Saturday, September 8, 2012

Say Anything, I'm disappointed in you.

I make no secret of my unconditional love and affection for the band Say Anything.

I mean, just look at them.

I've listened to all of their albums (with the exception of the newest, and in any case I'll be getting to that soon) at least thirty times each.
Max Bemis is the reason I found what is now one of my favorite albums (Razia's Shadow: A Musical; he plays Barayas the Spider, but I won't get into that right now).
I have two Say Anything tattoos:


I'm not fantastic with pain tolerance, as evidenced by the buggy eyes.

the second one of which is the name of the song they wrote specifically for me and a huge part of why I made it through my pregnancy/adoption at all.

It's not even close to an exaggeration to say that Say Anything is my favorite band.

There are a few reasons for this, the main one being that when I listen to music, I listen to the lyrics. The way Max Bemis writes is the way I think. He talks about all the same topics, but puts his own vulgar, eloquent, self-deprecating spin on them. It's not flowery; it's a bald, in-your-face statement that the darkest part of you instantly relates to. It hits and it hurts. It's obscene and poetic at the same time. (These, incidentally, are all the same reasons why I love Stephen King.)

And a big part of it, for me, is the self-deprecation. Every song is written in the tone of someone who is incredibly insecure, but doesn't want to come off as whiny. Every angry song has an equal hit at itself. It all measures out. That's what sets them apart from your stereotypical "emo" or alternative group. It's also what I want to talk about here.

The first SA album I got into was Is A Real Boy. There's a song on there (that was in my "Favorite Songs" rotation for a couple months) called "Admit It!" that discusses a specific brand of narcissist/sociopath that I was intimately familiar with.

The real reason I liked this song is that, following this lengthy diatribe against this group, Max turns the mic on himself:

Well let me tell you this: I am shamelessly self-involved.
I spend hours in front of the mirror making my hair elegantly disheveled.
I worry about how this album will sound, because I believe it will determine the amount of sex I will have in the future.
I self-medicate with drugs and alcohol to treat my extreme social anxiety.

and everything after that, is directed at himself as well as the people he hates. Everything is doled out in equal measure. There's no elitism in it; it plainly states, I hate this, but I'm no better, and I'm certainly not immune to it. It demonstrates a self-awareness most people don't have.

Their self-titled album (the latest one before Anarchy, My Dear, which came out in March) is my favorite. Favorite songs, favorite SA album, favorite album in general. It starts off with the usual piss and vinegar, but it's more humorous than actually angry. The 6th song, "Mara and Me", stops in the middle, and Max says,

Wait a second-- I can't write the same damn song over and over again.
I can't define myself through irony and self-deprecation.
I can't deny myself being alive through my alienation.

Immediately after that, the song picks up the pace and it becomes a completely different album. It's not upbeat, but it's not angry. It explores a lot and is wildly different from anything they did before.

So, after being so completely in love with their last album, you can imagine my excitement when I found out that a new one was coming out in just a few days. The day it went on sale, David and I drove to the mall, braved the Hot Topic, and bought it. I opened it on the way out to the parking lot, because I just wanted to look at it. A new Say Anything album, full of brand new songs I'd never heard before, in my hands, about to rain its undoubtedly lovely poetry upon my eager ears.

We put it in the CD player. . .

and were almost immediately disappointed.

Disclaimer: I really, really didn't want to write this post. I did not want to write this post SO MUCH that it has been sitting, unfinished, in my post drafts since early March. I tried to be forgiving and open-minded and I thought that maybe this new album needed time to grow on me. I wanted to give it a fair chance.

Well, after six months, I think what I've given it is much more than fair. So even though it hurts me immensely, I'm going to say it.

It sucks.

It's like everything Max learned during the last album was just suddenly forgotten. He's still bitter, but all that self-awareness and eloquence is gone, and all of that completely unwarranted bile is being launched directly at you, the listener, the person who bought this CD. It's forty-five minutes of being screamed at because you have a stupid haircut and wear stupid clothes and listen to Rihanna, probably.

Does that sound pleasant? If it does, I should probably go a little bit further here. The first song, "Burn A Miracle", is a five-minute vehicle for the phrase "burn a miracle" to turn into the phrase "burn America". No reasoning, no wittiness, just screaming "burn America" over and over again. There's a song called "Sheep", which I shouldn't even really need to explain. Most of the songs AT LEAST make mention of the fact that Max was made fun of/bullied/scorned as a kid, and at most are completely about it, and all of them are delivered with the charm and wit of a child in Target throwing a fit because they're all out of the Iron Man masks and he has to get a Captain America mask instead. The songs that aren't just spite-volcanos spewing out hate lava, because there are a couple, are wooden ballads with no emotion behind them. They're like me trying to write journals now; "I'm sad. Sometimes I'm not happy. This happened today."

It's just. . . awful. Angry, empty, awful. And entitled, Jesus is it entitled. And it's being directed at the listener.

What the hell happened, Say Anything? I thought we made a breakthrough last time. You had a song about a myth, for God's sake! There was a song about how cool Max's wife was, and how she makes him feel like a little kid but in a good way! Everything was wonderful and peachy and we were all having a good time, and then somebody got dumped, or got shit kicked on their shoes, or got cut off in traffic, I don't know, and you had to go and ruin everything by making this just awful, because I can't think of another word for it, awful fucking record with little to no redeemable qualities. Here's a tip, if you're screaming at someone for forty-five minutes, it should be because you have a point to make, because you love them.

Or in the case of this post, both, because I love you guys and GODDAMNIT YOU'RE BETTER THAN THIS.

Please don't do this again, Say Anything. I can forgive you because we've got history, but please don't hurt me like this again. I don't think my little heart can take it.

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GO ON, SAY SOMETHING.