Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Did you hear? Taking Back Sunday - Tell All Your Friends Demo

As a responsible blogger, I think about my entries long before I write and submit them.  I take a bunch of things into consideration before uploading a record.  

1 - Does anyone want this record?
2 - Will uploading this record please my existing readers?
3 - Will uploading this record bring in new readers?
4 - Can I say something new in my entry and thus justify my uploading this record?
Taking Back Sunday recently announced that they're back with the original Tell All Your Friends lineup.  The announcement generated a lot of interest, and I'm sure people want to hear the old stuff.  I'm guessing everyone already has TAYF so here's the demo.  Check box #3.

In this entry, I can talk about a broader phenomenon in music: the great debut.  Check box #4.  

Journalists appreciate bands that work hard and develop their sound- bands that finally come into their own on albums four or five.  While I love these bands too, I'm also impressed by bands that arrive on the scene fully-formed with a unique sound and songs to boot.  Taking Back Sunday's Tell All Your Friends is so complete and impossible to improve upon that I'm surprised they even tried.  Obviously, the later stuff is not very good.  

Out of the five songs on this demo, four made it to the LP.  My favorite TBS song, "Bike Scene," is here in rudimentary form.  The only song that didn't make the cut- an acoustic song called "Your Own Disaster"- illustrates how impressive TBS really was in 2002.  "Your Own Disaster" is generic and boring.  Their sound just couldn't accommodate wimpy shit like it so it got the axe.  They knew what worked, and because it worked, they made three more records.  My last point: breaking up isn't hard to do. 


What other bands arrived with the perfect sound and vision?  What happened to those bands? 

1 comment:

Chris MF said...

Yeah this was a pretty explosive CD and i stopped caring about TBS after New Again came out. I was disappointed but im glad the "Tell All Your Friends' line up has been reuinited. The new CD just may be able to recreate their initial sucess.