The Record Club Final Word: Tom on Young Enough

If you pick an album for Record Club, you will get an "exit survey" on Friday morning, after the reviews have been published. This isn't to add more to your workload; I instead just want to provide space for the album picker to have the final say, if they feel like they need some sort of closure on the week. It's totally and completely optional. But I also love reading about music, and I love reading about writing about music, and so I'm always glad when someone fills out the exit survey.

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1. Was there anyone who convinced you to consider a different opinion regarding the album itself?

Not really :-). But I was encouraged by the sheer amount of reviews that people turned in, it seemed like some had familiarity with this record already and those that didn't found it catchy and shortish enough to listen to and write about, which was why I chose it. I assume everyone who reads this and certainly everyone who responds is at least anywhere from 1-10 years older than me, so just taking time out of their day to listen and think is greatly appreciated.

2. Was there anyone who you felt did a good/bad job at presenting their own views, regardless of whether you agreed with said views?

Happy to hear it'll go into Pam's regular rotation.

I liked Joe's session with his therapist as a great dialogue between interlocutors, even though I think finding a shift from "cool" guitars to "commercial" pop as disconcerting is a vestigial feeling from when "selling out" actually meant something like when Liz Phair got all that backlash in 2000. It's worth noting that Charly Bliss didn't play much bigger venues than with Guppy on their 2019 tour despite their sound shift.

It was also a good use of practicing intuition and criticism, the 150-some-odd-year-old questions posed by Matthew Arnold when he formalized the genre have always been: "What's it doing? Do you like it? Why or why not? Be specific." Finding the right word (wan, meretricious, ephemeral, staid, ebullient, kitschy, affable) to describe something is a laborious endeavor in and of itself, which is why the professionals make money off the work. The other thing the therapist was getting at, which my own helped me learn during a crisis of the quarter-life kind, was being honest with yourself. If, when listening, something doesn't stick or you don't like something it isn't worth it to force yourself into thinking that you do like it just to seem more in the know or something. Maybe you only half like it. That's okay, taste is taste is taste. It's all relative, what matters is the argument.

3. Were the reviews varied, or did this album elicit same-y opinions? What about that album made that true? Or do you think that this answer is reviewer-dependent and not album-dependent?

The reviews were the same in the sense that five out of eight mentioned "Blown to Bits," and four out of those five thought it was a serious highlight, which I disagree with; it's a great song and all, but aurally and sentimentally, tracks 4-8 are the real meat of the album for me. The consensus out of all eight seemed to range from "earthshattering" (me) to "fine" (Sunny), with everyone else falling somewhere in between. I think it's an easy album to latch on to since it's so catchy.

I also noted at least two digs at my Chvrches ban which, yea I was asking for, but I think comparing any band with a girl singer and synths (of the tracklist only two songs [1 & 8] have real Neon moments in the vein the Scots love to thrive in) to them is reductive, to say nothing of the differences in their approach to subject matter. For the white liberals in the chat, think of the episode of Parks & Rec when April says Donna is like the tiny white furry dog just because she "is pretty and likes makeup and stuff" and Donna takes offense because it shows April only knows her on a surface level. Same vibe. People's answers are always reviewer dependent, I think if there's a real consensus on the hook-songs that drew people in, then there's an argument to be made that those songs scratched some existential sonic itch that people had.

4. Did the variety of reviews justify the album choice? Would you choose a different album (yes/no) based on the reviews received?

It justified the album as good and accessible to me, I honestly would've been surprised if there were any outright pans in the feedback like the one I gave Magic Toaster back in the day.

Full disclosure though, Young Enough was on a shortlist in my head along with Talon of the Hawk by the Front Bottoms and Private Lives by Low Cut Connie. Both of which are a little longer time-wise and require more time to get to know because they can seem so simple at first (angst-folk punk-I like girls vs. troubadour-south Philly-dirty soul piano man). Both are more literary than they seem though, and I can't recommend them enough.

If ever given the chance to suggest a record again, I'd probably go with something by a Black artist. Maybe Saba's introspective CARE FOR ME. or the Roots' existential How I Got Over. The two works I've been losing my mind to lately are Beyoncé's latest masterpiece, whose danceability keeps revealing itself in new and exciting ways, and Open Mike Eagle's Anime, Trauma and Divorce which is 35 minutes about exactly what it says it is.

5. What can Record Club do differently to make your RC experience (especially as a weekly captain) a worthwhile one?

Box of Cheez-Its

6. Any other takeaways you have from this experience?

Not really. I liked being a captain, it let me gauge how much strangers I've never met like something I unabashedly love. If they did or didn't agree, I was still spreading my own gospel.