fun. - Aim and Ignite

Released: August 25, 2009

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Since we’re so close to the end, here’s a story to illustrate my history with fun.:

When The Format broke up in early 2008 I was crushed, and I’ll bet I wasn’t the only one.  They’d become such a staple of my musical life that after their final release, a collection of B-sides, I looked at what I had and it wasn’t enough.

Elsewhere on my iPod I was picking up a new band called Steel Train, having seen them open for The Format the one time the latter was in Minnesota before its disbanding, and absolutely falling in love with their east coast college rock sound.

I ran across a third group, Anathallo, on a music blog one afternoon, didn’t like the sound, and disregarded it altogether.

Suddenly MySpace was telling me about another project, a band called fun. that was forming somewhere.  “Who’s involved?” people were asking.  The answer was shook the foundations of indie pop music:  Nate Ruess, former vocalist of The Format, alongside Jack Antonoff (leader of Steel Train) and Andrew Dost (a departed member of Anathallo.)  Once I caught my breath, I listened to the one track the band had up. . .

. . .and cringed.  I didn’t like the sound, didn’t like the departure from all three styles the members were coming from.  Let down, I turned it off and went back to my business.

A number of months later, a friend told me about a concert he had a spare ticket to, and asked if I’d like to come along.  “Who’s involved?” I started asking.  He told me that fun. would be playing.  Realizing that I had nothing else to do, I asked for a copy of the album and told him I’d come along to keep him company and pay my respect to Nate Ruess.

I listened to the album once.

And then again.

And then over and over, wondering why I’d disregarded the disc in the first place.

The latest comer to my list of 7 to round out the year, Aim and Ignite is in the minority on the list because I clearly wasn’t anticipating its release.  Before November, I could’ve barely cared less about fun.  I couldn’t tell you where the switch came from, whether it was a slight change in taste or knowing that I was going to see them, but this release shot up my favorites of the year faster than I’d ever expected it would.

Poppy, considerate, lyrically sound, and musically considerate, I find myself retracting my cringe and heralding Ruess’ return to the indie scene and his choice to team up with Antonoff.  While Ruess takes up lead vocals for all ten tracks, I can definitely hear Antonoff’s guitar standing on its own, as well as the many instruments that Doss plays.  Having talked to them after the show, where six members took the stage, it’s my understanding that a few more musicians were involved in the recording of the disc.  Still, the core three are undoubtedly the most prominent.

“Feel-good music” is what it is, definitely.  I test you to listen to Walking the Dog without tapping your foot, and All the Pretty Girls without at least wanting to sing along to the chorus by a few times through.  The album slows down in places, too, but only briefly.  It’s easier in those spots to see Ruess’ style come through, like in the lyrics to Take Your Time (Coming Home) and The Gambler.  He writes a lot about family and loss, and sometimes loss of family, and the wind-down of the album highlights that well.

I’ve read some other reviews of this album.  Estella Hung of PopMatters calls the disc “an album that failed to live up to the Format’s last outing.”  While I agree that Aim and Ignite isn’t set up to unseat Dog Problems, the “last outing” in question, I think it holds its own as a Ruess project outside the vacuum of The Format.  In fact, listening to it and disregarding The Format except in retrospective longing is probably the best thing for this disc.  For three seasoned musicians putting together a debut collective album, I think they’ve done well to act together and not let the sum of the parts outweigh the whole.

Sure, there are moments in which I think someone is too present over others – for example, the end of the final track, in which Ruess falls into improvised phrase repetition that would be a staple of a live show but sounds awkwardly slapped onto a studio recording.  Another criticism is that if you don’t give the album a chance, it’ll sound like forty-two minutes of the same song.  I think that’s a trap a lot of artists fall into, but it takes a solid act to make those little differences count like fun. does.

But these are my favorite albums of the year, right?  And this is where this one belongs.

We’ll wrap up tomorrow and wish each other the best in a new year.

Cheers.

Links: Official Site • MySpace • Facebook • Twitter • Last.fm