Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 179: Erin

Prompt: "A song that lacks closure"

Selected by Erin

"Glory"

The Airborne Toxic Event

Glory, 2024

This song is five and a half minutes of angst (my fav!).

But every time I try to listen to the lyrics and gather a deeper meaning, I have literally no idea what the fuck they're talking about.

ATE, are you summarizing various (damn near every) Bruce Springsteen songs? Are you in love with a woman? Are you sad she lost her baby? Have you decided you don't care about your wedding vows to her and you want to get back together? Did you break up in the first place?

Did she lose her baby? Do you just hurt all the time and have Big Feelings?? If you are having Big Feelings, you should probably find some space to collect yourself. I've already got a lot of Big Feelings in my house, I don't have the space to hold yours (SHOUTOUT TO WICKED WE HOLDING SPACE FOR YOU GIRL).

ATE is already notoriously known for building chreshindo-esque songs with no chorus but plenty of rising tension (see "Sometime Around Midnight"). I think people either fucking love that or fucking hate it. Some may say it only increases their anxiety when the whole point of listening to music is to unwind (or satisfy whatever specific mood you're looking to emote). I say, if you want an anxiety attack in a song then listen to Straight No Chaser's "The 12 Days of Christmas." If you want to feel sad, moody, and like looking out your window to watch the snow falling and releasing a deep SIGH, then you can listen to ATE. But just don't pay too much attention to "Glory"'s lyrics. 

The Slow Rush, Erin

TSR debuted in February of 2020. No fucking wonder nobody knew about it right away. I didn't discover TI myself until 2022. 

Tame Impala is really a logical progression to the sad boii shit I (and maybe probably YOU, Dear Reader!) listened to in high school (and today) and the "Pursuit of Happiness My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" weed and 40-infused trip I went on in college.  

Best song (by miles) is "Lost in Yesterday." DON'T read the lyrics if you don't want to feel sad. Just live in ignorant bliss and bop your head to the beat and the 3/4 words you can kinda catch. 

Side note: their current best new song is "Neverender," but I don't think Record Club will let me review it on this current post so GO LOOK IT UP AND DON'T READ THOSE LYRICS EITHER OK.

I guess you could associate TI in the same hazy group as the Flaming Lips, MGMT, Beach House, any psychedelic dad rock-esque band (oh Christ did I really just seriously use the term "dad rock" in a review? What the fuck is wrong with me that my brain can't come up with a better fucking description besides DAD ROCK), guys, I'll be real here I'm pretty sure this review is just turning into another mindless stream of consciousness.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 101: Pat

Prompt: "A song that feels specifically written for you"

Selected by Pat

"Sister Golden Hair"

America

Hearts, 1975

My wife and I got together when we were eighteen, just about to turn nineteen. For the first five and a half years, we lived separately. As we should have—teenagers living together, in any context, is just asking for trouble. So for the better part of a decade, a lot of our relationship was maintained exclusively through digital communication. Text messages, phone calls, Facebook DMs, Skype calls. Remember Skype? Good times. 

This habit actually worked wonders once we started living together, but still never saw each other due to work. She did a lot of overnight shifts, and we'd go days without both being awake at the same time. Even now, most plans are made in writing, and not just because I'm technically a lawyer.

No matter how much we talked over the phone, there was always still a part of me that wished me could just be in a room together. "Sister Golden Hair" reminds me of that feeling. That feeling that even if she's somewhere else, she's still with me. "I've been one poor correspondent, I've been too too hard to find, but that doesn't mean you ain't been on my mind." Ain't that the truth.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 79: Erin

Prompt: "A song about a divorce"

Selected by Erin

"Jackie Down the Line"

Fontaines D.C.

Skinty Fia, 2022

First off, shout out to Nan my coworker for suggesting this band to me. This woman is 25-30 years older than me, and she is fucking educating me about Irish punk bands, and I AM HERE FOR IT. I will absolutely be posting more songs with this artist in mind. 

