Your Favorite Track On The New Andrew W.K. Album *You're Not Alone*.

Id imagine music journalists could at least identify a lot more with that last one

this is between "keep on going," "the devil's on your side," "break the curse," and "total freedom." "keep on going"'s been helping me out a lot lately so i'll probably go for it

i said on facebook a few weeks ago that this album is therapy, i.e. andrew w.k. cares about me for approximately an hour and i cry a lot and feel an odd weightlessness afterward

this album taking off on here has been my favorite thing on the board so far this year

brad/simon otm

yea there's definitely a therapeutic aspect to his work. this album particularly, but really all of it. I remember being a car and hearing the line from "You Will Remember Tonight" that goes "...and after all these years, this is your life", and it was exactly what I needed to hear in the moment

if you haven't read it, the response he gave to being named the American Association Of Suicidology's "person of the year" is incredibly thoughtful, especially since there are some suicidal themes in his own work (including a song outright called "Kill Yourself"). I mean look at the lyrics to Music is Worth Living For - "Give me the will to love/So below and as above/The only way that I'll survive/Music makes me want to stay alive"

I couldn't help but chuckle at the almosy mythic language he deploys in his response, honestly bless him

kinda feel like when in Bill & Ted they reveal that Wyld Stallyns would be an all-important inspirational band that brought world peace, this album is the closest thing we have to that irl

― Hazy Maze Cave (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, March 8, 2018 4:14 PM

Hard to believe it's been ten years since Dragonforce released Ultra Beatdown. Which is a clear influence on this album imo. He's edged closer and closer to that aesthetic and basically he's there now. It's just that the songs are shorter.

Is...is the next step really Dragonforce

The reason we stand with pride
Is the will to live and to reach for the stars
So never look back, you're always just one step away
(Solo)

you have a track record in turning me onto decent stuff but

but

heh im checking this Dragonforce album out this is great stuff but holy shit is it fast

damn he's playing the same day that i graduate

ask him to play the ceremony

Hard to believe it's been ten years since Dragonforce released Ultra Beatdown. Which is a clear influence on this album imo. He's edged closer and closer to that aesthetic and basically he's there now. It's just that the songs are shorter.

― everything, Friday, March 16, 2018 11:26 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean yes the power metal streak on this one is very strong

it feels like "The Devil's On Your Side" is an evolution of his darker material, alot of which is on "Close Calls"/Mother of Mankind" ("Pushing Drugs", "Slam John Against a Brick Wall", "I Want Your Face"). but less schizophrenic/New Wavey and more like some really good classic 70 hard rock. the lyrics are so good too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLDpYN8gZTA

that organnnnnnn

okay I'm on listen #10 right now and I think it's "Break the Curse". the last 2 minutes of that has got to be the most powerful shit he's ever done.

of course I'll probably want to change that next time I hear it. this is the most melodically rich album I've heard in a long, long time. it's kind of amazing because AWK always had this reputation of being a smart guy who was making dumb music but you really can't say that anymore.

Well, I've always thought he had a pretty strong melodic/songwriting quality (well, at least on the first album, I don't know about the rest).
As for this album, it does have very good melodies and arrangements.
That said, I think there are a couple of times when, surprisingly, I find he comes a bit short, mostly the instrumental moments : "Beyond Oblivion" which is nice but goes on for too long with only the same musical phrase over and over and not many compositional or arrangements ideas to help the lack of development.
Same with the instrumental part of "The Devil's on your Side".

EPISODE 114 – ANDREW W.K.
Andrew W.K. sits down in London with Simon and Brian to talk about his new album You’re Not Alone. In this wide-ranging conversation, Andrew describes how his philosophy, his knowledge of music and his instrumental skills inform his approach to writing and recording songs like ‘Music Is Worth Living For’, ‘Party Mindset’ and ‘You’re Not Alone’. The Party God also describes the processes behind some classics from his back catalogue including ‘Party Hard’ and ‘Don’t Call Me Andy’.

https://www.sodajerker.com/episode-114-andrew-wk/

This is great! I held off at first and only approached with jaded dread, as I'd loved Close Calls With Brick Walls and have since in most respects surrendered to brutally diminished expectations.

(Also: hi, everybody.)

