Entertainment Junkie: Brand New

(Back when I thought this blog was gonna really take off, I instituted a feature called Entertainment Junkie, where I would talk about my favorite movies, books, tv shows, and music. I only wrote one so far, but now I'm trying to amend for my past lack of deeds. Aaaaaand...we're back in)


The band Brand New, like several of my most favoritest things, took a while for me to even like, let alone love. Let me set the stage here for the rocky first steps of my relationship with the band.

The year was 2003. I was on the prowl for some kickin' tunes (what we called music way back in Aught Three) to put on my third annual set of compilation CDs. Entitled Libby's Christmas Album, it was my genius way to get out of buying my closest friends real Christmas presents, but that's a topic for another blog. Anyway, I asked my friend Josh Stifter if he had any music to recommend to me. The band he brought up as his "favorite" at the time was Brand New. Now, if there's anything young Josh knew, it was music, so I figured it was a pretty solid choice. I headed to Best Buy and picked up their sophomore album, Deja Entendu. I listened to it once, INSTANTLY hated it, and put it on the "losers" side of the shelf with my Loudermilk album and my Weird Al CDs.

Why did I hate it? It was slow! It was depressing! It was weird! Most of all, it had no, that's ZERO, catchy songs I could easily put on my Christmas Album. (Ironically enough, three years later I put not one but TWO songs from that album on the 2006 Christmas Albums.) According to the Libby who was used to his Offsprings, his Sum 41s, his Goldfingers and Riddlin' Kidses....Brand New SUCKED!

Anyway, there it sat, next to such genius tracks as "EstrogenOxygenAchesInTheTeethAgain" for at least six months, without as much as a second listen.

Flash Forward to the spring of '04. Whichever girl I was chasing at the time had just rejected me, which is pretty much standard procedure in LibbyLand. I needed to sit down in my over-large office chair, pop in a classic feel-bad album, and do some quick wallowing before I purged the crappiness from my system. My usual feel-bad albums (Sister Hazel's "Fortress?" GREAT feel-bad album) were getting old. I needed something new. I remembered that I had some slow, depressing, weird music somewhere, and that seemed like just the ticket. So I pushed aside the Loudermilk album, turned Weird Al's judgmental eyes away, and blew the dust off of Deja Entendu. I gave it a listen.

It was like a dirty tarp had been lifted from my eyes. Everything I had hated about it turned
into my favorite things about it. Before it was too slow, now it was haunting. Before it was depressing, now it was heartfelt. Before it was weird, now it was inventive and original. Everything about the album, from the master craftsmanship of the lyrics, to the sheer talent of the guitar parts, made me just love the experience. Especially the lyrics, as well as the urgency of the vocals, struck a huge chord with me. I was a fan for life.

And this is all before the release of "The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me," the album I consider to be the most well-crafted musical undertaking in the last ten years. That album is so phenomenal, I can't even begin to describe it. You need to listen to it if you have not already.

In their three albums, Brand New has evolved their sound to the point of near-perfection. I can't wait to see what they come up with next. And that's all I have to say about that.