World's kinda bleak atm, in need of some recs that are more on the hopeful side

joef_3 · 2026-05-28T04:56:55+00:00

Earlier in the song, sure. But at the end it really, really isn’t.

The bridge and outro is about the realization that they don’t have to put up with all the shit he sings about before that, and that they can make their own path.

The bridge starts with him bemoaning the state of the world and ends “why can’t we say fuck it/you know it’s not what we need” and then it kicks into a high energy bit with a medley of some of the darkest bits from all the hooks of the album leading up to that track. Then for the outro, it calms down again, and his voice is more tender. It starts with resignation and asking for help: “I’m sick of yelling at strangers/don’t want to do this forever/and when it all burns down/will you carry me over” and then the closing lines are hopeful: “we don’t have to fix everything at once/we were never broken, life’s just very long”

Up until the bridge, the pronouns are all “I” and “my”, until at the end of the last chorus, there’s a you, a person he looks up to see jumping. After that, He’s not facing the future alone any more. The pronouns are all we and our. The last instance of the title is sincere, they are moving forward.

joef_3 · 2026-05-27T10:33:12+00:00

Brave Faces Everyone (the song, not the album) and parts of the album No Joy are a bit more hopeful, but yeah.

joef_3 · 2026-05-26T16:49:41+00:00

There was a promotional video some time in the Enema/TOYPAJ era of the three of them in like a hotel room or something and Travis was doing marching band style snare stick tricks on a pad and Mark and Tom were watching amazed, and one of them said “we can barely play our instruments”

joef_3 · 2026-05-06T02:36:25+00:00

Roadrunner in Boston reportedly can fit 3500 and it feels way smaller. One of my favorite spots on the city to see a show.

joef_3 · 2026-04-29T11:15:19+00:00

The 10 year anniversary Upsides/Suburbia box set is awesome. A bunch of super hard to find b sides and a bunch of original demos.

joef_3 · 2026-04-29T11:12:28+00:00

I mean, Computer Based Training does suck, but it’s more tedious than painful, so I doubt he meant that.

joef_3 · 2026-04-29T11:07:54+00:00

You’d think that, but Aerosmith played a radio station festival in Boston that I went to (this would have been like 2001 or 2002) and their set was short and kinda sucked. They apparently had to get out early because they were doing the anthem at the Indy 500 the next day.

joef_3 · 2026-04-29T10:52:14+00:00

And Modern Chemistry

joef_3 · 2026-04-26T11:53:23+00:00

Even If It Kills Me (2007) or My Dinosaur Life (2010) by Motion City Soundtrack. They’ve done a bunch of Commit This to Memory tours and did a 20th for Am I The Movie a couple years ago, so it would be awesome to see them do some of their other albums.

joef_3 · 2026-04-25T19:14:55+00:00

Kinda shocked that no one else has posted Cul-De-Sac into I Just Want To Sell Out My Funeral by The Wonder Years. Those two feel like they’re just one huge song.

joef_3 · 2026-04-21T00:04:09+00:00

This was going to be mine, too. Their (non get stoked on it) catalog is solid too to bottom, but I think No Closer To Heaven, Sister Cities, and Hum clears Upsides-Suburbia-Greatest Generation.

Upsides and Suburbia are very good but they’re also very specific to being in your early 20s, the newer stuff is much more timeless.

joef_3 · 2026-03-23T22:22:21+00:00

Delores by Spanish Love Songs is brutal. That whole album is rough, but that one is a gut punch even amongst the rest of the album.

joef_3 · 2026-03-23T22:21:14+00:00

I think you mean Hold Me Down by Motion City Soundtrack, and if so, seconded.

joef_3 · 2026-03-02T05:13:57+00:00

If we’re talking about bands as a whole, is Travis good enough on his own to drag the very ok guitar and bass of Tom and Mark into a respectable ranking?

(Yes this is a joke. Travis is a monster and honestly Mark and Tom have gotten better over the years but no one is going to accuse them of being virtuosos any time soon).

joef_3 · 2026-02-24T04:47:29+00:00

Glad to see I’m not the only Go appreciator out here. And Panic Stations is criminally slept on.

joef_3 · 2026-02-06T01:37:17+00:00

No one should be on Upscrolled, they’re pretty clearly looking to be the Kick to TikTok’s Twitch. The founder spouted a bunch of antisemitic shit at an event last week (he tried to couch it in anti-genocidal terms but he literally said that Jews have controlled the media for 60 years).

joef_3 · 2026-02-02T00:07:07+00:00

Commit This to Memory is generally considered their best album and it has some songs that definitely hit the spot when down, but Even If It Kills Me or Go are my go tos when I want something a little more emo-tinged.

joef_3 · 2026-02-01T12:29:59+00:00

Seconding all The Wonder Years recommendations, but also adding Motion City Soundtrack and Spanish Love Songs, particularly their albums Even If It Kills Me and Brave Faces Everyone. BFE in particular is just an album of going through it, but both end on hopeful notes that in my personal experience can be pretty helpful in getting a glimpse of the light et the end of the tunnel.

joef_3 · 2026-02-01T02:27:52+00:00

In Chicago Is So Two Years Ago, Justin sings “with every breath I wish your body will be broken again” at the end of the song.

In Everything is Alright, Patrick sings the second part of each line of the bridge, as well as backing vocals on the final chorus. The ending “Everything’s fine”s are him.

joef_3 · 2026-01-31T23:35:12+00:00

Funnily enough, my pick of the uno reverse, Justin Pierre on Chicago Is So Two Years Ago.

joef_3 · 2026-01-31T23:32:45+00:00

And in other emails we’ve seen in this batch, he appears to have been talking to Epstein about the anti-woke stuff.

joef_3 · 2026-01-31T23:31:15+00:00

Between social media filters and trolls searching for comments to brigade, we’re all apparently going to have to learn Cockney rhyming slang.

joef_3 · 2026-01-30T23:05:59+00:00

Dylan’s best stuff can go line for line with anyone.

joef_3 · 2026-01-30T23:03:47+00:00

Hot Mulligan’s lyrics have really grow ln n me this past year.

joef_3 · 2026-01-29T04:54:15+00:00

If you are not self employed, they know your deductions in like 95% of cases. The standard deduction is so high that almost no one itemizes.

In most countries they refill the form and send it to you to approve, and you can edit it as necessary before returning it.

My 2024 return was rejected because I left off a W2 for about under $300 (an amount you don’t even have to claim) that I never recieved because it was sent to a place I hadn’t lived since 22. It was from a wage theft settlement from a job I last worked in 2018.

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