I’ve said it before more than once, but I’ll say it again: The Onion AV club consistently puts out some of the best pop culture writing on the internet. Their interviews are particularly insightful, and this one is no exception.
I’ve said it before more than once, but I’ll say it again: The Onion AV club consistently puts out some of the best pop culture writing on the internet. Their interviews are particularly insightful, and this one is no exception.
I stumbled across this 2008 interview with Nate Ruess of The Format/Fun that I had never seen it before. In it, he briefly discusses why The Format broke up:
“Nothing too specific that I could think of. I would like to believe with everything I’ve been told that it was more a matter of being burnt out and not feeling like we could make another record together because we never had a free moment away from each other. It was nothing dramatic. Sam and I have never really fought before, so it was nothing like that. I think he wanted to do other things and I’ve always wanted to be in a band with Jack and Andrew, so it really worked out nicely.”
Nate also provides this interesting tidbit:
“I had the opportunity to keep The Format name, but it’s not The Format without Sam. And right now, I’m so excited to be part of something new.”
Definitely worth a read.
Great, in-depth article from the Seattle Post-Examiner.
I learned a lot. I had no idea, for example, that the band worked with Jeff Bhasker (a co-producer on Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy) on this album.
Inspiration is a strange thing. It can hit you quickly and surely, lifting your mind and your work to great heights in what feels like an instant. Or, more depressing, it can leave you and not come back for months.
Inspiration left me awhile ago. The lack of writing on here is a good indication of that, as is the lack of recorded music and uploaded photos. I don’t have a good explanation as to why I haven’t felt inspired other than the usual “winter doldrums” stuff that Minnesotans throw around.
Although I hate to admit it, a major part of it might also be how little great music I’ve heard lately. Until now, I haven’t realized how much music serves as a source of inspiration for me. As of last week, I had pretty much resigned myself to feeling, as I put it in a text to a friend, that “I’ll never care as much about music as I did back in high school.”
That might be still be true, but, for now, I’m inspired again.
Last night, I visited the website of the band fun, which is, if you aren’t in the know, the newer project of Nate Ruess of The Format. On the site, the video for a song “We Are Young” from their upcoming full-length plays automatically. The song has been out for months, but I’ve somehow managed to miss it.
That’s not quite true. In fact, I’d been avoiding it. The new music I’ve heard over the past I don’t know how long has been, for the most part, incredibly disappointing. Either it’s me or the bands I’ve loved who have changed. Whichever it is, most of what I’ve heard has sucked.
But this song is different.
With soaring harmonies, impossibly catchy lyrics, and a pulsing beat, it’s pure pop. But it’s best kind of pop. It’s the kind of song that makes you feel like anything is possible, at least for the four or so minutes it’s playing. And for the four minutes that follow when you play it again. And for the four minutes after that when you play it a third time. And so on.
Once again, I am excited and energized again about the idea of creating, and all it took was a stupid pop song to do it.
Maybe pop songs aren’t so stupid after all?
This little girl was spinning happily around an overflowing drinking fountain in Minneahaha Park in Minneapolis, completely oblivious to everything else. The look on her face is priceless.
Pure joy.
