I’m sure the title of this piece has already put a certain idea into your head, so let me get this out of the way: this is not about trying to “separate the art from the artist” or about trying to make some excuse to keep consuming material from “cancelled” artists. There’s enough of that discourse floating around the internet already, and I’ve got no interest in wading into that puddle of slurry.
Instead, I wanted to talk a bit about what it’s like when an artist’s real life bleeds into their otherwise enjoyable work in a way that’s awkward and unavoidable, and often overshadows the original art completely.
Now, obviously an artist is always going to be putting a bit of themselves into the media they create. Whether it’s good (Charles Schulz transforming a lifetime of melancholy into Peanuts) or bad (The Room is quite possibly the worst movie ever made, but the absurdity of Tommy Wiseau as a human being bleeds into every frame, making it utterly fascinating nonetheless) you can learn a lot about an artist by looking at the art they create. Even pop stars performing songs written by other people can inject their own personality into it through their vocal styles or dance movies or clothing choice. You have to try awfully hard to make something devoid of any perspective whatsoever.
Growing up listening to emo music and immersed in that scene, I tended to view this as a good thing. I was obsessed with Weezer’s Pinkerton because of the way it told a story about signer/songwriter Rivers Cuomo’s time in college, his disgust with dating, his loneliness and longing, and his discomfort with fame, and the ways it often grappled with his uglier impulses as much, if not more, than it did his good ones. And I’ve already written tens of thousands of words about how Chris Conley’s life has impacted Saves the Day’s music, and how so much of my love for that band comes from seeing myself reflected in it, and in him.
But I also remember my high school friends and I being fascinated by the rumors of a feud between Taking Back Sunday, Straylight Run, and (the now cancelled) Brand New. In those infant days of the internet none of us had very many details, but just the possibility (hinted at in songs like “Seventy Times Seven” and “There’s No I In Team”) made the music that much more interesting to us. The pop music equivalent would probably be that era of Taylor Swift’s career where fans assumed that every single one of her songs was about an ex-boyfriend, and discovering who specifically they were about was more popular than her music itself.
The first time I can really remember something like this effecting music negatively for me, though, was with Ben Folds. The late 2000s found me deep in a Ben Folds/Ben Folds Five phase, and my favorite of his albums was Rockin’ The Suburbs (“fun” fact I just discovered: this album was released on September 11th, 2001). That album is full of legit jams and smart storytelling, but one of the most significant is the closing track, “The Luckiest.”
While the song itself is a bit slower than I usually like, I think it’s stunningly beautiful. It’s an ode from Ben Folds to his wife, and it mostly foregoes typical love song sentiment for more unique and heartfelt expressions of affection. Twice in the song Folds rambles into long stories before admitting “I’m sorry, I know that’s a strange way to tell you that I know we belong,” which adds such a personal touch to their love story. Listening to this song makes me feel like I have a little window into their lives and love, and that’s such a rare and powerful thing for a song to be able to do.
Seven years later, though, Ben Folds released Way to Normal, an album that was mostly about Folds’ divorce from the wife that “The Luckiest” was about. Now, that in and of itself isn’t the worst thing in the world; people get divorced all the time, and it doesn’t change the emotion that went into “The Luckiest.” The problem is that the divorce songs on Way to Normal were particularly bitter, aggressive, mean-spirited, and in the case of songs like “Bitch Went Nuts,” downright misogynistic. Listening to Way to Normal feels like watching Folds air his dirty laundry in public; it’s uncomfortable, makes him look bad, and even retroactively casts a shadow over past songs like “The Luckiest.” It’s impossible to remove the songs on Way to Normal from their context; that context overwhelms them and bleeds into the rest of Folds’ catalog.
Currently, I’m dealing with something similar while listening to New Found Glory’s newest album, Forever + Ever x Infinity. Now, New Found Glory holds an interesting position in the roster of bands I like. I’ve been listening to them since high school, and as of now, they’re tied (with The Wonder Years) for second place in the list of bands I’ve seen play live the most times. They’re always fun to watch, mosh along with, and listen to, and I’ve been using them to get pumped up quite often while working out in my driveway during quarantine, but they’ve never quite broken into my top tier of favorite bands, probably because, unlike the rest of the bands in my Top 5, most of the time they don’t have that personal touch that connects me to them on an emotional level.
While songwriting in New Found Glory has always been a bit of a group effort, throughout their first seven albums their primary lyricist was their then-rhythm guitarist Steve Klein (who is not a good dude; more on that in a bit). Klein’s tenure in NFG found them hitting those pop-punk standards about girls and first love, friendship, and “leaving this town.” There were a few tracks that hit on universal (if simple) truths about young love, but there weren’t exactly songs that felt like they were digging into the lives of any of the men behind the songs.
Then in 2013, Klein was suddenly kicked out of the band, and a few months later Klein was officially charged with five counts of lewd acts on a child, one count of contact with intent to commit a sex offense, and possession of child pornography. NFG kicked Klein out well before the charges went public, never defended him, and have gone out of their way to scrub all traces of Klein from their history moving forward — a friend and I have a running joke that we’re shocked that it’s NFG of all bands who actually handled one of their members turning out to be a sex creep the right way.
Since then, lead guitarist Chad Gilbert has taken over as the band’s primary lyricist, and brings with him a very different style; for better or for worse, his songs dig far more into the personal lives of the band’s members. 2014’s Resurrection is the best of the Gilbert-era albums; much of it specifically addresses the band’s anger at Klein, but it also builds surprisingly resonant songs out of bassist Ian Grushka’s divorce and a near-break up between Gilbert and his then-girlfriend, Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams, who he went on to marry after the album released.
