I like it when
the same artist
shows up more
than once in
a single letter,
as the singer
Nate Reuss
does now, the
front man for
The Format and
this group, my
first encounter
with Nate, the
singer for fun.
That’s right, no cap.
And if it’s in the
middle of a sentence
fun. is followed by
a stylized period.
It makes it difficult
to write about them.
I’ve written about
them before.
After grabbing this
debut album on CD,
and shortly before
their sophomore
release came out
with that massive
“We Are Young” hit,
my wife and
I saw them live
and I wrote about
that experience.
What surprised me
most on that evening
was the general
youth (they were babies)
of the audience.
It did not match up
I thought (incorrectly)
with the sophistication
of the music, a pop
music that is at once
hella catchy and
densely structured
in its arrangements
and instrumentations.
Think of your favorite
and most sophisticated
musical theater shows,
and you might have
a sense of what their
tunes are like. They bill
themselves as a three
piece, but there are
20 additional players
listed in the credits.
These songs have
parts, movements even,
slow down and speed up,
switch genre midstream,
are dynamic and un-
predictable. Lyrically, there’s
a lot going on,
melodically, too, and
the combination of the
two together make a
powerful stew. I still
can’t sing along with
this tune called “The
Gambler” without
choking up. That’s
real pop song mojo.
These guys made
two records, reached
incredible heights, and
then just quietly
stopped the fun.
I don’t know what
Nate was doing, but
15 years later, maybe
he got bored and
that’s when he
made another album
with The Format.
And we know that
another one of these
guys was super busy
producing everyone
and their dogs, Swift,
Lana Del Rey, St. Vincent,
Florence and the Machine,
Carly Rae Jepsen, Sabrina
Carpenter, The Chicks, and
forming another pop
band called Bleachers.
That guy is Jack Antonoff
and he is one busy dude.
I hope he’s still having
fun. Even if he’s not, he’s
clearly making his
presence known in the
world of pop music and
we are probably better
for it.
Notes on the vinyl edition: Aim and Ignite, Nettwerk Records, 2010, double black vinyl, audio on three sides.
In case you don’t already know: I’m listening to almost everything in my vinyl collection, A to Z, and writing at least one, sometimes two or three long skinny poem-like-things in response for each artist, and on a few occasions, writing a long skinny poem-like-thing in response to more than one artist. As a poet and a student of poetry, I understand that these things look like poems, but they don’t really sound much like poetry, hence, I call them “poem-like-things.” I’ll admit that they’re just long, skinny essays that veer every now and then into the poetic or lyric.
michael jarmer 