One good thing about getting older as a music fan is that you forget about a lot of songs. This might not seem like an obvious benefit, but there are a couple reasons why it’s great. First, hearing a favorite song after a long break is like how I imagine it would be if your present-day spouse could time travel and kiss you again for the first time — intoxicatingly novel, yet comfortingly familiar. Second, and less fancifully, it gives you some perspective on how well a song or album has held up, especially if it was brand new at the time you first liked it.
I had a particularly intense version of this experience last weekend when I listened to fun.’s album Some Nights for the first time since, oh, probably 2013. When the album came out in 2012, I was at peak infatuation with the band and more excited for their new album than I had been about any legitimately contemporary release in longer than I care to admit. I listened to Some Nights so many times that I kind of stopped enjoying it, the way you do when an album become so familiar that it fades to sonic wallpaper. And despite how much I loved it, I always wondered how all that Auto-Tune was going to sound years later.
And now — just like that — it’s years later, and I have the distance to hear Some Nights with fresh ears and evaluate its staying power. I found that it naturally divided itself up into a few groups of songs that illustrate its different elements and their varying degrees of success.
The two big hits exemplify what the band did well and are the reason they ascended, briefly, to superstar status. “We Are Young” and “Some Nights” combine the best of Queen-like classic rock bombast with signature sounds of the 2010s — big drums, shouty choruses, and a relatively restrained dash of Auto-Tune. Again, it’s that mix of the familiar and the new that people tend to like.
But I don’t think fun. would have gotten as far as they did if their music hadn’t been underpinned by some serious quality. Nate Ruess is a terrific singer. His voice is big and theatrical, with a nasal yelp that’s pleasant rather than annoying. You can especially hear this on some of the best lines from “We Are Young”: “I guess that I/I just thought/Maybe we can find new ways to fall apart.” fun. are also capable of quite good lyrics, although Some Nights — perhaps in its bid for mainstream success — tends more toward the generically relatable than the idiosyncratic. Still, “Some Nights” in particular still has a few that stand out. “Who the fuck wants to die alone/All dried out in the desert sun” has a real urgency to it, and I love the little throwaway at the end: “You wouldn’t believe/This dream I just had about you and me./I called you up and we both agreed/It’s for the best you didn’t listen.” There’s something there that alludes to a lived, ambiguous experience, rather than just an attempt at something anthemic and likable.
Another group of songs carries the vestiges of fun.’s previous incarnation: a quirky, hipsterish take on pop’s legacy, full of big hooks, creative arrangements, and classic melodies. “Why Am I the One?” is fun.’s best overall song, and I’ve written about it before. I’ve heard it plenty of times since 2013, and I’m fully convinced that it’s one for the ages. “Carry On,” also a more traditional ballad, is filled with cliches, but you can’t argue with the fact that it’s a really good singer singing a really nice tune — something I tend not to get tired of.
And then there’s “All Alone.” Hearing this was the undisputed delight of of the album for me. When it first started, I was like “Wait, what is this?” And then it all came rushing back: an uptempo-music-box-hip-hop nursery rhyme with jaunty horn bursts. Not to be too on the nose, but this is the most fun(.) song on the album. It’s also probably the best lyrical conceit, albeit in a bit of a mannered way. The song uses the metaphor of a wind-up doll to talk about a girlfriend who’s mechanical nature is off-putting to someone else in the singer’s life. It’s colorful but vague enough that I think it can be interpreted in multiple ways. If fun. ever makes another album, it should be full of songs just like this.
Like all expect the greatest masterpieces, Some Nights has a few songs that are pretty mediocre. “Some Nights – Intro” is not that memorable, especially in comparison to the similar “Some Nights.” “One Foot” has a few good lines — “I’ll die for my own sins/Thanks a lot/We’ll rise up ourselves/Thanks for nothing at all” — but the production is simply too much. And “All Alright” and “It Gets Better” are both overdone and forgettable.
“Stars” wraps up the album, and it also feel like the appropriate place to wrap up this essay. Like Some Nights itself, it shows a band straddling the gulf between classic if unfashionable pop and hit-making trendiness. I think “Stars” starts out absolutely great, picking up where “Why Am I the One?” leaves off with a snatch of the “Oh, come on” coda. The first two minutes are mid-tempo, highly melodic, and full of the kind of unrockstar-like outpouring that only Nate Ruess would attempt. Who else is going to write, let along sing, the line “But most nights I stay straight and think about my mom”? It’s temping to laugh, but next words — “Oh God, I miss her so much” — add a heart-rending element with real power to move.
Then right at the two-minute mark, it all changes. We go from something that wouldn’t be out of place on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road to a full five minutes of weird Auto-Tuned vocal riffing. I’m not sure if I like this, but from the perspective of 2018, I don’t think it’s as bad as it could have been. Auto-Tune has held up better than most traditional pop fans would have expected, so it doesn’t date the album the way it might have if no one was using it anymore. And I suppose it has the benefit of at least being weird. I mean, it’s clearly not intended to make Nate Ruess sound better, just different and experimental, so I appreciate the risk-taking aspect.
Still, I have to accept that given my age and tastes, my favorite parts of Some Nights are going to be to the more classic songs. And in the end, I don’t think it was a mistake for fun. to take a more contemporary approach, and it’s certainly an element in their chart success. Some Nights is not the consistent pop masterpiece of their previous effort, Aim + Ignite, but it’s a solid album with a few truly wonderful songs. On top of that, it’s a reminder to me that even an album that has become played out won’t stay that way forever. Life is long, and you never known when some forgotten old favorite will crop up, and you will hear it again with a mix of its old freshness, layered underneath the complexities of hindsight. You can’t force these moments, but they’re a real treat when they come.