Joyce Manor Never Hungover Again Cover

Hello everyone and welcome to Album of the Year 2014, a retrospective, daily write-upwardly series for the month of September where the users of r/indieheads go in-depth on their favorite albums released six years ago. Why 2014 you might enquire? Well, we wanted to slowly go dorsum and cover the years nosotros missed since the series started in 2015, and information technology only and so happens that the year before 2015 was 2014. Very odd. Still, it's u/ReconEG here as I'll exist looking at Joyce Estate'due south landmark 3rd album, Never Hungover Again.

July 22, 2014 — Epitaph

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Background

Joyce Estate are an indie rock/pop-punk ring hailing from Torrance, California, located in the South Bay (southwestern) region of Los Angeles County, California. Conceived in a Disneyland parking lot, Joyce Manor originally started out equally an acoustic duo between pb vocaliser/guitarist Barry Johnson and lead guitarist Chase Knobbes in 2008 before the band before long picked upwardly Matt Ebert as their bassist and Kurt Walcher as their drummer for the beginning cadre lineup of the band nosotros know today.

Subsequently releasing their debut album, Joyce Manor, in 2011 to critical acclaim following a lengthy amount of hype due to their live shows + early singles, Johnson was at an impasse. With the self-titled, Johnson had a plethora of songs he wrote to cull from when it came time to record that album, but in 2012 after Asian Man Records approached the ring about putting out an album on their label, Johnson and the band apace rushed into the studio with not a lot insufficiently. The effect? Of All Things I Will Before long Abound Tired, a hot mess of a record that splices together the catchy and hard-hitting pop punk they became initially known for, lo-fi demos that range from the acoustic to GarageBand electronics, and a cover of the Buggles "Video Killed the Radio Star" that is too one of the greatest embrace songs ever fabricated.

In an interview with Kerrang last year breaking down every Joyce Manor album, Johnson said two of the following things:

"I merely do not know what I'g doing," the frontman admits. "I'g being pulled in all kinds of different directions. It sounds like I'thousand having an identity crisis on that record, and I was." With a smirk, he adds, "I retrieve we could've used a psychologist there to help us through that."

"It was like we took a bad record, tore it up, and glued it together with demos and stuff," Barry says, comparison it to a collage. "I don't hate it, but I only think it sounds like a confused guy, considering information technology was fabricated by a confused guy."

After Of All Things, Johnson felt Joyce Manor needed a fresh kickoff. While he was in the early stages of writing, Knobbes was returning habitation from Santa Cruz while staying at his girlfriend's place for a fleck, who went to college in the area. "While she was in school all day, he would just smoke weed and play guitar," said Johnson in that previously mentioned Kerrang interview. "And he got manner amend at guitar by doing that." So, by combining Hunt's guitar parts and Barry'due south songs, the band knew they had something special fifty-fifty before they started recording.

Recorded over the course of a week with producer Joe Reinhart, Johnson stated in his Reddit AMA earlier this twelvemonth that it was the most fun Joyce Manor album to make, saying "Information technology was just a week long party. It got stressful towards the terminate when stuff wasn't meeting correct and I was struggling to sing well (I had been partying for a calendar week straight lol) merely I think you can hear how much fun we are having playing and how excited nosotros are most the songs on that album." Released on legendary punk label Epitaph on July 22, 2014, the album was released to critical acclaim, subsequently condign 1 of the well-nigh defining albums in the about recent emo revival and the torch bearer for pop/emo-punk albums to come up.

