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| By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52100197 |
I am working on and will release next week my review of POST-, the latest album by punk/indie rocker Jeff Rosenstock, that was released a month ago on New Year's Day. But, to give that review further context, I wanted to talk really quickly about Jeff's 2016 opus WORRY.
In the common practice of bringing the purely subjective world of music into the more objective realm of numbers by assigning albums a numerical score--the utility or futility of which is still up for debate--WORRY. is one of only a handful of records that I've ever heard that I feel really deserves a 10/10 rating. Because of this, I have a hard time articulating just how much I love it and how incredible I find it, without falling into hollow-sounding superlatives and hyperbole, but I'll give it my very best shot.
For those of you who aren't familiar, since he is still a fairly underground, unsung artist, Jeff Rosenstock mainly makes punk music. However, unlike your typical dime-a-dozen pop punk musicians recycling the same, tired sound from 2007 over and over, Jeff Rosenstock is first and foremost a songwriter, and a punk rocker second, and, boy, is he a great songwriter. He has a true gift for crafting great melodies, dynamic song structures, and killer hooks. It just so happens that, a majority of the time, this great songwriting is manifest in the form of punk rock.
But, being a songwriter first, rocker second, Jeff very naturally expands the scope of his music to other instruments and genres besides guitar-based rock. The album opener on WORRY., "We Begged 2 Explode," is a piano ballad, where Jeff's imperfect, pitchy voice croons sorrowfully about friends and memories lost to the relentless passing of the years.
And then there's this incredible, final run of songs, 8 tracks, going from "Bang on the Door" to the end of the album. In a method reminiscent of the second side of the Beatles' Abbey Road, Jeff creates a string of 1-2 minute songs that flow together seemlessly and hop genres with incredible fluidity. It starts with punk and goes to ska to hardcore to electronic pop to an acoustic ballad and back to punk. It's just the sound of an truly gifted musician going all out, at the peak of a creative zenith--again, rather like the Beatles' did on that penultimate album of theirs.
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| Photo: Creative Commons, via https://www.khromamagazine.com/features-1/dorians-16-of-16 |
When you look at the album art and see the big title, "WORRY." you think it's just kind of Jeff saying, with his tongue in his cheek, "Hey I'm an anxious guy! There's lots to be anxious about in the world! So let's worry!!!" Or at least that's what I thought for my first couple listens, especially since a majority of the tracks ("The Fuzz," "Staring Out the Window...", "Rainbow," "Planet Luxury") deal, to some extent, with worrying over social, political, and economic issues facing the world in general and millennials specifically.
But then, at the end of the track "...While You're Alive," towards the end of the album, Jeff says:
"It's not like the love that they showed us on TV
It's a home that can burn
It's a limb to freeze
It's worry
Love is worry"
I find that an incredibly profound statement: Love is worry. And knowing this, that Jeff is saying that love equates with worry, it completely changes the meaning and theme of his album. The answer to all of these problems--social unrest, police brutality, greedy capitalists gutting the soul out of society--isn't sitting and biting our nails in anxiety. It's WORRY: it's LOVE. And, yes, loving others will include worrying about them, but that isn't the point. The point is that the change we so desperately want and need has to start with positivity towards each other and selflessness on a personal level. So, this album could really also be called LOVE.
Now, I'm sure some of you are rolling your eyes at such a "cheesy," "saccharine," heavy message being central to a punk album. But I think Jeff is absolutely right and that his message is incredibly profound and sorely needed in our age of sheer HATRED for those on "the other side." Not only that, on a more personal, familial level, I've often thought of that phrase, "Love is worry," in the past few weeks as my wife and baby have struggled and suffered in the hospital. It's been tough, and worrying has almost become my full-time job. But it's really helped me to remember that, while this struggles does suck immensely, it's through this worrying and struggling that my love for my wife and child is made stronger and better than it was before.
It really is a rare album that is not only a blast to listen to front to back, but has really, honestly changed the way I think and actively helps me as I try to live my crazy life. It is easily one of my favorite albums of the decade, and up there in my favorite albums ever. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes rock or punk or music in general, and I know I will be listening to it and worrying along with Jeff until the day I become a ghost.
| OVERALL SCORE: 10!! | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Jeff Rosenstock – WORRY. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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