Bleachers (2021)

One Liner: Pop mastermind churning out eighties inspired pop bangers and some filler

Wikipedia Genre: Indie pop, new wave, alternative rock, synth-pop
Home: NYC

Poster Position: 4
Both Weekends

Friday at 4pm on the Lady Bird Stage.

Thoughts: I'm on a run of folks who came to the Fest not that long ago.  Which sometimes is a good thing, right?  Like if a band is crushing it and releasing album after album of amazing stuff and we need to get them back to see it all unfold while its fresh, than that is rad.  Some of these, it doesn't feel that fresh (looking at you Finneas).  But Bleachers just released a new album that is pretty good.

This is the project of Jack Antonoff.  He came to the Fest in 2013 as fun., with that fantastic "We Are Young" song, and "Some Nights," and "Carry On."  I saw that fun show and it was a good time. I kind of figured they were one hit wonder machines, but their hits were good and their cover of the Rolling Stones was way better than I would have expected.  I took immense pleasure in knowing immediately that they were playing the Stones, while all of the stoned 14 year olds around me in the crowd looked confused.  Suck it teens.

But then that ended and he started Bleachers, and they came to ACL in 2014 in support of their new album Strange Desire.  "I Wanna Get Better" was the jam off of that one.  

An excellent pop jam.  Highly danceable and sing-able and full of 80's synth joy.   In addition to being a catchy tune, the video is funny too - "I don't know how to power clash" is a great line.  "Rollercoaster" is a good tune off of that album as well.  Has some Springsteen-ness to it.

I actually just read an article about him in Rolling Stone, because the dude has become THE MAN.  He's buddies with Springsteen.  He produces Taylor Swift, Lorde, and Lana Del Rey (among many others).  I mean, if you get to be the guy helping Taylor be the biggest star on the planet, then you're doing things right.  And he apparently even had a band before fun, called Steel Train that did really well for itself before they disbanded in the early 2000's.  Talented dude.  And he plays most of the music in the studio, just using the rest of the band for when he is playing live.

Wikipedia says "Bleachers' pop music is heavily influenced by the late '80s, early '90s and the high school-based films of John Hughes while still using modern production techniques."  That is fascinating - never would have guessed this was a John Hughes stan band.  

Their second album was 2017's Gone Now.  The hit on there was "Don't Take the Money," with 76.1 million streams.

I don't love it.  Definitely still doing the 80's derivative thing, but something about the pacing of the vocals bugs me.  Maebe Funke though!   I have no clue what is going on there with the bride and her hardcore friend, but I know that this is an 80's music track that is unnecessary.  Just give me the real 80's music.  He's won two Grammys, one for "We Are Young" with Fun and one for his work on Taylor Swift's 1989.  But this album should not be winning any Grammys.  Its not terrible, but also not very interesting to me.  "Goodmorning" rips off the sound of Crosby, Stills & Nash's "Our House."  "Goodbye" sounds like a Kanye b-side beat with some weak lyrics.  Nope.  Don't care for it.  Although, like, listening to it again right now, it dawns on me that "All My Heroes" sounds like something that could have been on one of those two new TayTay albums, just slowed down and with more acoustic guitar.

The new album is agonizingly called Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night, and the cover of it makes me think of Jeff Buckley's Grace.  Springsteen comes out to holler some gravelly lines about finding tomorrow with a girl like you on "Chinatown."  "How Dare You Want More" has saxophone as though it is a Bruce song.  "45" starts out sounding like an acoustic Foo Fighters song, but then old Jack starts doing his semi-yelp singing pattern again and you can tell its Bleachers.  The album kind of ends with a whimper - I definitely prefer the fun 80's bouncing tunes to the sad sack introspective stuff.  Like, "How Dare You Want More" is a fun, snappy little tune, and the "Stop Making This Hurt" track is the winning spot on the album.  7.6 million streams.

Its that bouncy piano riff backed up by the little horn squonks that make it seem like you just need to dance to this tune.  Heavy dose of 80's joy right there (even as the lyrics point at a darker moment behind that joyful sound).  I don't love the whole album, but there are some bright spots like that one in here.

I'll likely go watch this.  My buddy had been making noise about seeing Machine Gun Kelly, but I'd prefer to dance like Molly Ringwald to these songs.