Anyway, poor fucking Sally, man. This song just keeps going into detail about how badly Sally has been wrecked emotionally and physically by some Asshole. The lyricist is speaking to this alleged Asshole about Sally—he says he's heard that this Asshole has been absolutely fucking up Sally's soul. Lyrics include:

"So come on down to Sally's boneyard

See her spirit in decline

See the handsome mourners crying

Hawked a beating heart for a sturdy spine, yeah."

That's a lovely way to describe what I can only imagine to be a nasty breakup or divorce. 

The worst part about this is that the speaking lyricist seems to be talking to the Asshole like THE LYRICIST is gonna do the same goddamn thing to Sally and totally use her for his own happiness before throwing her away like a used popsicle stick. 

"What good is happiness to me

If I've to wield it carefully?

For care I'll always come up short."

Bottom line: does this song exactly mention divorce? No. Does this song exactly exude vibes that are on the same malevolent toxic level as divorce? Absolutely yes. 

The Irish are a brutal folk, man.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 35: Erin

Prompt: "The song that you're always reminded of whenever you see a particularly memorable family photo"

Selected by Erin

"Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)"

Doris Day

single, 1956

The funny thing about this song is that I picked it because I frequently used to get drunk and sing it to my sisters, specifically my youngest sister Sarah. For a very long time, my sisters thought that I made up this song, and that it didn't actually exist. Unfortunately, I burst that bubble about four years ago on a family vacation. As it turns out, they loved it, and now every time we all drink together, we sing this song very badly and off-key. I am so sorry, Doris Day.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 25: Erin

Prompt: "A song that makes you want to tear a door off its hinges when you hear it, much like you might if your favorite football team lost a pivotal game"

Selected by Erin

"Mothersound"

From First to Last

Heroine, 2006

Here's another high school gem for the active pukers out there! This song was on a mix CD that I made in 2007 (give or take a year). Other songs on the CD included songs from The Phantom of the Opera, Fall Out Boy, Blue Öyster Cult, the Hush Sound, Paramore, Jimmy Buffet, and half of a Pink Floyd song (shoutout to Pat for listening to this mix in its entirety and still to this day shaking with rage when he thinks about that specific Pink Floyd song). 

I wasn't sure if this prompt was supposed to be a song that made me angry or a song that I listened to when I was angry. I asked someone what they were doing for this prompt in order to find some clarification, and they blatantly refused to tell me their song. So I'M SORRY, I didn't REALIZE we all Puked So Seriously around here!

(But in all honesty, shout out to everyone who's posted under every single prompt thus far. This actually makes for a nice reflection on discography ,and I am still remembering what it's like to write things that don't pertain to work). 

Also, it's going to take me longer to read a certain puker's 1000 day post than it took to listen to Infinite Jest on audiobook.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 24: Erin

Prompt: "An unrelated song whose title answers the question presented in your last song's title"

Selected by Erin

"Wild Horses"

The Rolling Stones

Sticky Fingers, 1971

Here's a list of things I bought at Aldi today:

• Bananas
• Strawberries
• Blueberries
• Raspberries
• Baby spinach
• Clementines
• A bag of honey crisp apples
• 2 bags of bagels
• 1 loaf bread
• 1 butternut squash
• 2 cans tomato soup
• 2 boxes of chicken broth
• 1 gallon milk
• 2 boxes pancake mix
• 1 bottle of honey
• 1 bottle of syrup
• A bunch of fresh ginger root
• 3 family size boxes cereal
• A box of Cheez-Its
  
• Hummus
• A bag of sweet potatoes
• 3 boxes mac 'n' cheese
• 2 mini boxes of dinosaur-shaped broccoli bites
• 1 package frozen hashbrowns
• Bag of grapes
• 2 packages of coffee
• 1 jar of instant coffee

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 23: Erin

Prompt: "A song whose title asks a question"

Selected by Erin

"Who's Gonna Save My Soul"

Gnarls Barkley

The Odd Couple, 2008

I've been waiting to use a GB song for one of these prompts, kinda surprised I made it all the way to the end of February. Expect more from this band. That being said, CeeLo Green is an asshole. 

