The Greatest Generation (album)

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The Greatest Generation
File:The Greatest Generation The Wonder Years Album Cover.jpg
Studio album by The Wonder Years
Released May 14, 2013
Genre Pop punk[1]
Length 48:51
Label Hopeless
Producer Steve Evetts
The Wonder Years chronology
Sleeping on Trash: A Collection of Songs Recorded 2005–2010
(2013)Sleeping on Trash: A Collection of Songs Recorded 2005–20102013		 The Greatest Generation
(2013)		 No Closer to Heaven
(2015)No Closer to Heaven2015
Singles from The Greatest Generation
  1. "Passing Through a Screen Door"
    Released: March 27, 2013
  2. "Dismantling Summer"
    Released: April 16, 2013[2]

The Greatest Generation is the fourth studio album by American rock band the Wonder Years. The album was produced by Steve Evetts,[3] who produced their last album, Suburbia I've Given You All and Now I'm Nothing.

Background

In the teaser video the band talked about the recording and writing process of the album. They wrote the album in a small apartment above an abandoned sandwich shop. In the teaser, "Soupy" Campbell called it a third piece in a trilogy about growing up. He also stated the album was about the end of the war he had within himself fighting depression and anxiety. The title is taken from the term coined by Tom Brokaw about how the generation that fought in World War II was 'the greatest generation'.

The Greatest Generation is a part of a trilogy (along with The Upsides [2010] and Suburbia I've Given You All and Now I'm Nothing) that dealt with vocalist Dan Campbell's struggles of being scared, loneliness and feeling lost.[4] Grantland writer Steven Hyden compared albums by Japandroids, Fucked Up, and Cloud Nothings to The Greatest Generation due to them "shar[ing musical] DNA with Generation."[5] "Dismantling Summer" was written after Campbell's grandfather had a heart attack.[6]

Release

On March 6, 2013 the band announced the album's title, artwork and track listing. On March 25, the band held a live chat on the AbsolutePunk website, where they streamed the first single from the album, "Passing Through a Screen Door". The song was made available for download via the iTunes Store on March 27, 2013.[7]

On April 15, the song 'Dismantling Summer' was released online for streaming. The band played four record release shows in 24 hours in support of The Greatest Generation: Philadelphia at 6pm on May 10 with Modern Baseball; New York City at 12am on May 11 with A Loss for Words; Chicago at 10am on May 11 with Mixtapes; and Anaheim at 6pm on May 11 with Versus the World and the Sheds. Due to travel complications the Anaheim show did not begin until 8pm.[8]

Reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source Rating
Metacritic 96/100[9]
Review scores
Source Rating
Absolutepunk 5/5 stars[10]
Allmusic 4/5 stars[11]
Kerrang! 5/5 stars[12]
Punknews.org 4/5 stars[13]

The Greatest Generation has received critical acclaim upon its release. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics the album holds an overall rating of 96, which indicates "universal acclaim," based on 4 reviews. Scott Heisel of Alternative Press gave the album 4.5 out 5 stars saying, "It's fast, it's honest, and it'll probably make you tear up more than once." Thomas Nassif of Absolute Punk did not even give the album a standard rating from 10 to 10, stating "It is my firm belief that The Greatest Generation has no real precedent in this community. It’s my belief that there isn’t another band in pop-punk right now that can write a record this good." David Allen of TheCelebrityCafe.com, gave the album a 5/5, stating, "This album, more than ever, speaks to the fast, the angry, and the unforgiving part of the human subconscious...It feels as if this album, by itself, has been able to repossess every inch of teenage angst over the past 60 years and throw it back up into arrangements, lining it up half-hazardly, and yet purposefully, to hear.".[14]

Commercially, it was also successful. It was their first to crack the top 20 at Billboard 200, moving 19,673 copies on its first week and reaching the number 20 spot. The album has sold 50,000 copies in the United States as of August 2015.[15]

In retrospect, Rock Sound included The Greatest Generation on their best albums of 2013 list, calling it "the defining album of what may well have been the genre's best year for a decade."[1] Kerrang! said the album "ripped up the pop-punk blueprint" pushing the genre to "new peaks of invention, both lyrically and musically."[16]

Track listing

All songs written and composed by The Wonder Years. 

No. Title Length
1. "There, There"   2:26
2. "Passing Through a Screen Door"   3:53
3. "We Could Die Like This"   3:38
4. "Dismantling Summer"   3:46
5. "The Bastards, the Vultures, the Wolves"   3:55
6. "The Devil in My Bloodstream"   4:05
7. "Teenage Parents"   3:38
8. "Chaser"   3:54
9. "An American Religion (FSF)"   2:16
10. "A Raindance in Traffic"   3:39
11. "Madelyn"   2:47
12. "Cul-de-Sac"   3:38
13. "I Just Want to Sell Out My Funeral"   7:34
Total length:
 48:51

Personnel

Personnel per digital booklet.[17]

Chart performance

Chart (2013) Peak
position
U.S. Billboard 200[18] 20
U.S. Billboard Alternative Albums[19] 4
U.S. Billboard Independent Albums[20] 3
U.S. Billboard Tastemaker Albums[21] 2
U.S. Billboard Top Album Sales[22] 20
U.S. Billboard Top Rock Albums[23] 4
U.S. Billboard Vinyl Albums[24] 2

References

Citations
  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Biddulph 2015, p. 43
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ http://www.aux.tv/2013/06/interview-the-wonder-years-look-back-on-the-greatest-generation/
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ 4 May 2013, p.52
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ http://thecelebritycafe.com/reviews/2014/03/greatest-generation-one-better-pop-punk-albums-ever
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ McMahon, ed. 2014, p. 42
  17. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  18. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
Sources
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External links

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