Early A.M. EST - Jan 20th, 2020
13.05 - Nada Surf - You Know Who You Are - 2016
Just another outstanding release from another artist encumbered with popular one-hit wonder status that upon further examination reveals not only potential future artistic fineness, but also commercial viability and band longevity. This is surely a mid-tempo release that does little to recall the ferocity of its band's biggest hit, which was an unlikely plea for romance in a sea of libertine/communal dating advice as seen through the lens of an outsider. (Yes, it was a swipe at how disposable certain cultures had been about people within romantic relationships in the past, and how they continue to be, especially 40s and 50s American dating culture as imagined in nineties form.)
Okay, enough about the hit. It's been done. Click the spoiler for more info, takes, etc. This is a fine album. It's not going to get me to jump out my seat and start dancing, but it's had my head nodding on long drives enough for it to have burned an easy way into my heart over the past three years or so. It sounds fresh and doesn't really fall into any traps an older pop band who does what they do might fall into. This is definitely bar or driving music to nod to, to absorb, to let wash over one and envelop. And the album is a grower. If I have a complaint, and a serious one for a click-happy generation that has no tangible media, it's that the ordering of the tracks seems like a mistake. A huge one. The truly exciting songs are at the end, aside from Friend Hospital, which is another standout. Anyway, I post this now because I go see them tomorrow. I won't get personal but it's a big deal to be able to go, simply put. The names of the tracks I'm posting tell the story in text. Herewith the tracks.
Friend Hospital
Gold Sounds
Victory's Yours
Reveal hidden contents
From NPR, Jason Heller: "'Don't get me started about how hard it is to start or stay on track," Matthew Caws, singer-guitarist of Nada Surf, sings in "Cold To See Clear" — one of the many anthems that grace the group's eighth album, You Know Who You Are. Not that Caws and crew seem to have any problem staying on track themselves. The stalwart power-pop band has weathered the stormy fortunes of the music industry since making a splash with its 1996 hit "Popular."
Pitchfork won't review the album. They hate Nada. That's okay guys, you stick with the under 3 rating you gave Let Go back when your writers were lying about traversing the city to the Beastie Boys' To The Five Boroughs.
A more intelligent and dispassionate criticism can be found at Brooklyn Vegan here.
http://www.brooklynvegan.com/why-we-left-nad/
"They’ve got quality material on all of their albums, but the main reason we didn’t think they belonged on the list is that Nada Surf’s post-major label career as a fruitful indie band didn’t feel as much like a story in 2014 as most of the bands we included. Nada Surf have been putting out well-received releases on Barsuk since 2002, and when we think about the great music that Barsuk’s put out over the past decade-plus, Nada Surf’s albums immediately come to mind. When most Burger Records fans think of Burger Records, I don’t think their first thought is The Muffs or the Superdrag-related The Lees of Memory, who both signed to the label this year. It’s been totally normal to see Nada Surf booked on an indie-leaning music festival like Bumbershoot (more than once), Waterloo’s SXSW parties, and Sasquatch for at least six years. And unlike “Flagpole Sitta” or “Sucked Out,” which still loom large over Harvey Danger and Superdrag’s respective careers, ask a younger music fan about Nada Surf and there’s a good chance they’re more likely to tell you about Lucky (2008) than “Popular.” A scroll through BrooklynVegan’s “Nada Surf” tag shows we’ve consistently covered them over the years, whereas the bands on the list haven’t gotten much coverage. We didn’t feel that highlighting Nada Surf to BV readers at this point would fit the theme of “band you didn’t think were the best ’90s bands,” because that just seemed like old news."
The nineties were my decade of my real cognizant youth as far as being part of a time or generational space. It's too bad some of the ideas of pop were anti-pop without art, weird pastiches of oftentimes nipple-gazing grunge but also maudlin and mawkish rock on the outskirts of pop as well. It wasn't a very good decade for pop, actually. IMO, punk had its garage/punk pop revival and disco had its own revival in Moby and the early to mid part of the decade. That's where you'll find good nineties music. In its shoegaze, its alternative, its punk, its own disco. Anyway, Nada Surf falls into alternative radio fodder, never alternative always fodder for critics. I mean, it was bad. The eighties snuck some punk and new wave and old soul through, the nineties never had a chance. So Nada Surf gets viewed in context here -- there are some other older stalwarts that put out a record this decade that I won't spotlight, but this is probably the album that makes the most sense and is eminently listenable. If the 90s had a pop band not marred by tragedy, surely these cats make cut as one of the finest.