Can totally see the Dragonforce comparisons, along with power pop-punk, though I hear ~Bad Religion & early 90s So-Cal suchlike more than the Ramones (vein-popped athletic heroism marking the divide). Also video game soundtracks, 80s synthpop, Jim Steinman, white drugs, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, etc.

Miss the aggressive, Devo-style, subversion & perversity of tracks like "Pushing Drugs" & "One Brother", but ambitious songwriting and slick production help grease the crack. My only real complaint is that "Party Mindset" has only just begun to mine the implied harmonies when it ends (the better to indulge "Break the Curse", I suppose).

On that note, it's funny how the one big "party" track is not an I Get Wet-style aerobic workout, but rather a mid-tempo barroom sing along. And that it celebrates oblivion's erasure of clarity, given the titles of the album's penultimate tracks.

Great, but I still miss the psychological horror and cognitive dissonance he was folding in a couple years back.

That Sodajerker interview was great, thanks for sharing it !
The more I listen/read about him, the more he seems like a great guy (and artist).
I feel like this album is growing bigger and deeper than I initially thought.

the stuff he says about tempo around the 27:30 mark is so OTM. really good interview overall, kind of confirms a lot of how I assumed he wrote his music.

that it celebrates oblivion's erasure of clarity

i didn't really take it that way. for me "Keeping clarity just out of reach" was a grasping TOWARDS clarity. ultimate enlightenment may seem forever separate from our material reality but we continue to strive anyways. hence keeping it "just" out of reach. thus "time in oblivion is time well spent" has more to do with that affirming tortured human existence. almost like how a Buddhist will say life is suffering but accept that don't deny it.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Ha, my fiancée made this comparison when she heard the title track ("sounds like those Christmas people").

When sent the digital promo as one single song. As the publicist said, "It's one single file as Andrew requests that you listen through fully in one sitting."

So Andrew would not approve of this poll!

fun fact - "Party Mindset" sounds nearly identical to this song

he goes into this in the interview, his collaborative work with Aleister X, the idea to take "Bad Vibrations" and make a new song of it. the original is a cool track (a bit noisy and high-end) but it's just the chorus over and over again with worse lyrics. i really love what they did with it for this album!

Anybody else in London about to PARTY

I think Max Tundra is gonna be at that show, see if you can find him

Break the Curse is the winner for me at the moment.

yea that song rules. love the multi-layered "Break the cuuuuurse" vocals in the ecstatic second part. the insanely cool baroque metal keyboard arrangements throughout are incredible. its this mini symphony of all these different party themes. a spiraling fantasy of decadence.

imago did the show rule?

obviously! and 'break the curse' was a highlight

also played 'you will remember tonight' which was amazing

when I saw him it was "Take It Off" and "Totally Stupid" in a row and that was totally transcendent

didn't get a whole lot of Close Calls but there was "Pushing Drugs" which was great

I just bought it from iTunes because I got a gift card. I'm already wondering if the CD is mastered with less compression.

Yeah they did Pushing Drugs too, it was fab!

http://www.kerrang.com/video/exclusive-premiere-andrew-w-k-releases-video-for-music-is-worth-living-for/

:)

I like his explanation

yes!

“Music Is Worth Living For finds me and my band mates in the throes of a colossal vision quest,” says Andrew. “Determined to party harder than ever, we steel ourselves against alien elements, and battle a formless but formidable storm. Multiplying myself, I attempt to transcend the whirling void by engaging in a series of flailing spiritual maneuvers, vainly wrestling with the emptiness of my own soul. Alas, I discover I had already been consumed by my own triumphantly pathetic creation. And at this moment of devastatingly poignant clarity, I realize I’m back where I started, trapped inside the hardest party of all: Being alive.”

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

still almost impossible. every time i listen to this album each successive song feels like a step up from the last one.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

they're all winners

Wow these results are a trip

(Not saying I "disagree" -- there are no wrong answers here -- it's just funny that, on an album with so many straight-up bangers, people were drawn to the more subtle, slow-building numbers)

I voted Break the Curse cuz the last 2 minutes were so overwhelming

honestly I still can't decide, I'm actually kinda leaning towards the title track now. kinda wild to hear AWK attempt a vocal performance like that

i voted for the title track mostly for the vocal performance. it's on some classic rock level.

anyway after like 15 listens to this I'm starting to think it would be an all-time classic if the mastering was better. it just sounds so brickwalled. but damn is the music good.

Still holds up