A few weeks ago, I was at my parents house with my kids, and my mom brought them out to the front porch where there was a well-loved mini horse stable about a foot and a half tall and two feet long. It's the size of a small Barbie doll house. In it was about a dozen different horses, all different shapes and sizes and colors. Some had fake horse hair, some were from a board game, one was comically large. They had clearly been collected from different games and toy sets over the years, but all seemed to fit and work together in this little stable. A horse menagerie you will. (I tried to think of a punny way to combine horses into menagerie and only came up with meNEIGHerie. Fuck you, I'll see myself out.) I took one look at the stable and the horses and walked out of the house onto the back deck and cried real hard. The horses and stable had belonged to my cousin who accidentally overdosed a few days before her 21st birthday. 

You know when you're back at the neighborhood you grew up in and you see someone from your past or remember some long ago cringeworthy memory that you hadn't thought about in a decade? That nasty jolt in the out of your stomach where your body's muscle memory remembers faster than your brain about why you're reacting the way you are? Do you ever feel super shitty for that next moment where you reflexively think to yourself "I would rather think about literally anything else but this?"

I am a shitty person sometimes. My cousin was my very best friend in the world for a long time. And as our family got messy and raw and broken, as we grew up and were separated, our relationship changed. I don't even remember what the last thing was that we ever talked about—or rather the last thing we fought about. We were teenaged girls, we were petty and knew what to say to really dig the knife in deep. Maybe it's because I grew up in a house of all sisters, but man, our fights were fucking dirty. One of my sisters lovingly refers to specific fights as "psychological warfare."

And on the day we buried her, I left the wake and went back to my college friends' Christmas karaoke party and got too sloppy drunk and made an asshole of myself. And I refused to let myself think about her the next day. Or talk about her. With anyone. 

And so now here we fucking are, eleven years later. My extended family is reassembling from all over the country and staying at my parents' house. None of them recognize the horse stable. They have a lot on their mind, I don't blame them. But I know where that stable came from. I know who used to play with the toy horses at sleepovers at all hours of the night. And I think it breaks me a little every time I see it.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 18: Erin

Prompt: "The oldest song you actually like"

Selected by Erin

"Spring"

composed by Antonio Vivaldi

Concerto No. 1 in E major, Op. 8, RV 269

part of The Four Seasons, published 1725

When I was in college, I was determined to finish my Music History minor (because I recently dropped the theology minor, but that's another story for another time). Music Theory didn't exist at my university. And I was determined to live up to the tiny little music note tattoo I got when I was drunk down on the Wildwood boardwalk when I was eighteen. So music history it was.

Antonio Vivaldi was a frequent player in my studies. This was because my professor kept forgetting he had already assigned me to learn about him in our one-on-one sessions. I say "one-on-one session" instead of "classes" because I was apparently the only person in my year (or maybe in the whole goddamned school) who wanted to study music history, and so I met up with him once a week on Thursday for 10-20 minutes on the steps of whatever food hall or classroom hall was closest, and we just talked about music history. And that was my class. My college credits. The professor seemed like a cool dude, middle aged, married for a while, loved American music like porter and Gershwin, played guitar, and had fallen into teaching at the university after working at a children's hospital for a number of years. Sometimes we met for an hour, and sometimes one of us would just forget to meet up with the other. He eventually divorced his wife and ended up seriously seeing another girl I did theater with at the same college prior to graduation.  But that's also another story for another time. Sometimes he pops up as a friend I should request on my social media. I hope he's doing well. He always used to say "a musician never turns down a paying gig. No matter what."