Review past /u/ReconEG

For an album I've listened to nonstop for the past year, I still accept trouble finding the words to nearly Never Hungover Again. Most everything I write for this series is a challenge in some way or another, digging deep down to try to articulate what'southward bouncing effectually in my head when listening to music. If this is what information technology feels like to write almost music, I can't imagine what it feels like trying to write music itself. It'southward something frontman Barry Johnson has struggled with for nearly of his career, every bit, to put it just, he doesn't know how to write songs, or at the very least, didn't know how to for a while. I'll just let this flake from SPIN's feature on Joyce Manor in 2016 speak on this:

Turns out, Joyce songs have been historically short not out of principle, but necessity, since Johnson merely didn't have any other way to write. "I recollect it truly [came] from my lack of cognition of arranging," the singer says of his previous tendency to write timeout-length rock songs. "I don't have some ethos nearly information technology. If the song is great for six minutes, then that's bang-up." He credits [Rob] Schnapf with supplying him the tools to stretch his songs across the two-minute mark. "I didn't know that, similar, if yous practise two verses and then a chorus and then a poesy and so a chorus, you can become more than choruses out of the song, 'cause you lot delayed the first chorus. I didn't know that fob."

And even so, despite this lack of noesis at arranging, Johnson has proven to be one of the great songwriters of his generation, as he's able to articulate these very intense memories and moments of his life into songs that can speak to only well-nigh anyone. The lyrics of Never Hungover Once more are hyper-specific at fourth dimension & occasionally hard to grasp but yet, they just fucking hit you right in the heart. In a higher place all else though, these songs are just fun to listen to. It'due south a special quality that maybe only a few artists/bands accept had over the decades from Robert Smith, the Smiths, early Weezer, and peradventure the occasional blink-182 vocal.

I came to this album pretty belatedly though, only in early 2019 by risk seemingly when I was coming off of the last album I wrote about for this series, Lomelda's M For Empathy (Both of these albums have much more in common than you call back! And no I will not expand on this). While I'm going to imagine a lot of these write-ups coming upwardly this month are going to be about albums people loved/listened to at the time, this one is going to be different. Or is it though? Equally despite this anthology coming out correct when r/indieheads was beginning to take off, in that location were no posts about it. In fact, it wasn't really until 2016 maybe that pop-punk/emo was finally beginning to have their moment on the subreddit, equally artists similar Jeff Rosenstock and eventually the Hotelier made me realize oh hey, this pop-punk and emo stuff ain't that bad!

For a while, I resisted pop-punk. Even in my youth, the farthest I'd go downwardly the pop-punk/emo road was probably My Chemic Romance, as most of the pop-punk bands I'd heard at the time were lame to me. I was too busy listening to Breaking Benjamin to give that blink-182 shit a risk. And here's the thing: fifty-fifty later on eventually falling in beloved with Jeff Rosenstock's WORRY. in 2016, it nevertheless took me some fourth dimension to finally embrace popular-punk. I literally saw Joyce Manor in 2017 and had so much fun withal I was nonetheless on the fence about liking this genre! And for what? Considering I idea I would await lame or something? God, I was and so dumb.

This isn't to say that I'chiliad a big popular-punk fanatic though, as I'm still hesitant about much of the genre. Nevertheless, me getting into Never Hungover Again concluding yr is the moment where this genre truly clicked for me. And with the extra flavors of more ability pop and indie rock influences? Baby, you got the perfect stew of quintessential rock music. I hateful for God's sake, "Christmas Bill of fare" is the god damn opener of this album, okay! It truly does not get meliorate than this! But it almost couldn't have been. On Twitter, Ian Cohen revealed that Joyce Estate originally planned for "Christmas Card" to be the outro, until Epitaph boss Brett Gurewitz stepped in and told them to do the opposite. Either he, or the band in reaction to this determination decided to rework the entire sequence of the anthology as presently afterwards in a reply to Cohen, they revealed the original tracklist which is just… so fucked up.

Like, the anthology was originally going to be titled In the Army Now and "In the Army Now" was gonna intro the album? I'll get to it in a scrap how it might be my favorite on the album because it's the ideal deep cutting, but information technology's exactly that: a deep cut. Additionally, blowing your load early and sticking "Catalina Fight Song" on side A? "Falling in Love Again" on side B? If I end upwards talking about this anthology mostly in its tracklist gild, could you lot actually arraign me, knowing how it could have concluded up? Only forreal, whoever stock-still the tracklisting on this anthology whether that'd be the band, Brett, or someone else: fucking cheers. Instead of putting together a pretty solid pop-punk/emo/power popular anthology, you instead put together the nearly ideal fusion of those genres ever put to wax.

