Watching my own pool kids get swimming lessons, proud of themselves for kicking and propelling back and forth, dunking under water, the littlest one still afraid to go in but making progress, probably more afraid of the instructor than the water itself. I don't remember taking swim lessons as a kid. I remember I spent a whole summer counting how many times I jumped off the diving board (200 times), and that's an early memory, one of the earliest as a former pool kid, and I must've known how to swim at that point, so maybe it was just something that happened. It's, like, just an exposure thing. I overheard a parent at the swim class the other day say "my dad just threw me in the pool, that's how I learned!" as a way of contrasting with paying for swim lessons, I guess. I think that's boomer posturing but there's probably some truth in it. If you ignore the potential for very real trauma from such an experience, then getting thrown in the pool is a good way to learn how to swim. But maybe that's not how you mold a pool kid. Pool kids are the kids who hang by the pool. It's not just an ability, it's a characteristic. Some pool kids become pool adults. Many don't. I guess I was a pool kid. We belonged to swim clubs with diving boards. That was how we spent weekdays in the summer. I was a pool kid. I'm not a pool adult. What's the difference? And does this all have something to do with why I'm struggling with Pool Kids as a musical entity?
Maybe not. It's not that it's naive or innocent—themes that are tolerable on average within music, especially when the innocence is delivered with a knowing wink—but more so... strident, I guess is the word I keep mulling over in my head. Something about the vocals. Not every vocal performance is good, and not every bad vocal performance has the ability to grow on you. The cilantro tastes like soap to me. (This happened with Chubby and the Gang, remember them? They didn't sing about pools or being kids, so I am running with this theory that sometimes it just doesn't work for me, the singing.) There are times when Christine Goodwyne goes above and beyond, like the climax of "Last Word" and the conclusion of "Dani." That tells me that the ability is there but the natural ability is lacking. And there's not much else about the music that I haven't heard before, that specific brand of young-person emo-pop-punk.
I think they are going for poignance with the lyrics, too, which I buy more than anything else. That's where the Pool Kids thing comes in. They aren't singing about literally swimming in pools as kids, it's more like an idea of being that age when you could be a pool kid, spend days lounging around the pool to the point where that was your identity. The contrast is drawn in multiple songs, between the Then and Now. Like in "Tinted Windows," how Goodwyne sings about irresponsibility of youth (going fast in a car) and regretful responsibility of adulthood (having to worry about a goddamn COVID test). Or on "Leona Street," when the protagonist is exploring the haunts of a former youth... but only because she's trying to get her steps in. Pool kids worried about young love and former pool kids are worrying about their heart health.
I remember one time, at the pool, we were acting up, doing something against the rules, possibly jumping into the pool during adult swim but I don't remember the details. The result of whatever we did was that we were forced by the lifeguards (let's be honest, probably kids themselves, though it felt like they were grownups in comparison) to walk around the pool grounds and pick up trash for a couple hours. Which is very funny in retrospect, but felt like a pain in the ass at the time, and totally unfair.
What would have happened if we just said "no"? That's what I'm wondering now. What if we had just said fuck yo trash go suck a dick to the lifeguards? I guess we might've been banned from the pool? The reason I'm asking these questions is because I'm an adult, and I'm having such a hard time getting into the mind of my preteen self. But here's the truth: back then, these felt like life-or-death stakes. Everything felt so fucking important, even the stuff that in the ensuing decades would reveal were not that important at all. You forget about it after a while, but in the moment, it's everything.
Easier Said Than Done is ultimately a good album because it is hyperaware of this juxtaposition, that it's able to explore those capital-b Big capital-f Feelings, in real time. It chronicles the story of someone suddenly becoming aware that everything you used to know is getting smaller in the rearview mirror and that there are new challenges right ahead of you that feel, still, now, like the most important fucking thing in the universe. What's missing is the question: in thirty years, will what we're feeling now seem small and unimportant, tiny in the rearview? Or are we getting it right this time? Will these pool kids remember swim lessons, or will they only be able to remember back to a time when they could all of a sudden swim?
But Easier Said Than Done is ultimately not a great album because the music doesn't excite me as much as I wish it did. The stories are there, but the sounds back up the words are a little too generic, and the voice unleashing those words onto the word is a little monotone most of the time. None of this will matter in time. Bands like Pool Kids fade away, gently, over the years, but the stories we share will remain, and will be told. So this album can live on in that way, even though it'll start to feel more and more silly and forgettable every day, from here on out, starting now.
GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5
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