By 2017, though, Gilbert and Williams had divorced, and Paramore released their magnum opus, After Laughter, much of which was an absolutely scathing indictment of Gilbert. On the other hand, New Found Glory’s 2017 release Makes Me Sick had a few songs that seemed designed to present Gilbert’s side of the story, but mostly came across as saying “oh woe is me, the constant temptations to cheat on my wife are making me miserable,” which didn’t do much for Gilbert in the court of public opinion.
Forever + Ever x Infinity comes at a time when Gilbert has a new fiancee, Lisa Cimorelli, of the band Cimorelli. Thus, the album is pretty much back-to-back love songs, bringing back that pop-punk staple of young love. Gilbert is 39 now, so there’s a part of me that wants to say it’s refreshing to see somebody celebrating the joy of falling in love again even when they’re starting to get a little older, but the problem is that I’m then reminded that Cimorelli is only 26. That’s not an illegal, “oh my god call the police” age gap, but it is creepy (at best), especially when it’s part of a pattern with Gilbert, who started dating Williams when she was 19 to his 26. Most of my friends have taken to referring to Cimorelli as Gilbert’s “child bride.” It casts a damper on the album’s sunnier songs, which, let’s be real, are about her even if they don’t explicitly mention her by name.
This is before we even get to Forever + Ever x Infinity’s lyrics. A friend and I have been making fun of the chorus to the lead single “Greatest of All Time” for months — “We would make the best team/better than the ‘96 Bulls ever were/Jordan, Rodman, and Pippen/Wouldn’t have known what had hit them” — but that’s mostly an anti-sports bias coming to light, though they are remarkably silly lyrics. Other lyrics, like “I’m holding onto you/like gorilla glue” are silly in a way that not only feels embarrassing coming from men in their forties, but which are a definite step down in terms of craft from even Gilbert’s lyrics on previous albums. In the very same song, Gilbert drops the line “and we won’t care if the waiter thinks we looks cringey” — not only does this sound like Gilbert trying to talk like a 15-year-old, but “cringey” as a word generally isn’t used by the most enlightened and accepting people in society either. It makes me cringe. Combined with the album’s opening track, “Shook By Your Shaved Head” (about the narrator falling for a girl with shaved head, a look mostly seen on younger women) this album really just feels like Gilbert chasing after youth, which is uncomfortable on multiple levels.
The worst song title on the entire album is “Double Chin For The Win.” The message itself is actually rather sweet — “thank you for loving me even though I’m not conventionally attractive” — but then it tosses in the lyric “You could have any other guy/and haven’t you heard the awful things they say about me” which is no doubt a reference to Gilbert’s reputation for dating younger girls and, more specifically, for generally being a pretty awful boyfriend/fiancee/husband and generally just cheating on his partners all the time, and it’s like, Chad, why are you putting that out there? In this climate? Seriously?
Speaking of lyrics I can’t believe were released in a song in the year of our lord 2020, “Trophy” throws out a real doozy: “I ran a race and came up empty/Until I met you and now you’re my trophy/I hope I didn’t objectify you.” Chad. Buddy. Dude. Even putting all moral judgments about it aside, you absolutely, definitively, 100% did objectify her. You shouldn’t do it, but you also in no way get to pass the burden of deciding it’s okay off to her, come on.
It’s all a real shame, for a number of reasons. I suppose I want every album I listen to to be the best album I’ve ever heard, for starters. And while I don’t think Chad Gilbert will ever be a great lyricist, I know he’s capable of doing better than this. Also, if you ignore the lyrics and just focus on the instruments, rhythm, music, and melody, this is easily the best album NFG has put out in years. Like I mentioned earlier, I’ve been putting it on a lot when I work out and can ignore the lyrics. But giving it any scrutiny whatsoever is just depressing. Not every problem on this album can be chalked up to it being overwhelmed by Gilbert’s personal life — some of it is just bad writing — but even the bad writing seems to be bad specifically because of that influence from Gilbert’s personal life. It is depressing, but in a fascinating way.
As much of a bummer as it can be when an artist’s personal life casts a dark shadow over their work, I’d still rather be aware of their actions than ignorant of what I’m taking in. But I do wish some of these artists had more self-awareness. You should absolutely mine your life to create your art, but just make sure to crawl out of your own butt and take a good look at your life every once in a while, too.
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On a happier note, my favorite album of 2020 so far is Bad Moves’ sophomore release, Untenable. It’s 36 minutes of pure power-pop bliss, combining smooth harmonies with an unrelenting social consciousness that tackles what it’s like to live in a capitalistic society that cares less and less about its workers by the second, what it’s like to try to survive in a world where survival so often just feels untenable. Yet, with all that anger bubbling beneath, the album also finds joy and wonder in songs like “Cape Henlopen” (a beach in my home state of Delaware! I’ve camped there before!) and “Fog Is A Funny Thing.” I can’t stop listening to this one; I’ve been a fan of Bad Moves since their first EP, but this is easily their best release yet. Find it on Bandcamp or Spotify, and give it a spin!
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“Do You Know What I Love the Most?” is a newsletter from Spencer Irwin. Spencer is an enthusiast and writer from Newark, Delaware, who likes punk rock, comic books, working out, breakfast, and most of all, stories. His previous work appeared on Retcon Punch, One Week One Band, and Crisis on Infinite Chords, and he can be found on Twitter at @ThatSpenceGuy. If you like this newsletter, please subscribe and share with your friends!