I used to have an huge playlist of all the composers and artists and songs he had me study, and I honestly really loved listening to it. But then Apple's iMusic disappeared, along with all my beautifully crafted playlists (see prior angry post). Anyway, I'm taking the music prompt quite literally, and selecting "Spring" from Vivaldi's concerto titled The Four Seasons. He wrote it in the early 1700s. I absolutely guarantee that everyone knows this song.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 16: Erin

Prompt: "The song you think of when you hear the word 'emo'"

Selected by Erin

"Momentum"

The Hush Sound

So Sudden, 2005

You assholes all thought I was going to use a song from From First to Last, DIDNT YOU?! It was actually a tie between this song and the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus ("Face Down"). I'm sitting in front of my iPhone, cracking my knuckles at how much I want to fuck up this specific prompt.

"You are a mirage in the distance
That defies the heat of the desert,
Should I believe in you
These rules are made to break,
And these walls are built to fall,
These rules are made to break us all"

Christ Almighty, these lyrics can only be appreciated by a teenager with surges of hormones that top the charts. These lyrics lent me its favorite black hoodie with "special" (you got creative with scissors)  thumb holes in the cuffs that are fraying on the ends. This song cut its own bangs.

I'm actually really excited to see all the submissions for this specific prompt and listen to them on a day I'm feeling extra moody and tired on my way into work. Nothing like some *~ f ~ e ~ e ~ l ~ s ~* to go with my dark drive and black coffee.

Fuck, now that I think about it, I should have submitted OMG SHOES by that Kelly actor (Liam Kyle Sullivan).

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 15: Erin

Prompt: "A folk song from the '60s"

Selected by Erin

"Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There is a Season)"

The Byrds

Turn! Turn! Turn!, 1965

Yes it was written in 1959, but according to Wikipedia it wasn't released and on the charts until 1965, SO IT COUNTS. 

Fun fact: this was my MySpace song before I deleted it sophomore year of high school. Or, at least I think I deleted it... does anyone else think that one of their own circles of hell is having to relive every social media interaction, every purposely misspelled post, every angsty AIM away message, for the rest of their lives? Bonus points of pain if there are 299 pictures to look at from one Friday night underage college down party posted (and since deleted from) your Facebook in 2009. Anyway, I tried learning very very basic code to make my MySpace page extra "unique," and somehow got a continuous circle of the shadows of birds (crows maybe?) on my top banner, and BOY HOWDY was I proud of that fucker. 

Fast forward to years later when my now-husband (formerly hot enemy) would communicate in riddles, phrases, and bits—a particular favorite was always "as the crow flies," which he probably picked up from reading the Game of Thrones books—made my eye involuntarily twitch back to that high school memory. 

This song is good. It's peaceful, and I still enjoy it all these years later.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 6: Erin

Prompt: "A song with a non-geographical location in the title"

Selected by Erin

"Lost in Yesterday"

Tame Impala

The Slow Rush, 2020

Alright. I went back to look at some of the song choices that everyone has submitted so far, and I am both super impressed and aggravated that so many good fucking songs have been used already. How in god's name are we going to make sure nobody repeats?! I am by no means a super creative individual, I only know a finite number of songs. I only WANT to know a finite number of songs. I have no desire to listen to and write up an article for Record Club every week! The female California rock surfer group that Pam had us write about in the very beginning was great! I love them! But now I'm worried if I tell you the name of the band someone else is going to have somehow used a song for a prompt, thus limiting my choices even further. I absolutely wrecked my family's Dell / Windows 99 computer when I was in high school. I poured my goddamned heart and soul into ripping as much shit off of LimeWire as humanly possible and uploaded it into my perfectly curated iTunes library. I'm talking hundreds of hours of downloading here. I was so proud of my collection of songs and perceived wide range of music taste and thought "I'm open to so much! I'm open to anything!" You know what? I'm older now and much grumpier and my iTunes was lost to the void of the internet and I'm still trying to cope with that loss. Every time I start to curate a perfect playlist, I have to switch from Apple to Spotify to Amazon Music to YouTube back to Spotify to Pandora and I'm tired of it. I'm tired of this, Grandpa Joe. If I accidentally repeat a song that was already used, I'm going to submit the exact same review and just change the song name of the submission to LIMEWIRE REMIX.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 5: Erin