Okay, enough preamble, let's just get fucking into information technology. "Christmas Carte" is once over again, a hell of a god damn opener. Information technology is physically impossible for me to not scream along to the song's opening lyrics either literally or internally, it but reverbates around in my auto or in my skull. A lot of Never Hungover Again is about yearning, and information technology's maybe on this song where Barry yearns the hardest. And not only is it about yearning, it's about aging and yearning. About reaching the point where your body tin no longer keep up with you like it used to. I mean, is "your torso's maxim isn't that enough / your brain is going i don't requite a fuck" non the most apt line ever written almost aging out of your 20'south?

The ideal album intro is the thesis of the unabridged record. Every theme going frontwards should be introduced or hinted at in here. Never Hungover Again is well-nigh a lot of things merely what is it mostly about? As I mentioned, yearning. 'Lotta yearning on this album. Likewise as I said, the difficulties of growing upwards. As Barry Johnson said, and I repeat, "your trunk'south saying isn't that enough / your encephalon is going i don't give a fuck." Simply what this album is most chiefly about is the hyper-specific moments in your life that affect everything. The unique times and people you see along the fashion that alter the trajectory of everything. I don't recollect I've ever heard something forth the lines of "You lot treat information technology similar a game of skill / But it'south more like a piece of work of fine art / Or money in a Christmas card" before this album, merely I know exactly what it means. Beloved isn't some sort of game like chess, it'due south a piece of art you need to work at and cherish. Only sometimes dear is just about all the small things, true intendance truth brings. Sometimes it'south coin in a christmas bill of fare and other times it's roses by the stairs, surprises allow me know she cares.

Only if you lot want to talk about yearning? And I hateful real yearning, information technology doesn't go amend than "Falling in Love Once again." In that location's a reason this is their 2d most pop vocal on Spotify, as information technology'southward about the pitfalls of falling in love in the death of sincerity in your young machismo. I can't tell you when I terminal looked at a high school yearbook simply when I did, I definitely felt similar I needed a long corporeality of fourth dimension to collect myself and stop thinking about every single mistake I made from the ages of 15 to 18. The again in this song signifies that this isn't the first time Johnson has had these mental blocks when kickoff to see somebody, and it sure as hell won't be the last as the vocal drifts off into an echoey cavern of "Then come downwards to collect it."

But merely equally you lot think this album might exist Joyce Manor fully pulling away from their roots once y'all become into "End of the Summertime" (a dandy song but sadly I have to take some restraint as this review is already going to be far also long), you get into the quartet of bangers: "Victoria", "Schley", "Heart Tattoo" and "The Jerk." All songs that feature some of the all-time guitar lines Chase Knobbes has ever wrote, all songs that actually prove off Barry'southward lyrical skills spinning these hyper-specific moments into e'er relatable songs, and all songs that highlight the chemistry the rhythm section has here equally Matt Ebert is a seriously underrated bassist and Kurt Walcher even so might be the best drummer they've always had (though, they've never had a bad drummer, as both Pat Ware and Jeff Enzor are tremendous).

"Heart Tattoo" was the first Joyce Manor vocal I always heard and was always my short song to go to when I worked in college radio and I needed something to get me into the adjacent hr at the perfect time. I have never been in the state of affairs that Johnson was in where I had to take off my screen door to get into my house, just I sure equally hell have been on some shitty dates where in that location'due south no spark which just makes Johnson'southward misadventures in carpenting add a ton to "Victoria." "Schley" features some of the best lines on the album with "Similar old friends who never ask 'How can you lot be happy when yous wearable all blackness?' / And they care considering they wanna," "Like your proper noun, the manner information technology looks carved into the embrace of a telephone book / I don't care, I'm never gonna / Information technology sounds better when y'all're loftier on marijuana / Yeah right, in my head / Yeah correct, am I right in my head?" and "It feels weird like a really weird picture" which is just the perfect clunky line along with Ebert's sick ass bass piece of work in the beginning verse of this song. And so "The Jerk" which honestly I don't have much words about other than to say information technology'southward the greatest song of all fourth dimension like every other song on Never Hungover Again.

