is forgetting one thing. American Slang is better.
There's this grand tradition in music, regarding follow-up albums to a band's breakout effort. A lot of these albums sincerely improve on those break-out albums and everything they accomplished. (The tradition also includes plenty of homers for the follow-up albums in the vocal minority.)
I'm talking about albums that are very similar in nature to that breakout; it's the same deal, but the band muscle it up, clean it, polish it, every song is stronger and louder and crisper and just in general improves in every way what the original album was trying to do. American Slang, to me, fits that description. I fucking love The '59 Sound, and maybe some day when I'm old and gray we can discuss it here on PoYB. But I'll go to bat for American Slang. It's close to a perfect album.
People say the Gaslight Anthem crib their sound from Springsteen, and sometimes, I can see that. Especially how a lot of the songs are that wonderful mix of anthemic statements and specific details. "The Diamond Church Street Choir" is a great example of this. The verses paint the portrait of a specific time and a place, of the kids all hanging out at a basement show, but the chorus then reveals it to be a song about love and loss. Springsteen pulls this shit off all the time, and the Gaslight Anthem are worthy disciples.
But, I wouldn't put too much stock in the Springsteen comparisons, overall. I'd argue that there's a bit more of an edge to American Slang than there is on, like, Born in the U.S.A. The classic rock influences are thick here, but there's plenty of punk rock squeezing the edges, as well as healthy doses of that doo-wop and rockabilly soul that made '59 Sound such a treat too.
It kind of makes me upset that American Slang doesn't get its due nowadays. I can imagine that it has to be incredibly difficult to follow up really well-received album, but American Slang achieves success in its own right, and it deserves to be recognized as such.
American Slang
The Gaslight Anthem
2010
The narrative, as written now by music critics, is that the Gaslight Anthem blew up with their seminal 2008 album, The '59 Sound, and it was all downhill from there. This narrative was created because the band itself slowly crumbled from 2008 till their break-up in 2015, according to frontman Brian Fallon, and so now, everything Fallon does can be considered a "comeback." And I'm not here to say that I know more about the situation than he does. I can imagine it's tough to spend every waking moment of your life for a decade with the same four people. Bands break up. That's how it goes.
But the narrative of reaching the pinnacle with The '59 Sound and slowly fading away is forgetting one thing. American Slang is better.
There's this grand tradition in music, regarding follow-up albums to a band's breakout effort. A lot of these albums sincerely improve on those break-out albums and everything they accomplished. (The tradition also includes plenty of homers for the follow-up albums in the vocal minority.)
I'm talking about albums that are very similar in nature to that breakout; it's the same deal, but the band muscle it up, clean it, polish it, every song is stronger and louder and crisper and just in general improves in every way what the original album was trying to do. American Slang, to me, fits that description. I fucking love The '59 Sound, and maybe some day when I'm old and gray we can discuss it here on PoYB. But I'll go to bat for American Slang. It's close to a perfect album.
People say the Gaslight Anthem crib their sound from Springsteen, and sometimes, I can see that. Especially how a lot of the songs are that wonderful mix of anthemic statements and specific details. "The Diamond Church Street Choir" is a great example of this. The verses paint the portrait of a specific time and a place, of the kids all hanging out at a basement show, but the chorus then reveals it to be a song about love and loss. Springsteen pulls this shit off all the time, and the Gaslight Anthem are worthy disciples.
But, I wouldn't put too much stock in the Springsteen comparisons, overall. I'd argue that there's a bit more of an edge to American Slang than there is on, like, Born in the U.S.A. The classic rock influences are thick here, but there's plenty of punk rock squeezing the edges, as well as healthy doses of that doo-wop and rockabilly soul that made '59 Sound such a treat too.
It kind of makes me upset that American Slang doesn't get its due nowadays. I can imagine that it has to be incredibly difficult to follow up really well-received album, but American Slang achieves success in its own right, and it deserves to be recognized as such.
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If this album sounds interesting, try this song: "Boxer"
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Stray Observations
- As for how this album relates to being "American," we have the words of Fallon on the subject: "You call something American anything, you better have something to back that up with... [it's] kind of about my American life, about the things that have happened. They present you this American dream and it’s not like this specific thing, you find out you just have to work." This is a way of looking at it that none of the America [whatever] albums have explored so far in The Albums That Matter. It isn't that the "American dream" is false, per se. It's just that it's not complicated. The dream is to keep doing what you're doing. We're already living this shit, it's not really anything you can aspire to. That's my interpretation of Fallon's words and/or this album, anyway.
- I always forget how short this album is, in and out in less than 35 minutes. Sometimes less is more, folks.
- FRONT COVER: I couldn't find Fallon giving any insight from the corners of the web, so we're on our own this time, folks. It looks to be a collage of photos of "American life" as it were. A random street, a subway sign, a mug of beer, a guitar amp. It's painting a picture of normalcy, "this is how it was/is in America," etc. (I can't figure out what the top-right photo is of, though. I can't find a picture on the internet big enough for me to really examine it. Someone with a vinyl copy, hit me up!)
- This album is probably gonna hit the Top 20 of the 2010s when PoYB covers that shit in twenty months. See ya then.
NEXT TIME: American Utopia by David Byrne
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