Prompt: "A song with a geographical location in the title"

Selected by Erin

"I'm Shipping Up to Boston"

Dropkick Murphys

The Warrior's Code, 2005

This songs blasts from my phone, car, speaker, whatever when I hear it. I actually really love the movie The Departed and used to make whoever I could watch it. That being said, I despite the city of Boston. I contemplated living there once upon a time, I interviewed for a job back in January 2020. Thank god for COVID. If I had moved to Boston, I would almost definitely have gotten my ass kicked in a Dunkin' Donuts for being an antagonistic Eagles fan. This song gets me ready to fucking rage, and it’s so funny that the one time I went to see DM play at an underground venue, they started off the show by saying "We will not be playing that song tonight because we don't fucking feel like it," and I swear to you a third of the crowd left.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 2: Erin

Prompt: "One of the best songs"

Selected by Erin

"Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt.1"

The Flaming Lips

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, 2002

The Flaming Lips are one of the best concerts I've ever been to. They're the only band I've seen play more than once live (unless you count the Irish band Blackthorn and the other Irish band Round Tower and any Irish Weekend bands). It's a great fucking song. My husband's family also happens to play it on guitar around the campfire at their annual camping trip each year. The entire album in general makes the listener approach what normally would be dark and depressing topics through an oddly quirky and optimistic lens. If I can remember to keep up with these postings, I'll hopefully be including more songs from this band. Have I got the word count minimum yet? God willing. Happy new year.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 1: Erin

Prompt: "A song about starting over"

Selected by Erin

"On Melancholy Hill"

Gorillaz

Plastic Beach, 2010

Ok guys, listen. I'm not sure if this song 100% qualifies as a song about starting over in the sense of "I'm kicking a bad habit and I'm starting over on a fresh new page" or sobriety or anything. I just listened to this song a lot when I was fresh postpartum, and relistening to it now reminded me a lot of my general mental state at the beginning of a big new chapter of my life.

It's weird to feel any amount of guilt or unhappiness when a thing that you've wanted for your entire life finally happens, or least it seemed that way at the time. You try and prepare for the long days and long nights and the emotional and physical exhaustion, and before you have kids you think to yourself, "the good times will out balance the bad times!" But then you realize weeks and months have gone by and you feel guilty for being so miserable. So when the song talks about being on top of a hill and reflecting on big picture view instead of the mundane everyday going on down below, it provides a space for reflection. There's a line about sitting next to a plastic tree (an organic experience that's actually artificial and manufactured, anyone?), which is cool, but there's also a weird line about a manatee, so take the lyrics with a grain of salt. 

Now, at least, I can listen to it in the car on the way to work and jam out silently while I drink my coffee. I'm glad that I can write about this song now and enjoy it more. Cheers to reflection and character development and starting new.

Summer Song Challenge, Day 94: Pat

Prompt: "A song that your friend picks for today, since you've done nothing this summer besides talk about the Song Challenge, and that friend has opinions, and wants to participate, and is jealous they didn't hop on board last Memorial Day"

Selected by Pat

"Ritt der Walküren"

written by Richard Wagner

Die Walküre, 1870

And now, we proudly present "Killing Two Valkyries with One Stone" by Erin C*********:

It's been a while since I've written a review for PoYB, so forgive me if this seems more like a history lesson compared to a review of a song.

I'm writing under a deadline and Patrick D***** keeps bullying me into finishing this and I didn't know what song to do and I know there's no repeats in the world of Birthday Puke so I figured it would be best not to overthink it, and just pick a song from my labor playlist. There's no way Joe is going to have written a review on that, right?