In Barry Johnson's AMA earlier this year, u/logansn0w asked if he had a favorite misheard lyric in which Barry replied "I have a least favorite misheard lyric." Of course, he'south talking about the famous opening line to "Catalina Fight Vocal," of which Barry is singing "Sunken metropolis past the ocean" but considering of the song's fast pace and his Southern California drawl, many have misheard information technology as "Suck a titty by the ocean." While Barry implies that this is his least favorite misheard lyric, he admittedly has to have sung this instead at some shows, there's no manner he hasn't. I practice wish sometimes that the song wasn't overshadowed though by information technology'southward famous misheard lyric every bit it's ane of the biggest rippers in their discography, surviving the tough balancing human action between their rabid origins and current, cleaner sound. There'south also some incredibly vivid imagery hither about teenage debauchery and depression along with a line almost Target that injure my feelings very much. I recollect y'all should apologize, Barry Johnson.

Oh and hey remember when I said "In the Army Now" might be my favorite vocal on the album? Erase that shred of doubt because it absolutely is the best on the anthology. Featuring some of the most biting words and vivid imagery Johnson has always put to sing, this song really is merely a masterpiece. Whether or not the ground forces in this song is literal or metaphorical, it doesn't affair. The pain yous can feel in Johnson'southward voice as he reminisces almost these past times with his former love simply breaks you to your cadre. While the Smiths influence on this album is apparent all over, it really comes together the best here every bit at that place's no weird sidebar about being with your farmyard friends or whatever: this is true-blooded melodrama as lines similar "Where were you when you felt left out? / It's all shit for families anyhow," "I wanna osculation you lot through your hockey mask" and" I always knew yous'd go out me anytime / I ever knew yous'd have to go / I always knew you'd bring together the army" just pierce your soul like nowhere else on the anthology. While yearning and longing are essentially the same thing, they have up unlike spaces in my mind and if you have to depict any song as about longing on this album, it's "In the Army Now."

While the tetralogy in the album's centre part are largely nigh the awkward times of your mid-20s, the anthology's terminal three songs seem to exist largely looking dorsum to your teenage years, where yous initially made that promise to never get hungover over again as the anthology'due south namesake. All these songs serve as unlike kinds of send offs to different kinds of people, some yous were close to, some that betrayed you lot, and some you lot never were and never wish to be close with ever again, the latter being the subject area(due south) of "Heated Pond Pool" featuring a especially honest and cruel line in "I wish you would have died in high school / So you lot could exist somebody's idol." But these are all thoughts that stayed inside of Johnson's head, never exiting his mouth as he sat next to you past the heated swimming pool, a sign of course he'll never be able to attain just perhaps, merely perhaps he can imitation it in front of your friend's going off to the Ivy League.

There'due south a line in the new Microphones anthology, Microphones in 2020 that's peculiarly stuck with me in regards to this song. "We'd go upward on the roof at night and really contemplate the moon / My friends and I simply trying to blow each others' minds / Merely lying there gazing, immature and ridiculous / And we meant it, our eyes watering." Basically, take this line, dumb it down, add ii or 3 specific Southern California references, and then a weird diatribe nigh a girl and you've got what Never Hungover Once more is all most. In what should be the last hoorah earlier true adulthood, information technology instead becomes a terrible evening where yous reminisce over the worst moments of your life equally you swear the adjacent morning yous're never gonna potable again, or not similar that at least. And before you even realize, you stop breaking your loose promises once and for all.