Known better in pop culture as the "Ride of the Valkyries," "Ritt der Walküren" is the titular Act Three song that you've heard in places like Hey Arnold! and Apocalypse Now. What's important to know about this song (besides how awesome it is), is that Die Walküre is a three-act opera. This opera is only actually Part Two of a four-part opera written by Richard Wagner. The four operas together are called Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), or more simply, The Ring.

You might be wondering "Erin, could you possibly be taking about THAT ring?" And I am here to tell you, fuck yes I am!

While there's a lot less incest in the Tolkien universe, the German storyline is equally as epic (and arguably even more badass). Basic common themes include a ring of power that generations destroy one another over trying to find and control. However, in Wagner's version, there's a Valkyrie who sacrifices herself on top of the burning funeral pyre of her dead lover, and in doing so all of the gods and Valhalla are destroyed. So. That's kinda cool.

RotN utilizes lots of brass instruments and dissonance to create a setting of action, war, and a classic "good vs evil" heroic clash. What are these instruments? I dunno. Perhaps, dear reader, Joe can provide a more expert list of instruments typically used in this piece [Editor's note: maybe this?]. What I CAN tell you is that there some woodwinds in there that heighten the level of anxiety, there are drums, and an overall BATTLE vibe.

Also, I think that Infinite Jest isn't actually good the first time you read it and it's only fun now that I'm listening to it a second time and I also absolutely hate myself for relistening to this book. So I guess if I am going back to this book again, am I further embodying a cycle of addiction? Am I just really fucking stupid because there's so much I still need to understand and feel like I need to listen again in order to feel like I even fucking know what this book is about? Goddamn you, Joe K***. I think about this stupid fucking book every goddamn day.

Summer Song Challenge, Day 29: Pat

Prompt: "A song in a weird time signature (i.e. not 4/4 or 3/4)"

Selected by Pat

"Solsbury Hill"

Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel, 1977

I heard this song a lot the first two years I was with my now wife. Since I don't know anything about time signatures other than that this song has a weird one (7/4, whatever that means), I decided to revisit the song with her. The following is a transcript of the conversation we had while we listened to it, to the best of my recollection and edited for clarity:

PAT: So what are your thoughts?

ERIN: I remember thinking this song was romantic, until someone told me it was about aliens.

PAT: Who told you that?

ERIN: I don't remember. You know what it is? It reminds me of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. You know the scene when the dad...

PAT: Richard Dreyfuss?

ERIN: Yeah, when he goes to the ship? That's what I think of.

PAT: Did I ever tell you that I watched the end of that movie once when I was way too high and it was the scariest thing I've ever seen?

ERIN: Interesting. Close Encounters was the movie I never saw all the way through until I was older. It was always on AMC and my dad would have it on. I would always see it halfway through.

PAT: Any other thoughts?

ERIN: It's weird that our kids aren't going to have movies like that. Movies on TV that already started and you can't rewind, so you never see the whole thing. 

She's right. There is a certain sense of accomplishment when you finally finish a movie after multiple attempts. I remember watching different parts of Van Helsing (2004) on four separate occasions before I finally saw the whole thing. It still sucks and was a waste of time, but I won, dammit. When my kids get old enough to start picking movies on streaming, I'm going to cut the power at random times to keep them humble.

Smart Kids, Erin

Homesick, Erin

Dear reader,

Well, Homesick isn't exactly what you would call a "bop." According to PoYB, its genre falls way off the typical choice for Album of the Week. Does it sometimes seem that the vocals don't live up to the instrumentals, the absolute majesty of those drum build ups? Yes. Does it maybe take you back to a period of your life where hormones coursed through your veins all the way out to your freshly painted black fingernails? Perhaps. 

It's not a bop, it's a pop. My name is Erin and I'm here to say WE NEED MORE POP-PUNK ON THIS BLOG. Let’s all take a second to pay homage to our teenaged selves—our greasy, bang-having angsty poetry-writing awkward selves and celebrate the fact that we never have to relive high school ever again. If this is the music you listened to when you got your period for the first time, good for you. If this is the music you listen to as you work from home, good for you! If this is the music you clean your house yo, great for you! Who even needs nü-metal when you have this shit????!??? Evanescence is for preteens, ADtR is for JUNIORS IN HIGHSCHOOL BABYYY I SOLD MY SOUL TO THE OPEN ROOOAADD , ILL LIVE MY LIFE ALONEEE

Anyway, there's four songs on this album I enjoyed and added to a running playlist. I wrote this tipsy and have apparently run out of time to edit this further. Joe, when's the next beer runners?

Album of the Week: Homesick

You know the deal. This is Record Club. We all listen to the same album every week, and then every Friday, there is an open forum for all those willing to discuss that album in review form, published on some shitty blog that's been around since 2008.

But there's another part of that deal that you may or may not be familiar with: those brave enough to write a review for a Record Club album are ultimately punished. Even writing one review means that, in the days or week or months ahead, I'm going to start bothering you about picking an album to put up for review. And that's an extra pain in the ass, isn't it? Life is short, is there really that much time left over for some goddamn blog? But the texts are pouring in, and you're even reluctant to hang out with me in person because you know I'm going to bring it up. But that's the deal. I'm going to force you to participate. That's just the way it is.

And so, we arrive, for the third year in a row, at the week in which I force Erin C********* to choose an album for Record Club. This usually happens in Q4, right around the time we start wrapping things up for the year. I say to Erin, "Hey, you should probably pick an album before Christmas," and she understandably hems and haws until finally I confront her in person, set ultimatums, etc. etc. As always, I am grateful for her input, and I am thankful that she still chooses to be my friend.

Now, does this sound like you? Does it sound like a position that I have put you in before? For those who have chosen an album before, this intro paragraph may have amounted to a mild form of PTSD. If this isn't a scenario that you are familiar with, then all I have to say is: YOU'RE NEXT.

Check out the archives, check out the playlist, check out a book from the library maybe instead of getting involved in this shit, or check out this week's album below.

WEEK 141 — October 10-16, 2021

What we're listening to this week (Erin's pick):

ALBUM: Homesick

ARTIST: A Day to Remember

RELEASED: February 3, 2009

WHAT GENRE IS THIS: Metalcore, pop punk, post-hardcore

WHY ERIN PICKED IT: here

TRACKLIST:

1. The Downfall of Us All
2. My Life for Hire
3. I'm Made of Wax, Larry, What Are You Made Of?
4. NJ Legion Iced Tea
5. Mr. Highway's Thinking About the End
6. Have Faith in Me
7. Welcome to the Family
8. Homesick
9. Holdin' It Down for the Underground
10. You Already Know What You Are
11. Another Song About the Weekend
12. If It Means a Lot to You

LENGTH: 40:29

WHERE TO LISTEN FOR FREE: YouTube

READING SOME SHIT: A couple Q&As for you to peruse, if you want—from 2009 and from 2012.

PREVIOUSLY ON RECORD CLUB: Nothing that I could find, which probably speaks more to the genres that we usually dabble in than anything else. I hate for this section to become a "we've done this genre before!" exercise, but it really is important here, since "post-hardcore" is something that we've seen twice since Record Club's inception (Hopesfall and Hum, thanks Brittany), and it's a genre so far removed from pretty much everything else we do here. So yeah, there are plenty of people involved in the creation of this album, and all those people were involved in plenty of other albums from plenty of other bands, but I had never even heard of 99% of it, let alone be familiar with it via Record Club. So you're on your own this week. (Also, who the fuck knows, man—"pop punk" is a genre tag on this one too, so maybe the similarities to Hopesfall, Hum, and other post-hardcore are pretty weak? One might even hope so!)

Happy listening, fam! Have a great week!