And that's really the story of Joyce Manor after this album. While they aren't the hard partiers they used to exist, you can tell they're at peace, much more than and then than before. Even if they're much more thoughtful about their work today (for amend or worse), it's squeamish to see them historic period gracefully. However, there'south always going to be a function of me that misses this side of Joyce Manor, correct when they were beginning to hit their stride from a technical perspective while still happily unaware of pop song structures simply somehow putting together some of the catchiest and hook-filled songs e'er committed to record. I've forgotten to mention this throughout this review but holy shit this album is filled to the brim with hooks. I could probably hum most of this anthology past retentivity which tin only be blamed so much on its length.

Never Hungover Once more finally clicked with me at a time where for the outset time in a while, I felt some true happiness. Just as Barry Johnson was finally putting away the past one time and for all, it felt like I was also at the same time. While I all the same have a couple of more years left in my 20's to actually fuck things upwards, I think living in the midst of a global pandemic & a growing recession has really showed me that oh aye I'm growing upwardly way sooner than I expected and you know what? I'm kind of relieved. Maybe it's existence in a actually happy & good for you human relationship or knowing what I'one thousand doing in one case I get out of school, merely the idea of Never Hungover Again isn't merely meant in a literal sense. When Marking Hoppus sang "I estimate this is growing up" he had no thought what the fuck he was talking about because he would go on to write "I Really Wish I Hated You" in his 40s. All the same when Barry Johnson sings near the ideas that encompass what existence never hungover once again truly means, there's much more sincerity and honesty there.

And so, whether you consider this the peak of the most recent emo revival, a dandy pop-punk record, or simply another Weezer/Smiths rip-off, Never Hungover Once again truly feels like everything that has come before in the history of punk, and setting the phase for what has come after. Or it'south just an album about the love/hate human relationship Barry Johnson has with the city of Torrance, California and its current/former residents. Any your cup of tea is.

Favorite Lyrics

Looking for the keys to the truck

Your body's saying isn't that enough?

Your brain is going I don't give a fuck

• "Christmas Card"

It's also sad

Bluish marker on a newspaper bag

You could article of clothing it similar a mask

You could be your own dad

• "End of the Summer"

So sentinel out, you're in danger

You'd never know information technology but you know that it's possible

Like onetime friends who never ask "How can you be happy when you habiliment all black?"

And they intendance because they wanna

Information technology feels weird like a really weird flick

All night in my head

All night, in my head

• "Schley"

I wanna see what'southward going on

Over your shoulder but it all goes wrong

Don't say goodbye say you're not certain

Anything could ever come between the two of us

I would say the same affair

• "The Jerk"

Where were you when yous felt left out?

Information technology's all shit for families anyway

Look proficient in the uniform

Look good holding a gun

Article of furniture store

Shards of glass

I wanna kiss you through your hockey mask

Crusade we're in the army now

• "In the Army Now"

Talking Points

• What do yous think of Never Hungover Again?

• How well practise you think information technology's held upwards over the years? I feel like most pop-punk/pop-punk-adjacent albums end up aging poorly, yet this album doesn't feel like it'll exist that way, but what do you think?

• Is Barry Johnson a genius, a himbo, or both?

• Lyrically, do you recall my comparisons to the Smiths, Weezer, and Robert Smith are apt or am I full of shit?

• What do you think of Barry'southward list of underrated Disneyland rides?

• And finally, where does Never Hungover Over again rank in your 2014 lists?

Thank y'all all for getting this far and reading the first entry in our Album of the Year 2014 series! Swing dorsum tomorrow as my fellow Indieheads Podcast castmate and AOTD tournament runner /u/American_Soviet will be covering Grouper'southward dark ambient masterpiece, Ruins. Their write-up last year for Purple Mountains was fantastic and I'm excited to see how they tackle their choice for tomorrow. And too, the schedule for the remainder of the serial will be posted below in the comments.

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Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/indieheads/comments/iklajj/album_of_the_year_2014_1_joyce_manor_never/

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