Review Summary: Too bad Owen doesn't apparently make enough money.
When it comes to the classic albums of midwest emo, it’s nearly impossible to ignore 1999’s
American Football. For so many teenagers and young adults it was and still is the perfect farewell album, nailing what it feels like to fall out of love and long for things you know you’ll never get back again. The lyrics weren’t necessarily clever or mature but they perfectly hit the right spots. For the leading mastermind behind it, Mike Kinsella, it was a product of its time and the fact that despite the album’s large underground popularity he was never eager to make another album for the project only enhances its sincerity.
Well, we can now throw all that into the garbage bin.
The unexpected addition to the band’s discography, which even carries the same title as their cult classic album, is a realization of every fear surrounding the potential release of it. The 2016
American Football album simply doesn’t sound right. As most of the readers probably know, following the break-up of American Football, Kinsella has been working with a project called
Owen for over a decade which never gained the same kind of popularity American Football did. A big part of it is that lyrically Owen focuses so strictly on Mike’s personal, ”grown up” problems as opposed to the highly relatable matter on American Football’s lone full-length, and unfortunately the new
American Football not only sounds like an Owen album, but feels lyrically like an Owen album too. Considering this, it’s hard to not feel he’s just blatantly trying to milk some money off American Football’s name and legacy.
Of course, it wouldn’t be fair to write off the whole album by making assumptions on its possibly questionable motives, especially when the songs on the album certainly aren’t bad. To be completely honest, I always liked everything about Owen and those qualities are still there. However, no matter how weird it sounds to say it, they just shouldn’t be there. Mike’s voice is still pleasant and the melodies have his trademark laid-back feel, making the album musically fairly enjoyable but gone are the beautiful horn sections (save for ”I Need a Drink (or Two or Three)”) and youthfully melancholic lyrics, making it sound like Mike had some leftover tunes from his latest Owen album and decided to use them here. Basically the only thing that has been done to create a more American Football feel is the twinkly guitar work (that, as the years have gone by, has been widely influential for post-90s emo bands) but that’s about it.
I know it might sound paradoxal but while the music on the American Football’s sophomore one is fairly enjoyable, it’s hard to like the album as a whole. Despite a couple of similarities to the band’s debut, it just doesn’t bring the nostalgia factor oh-so-many (including myself) were anticipating. It’s good for the band and their fans that they have come back together for some shows and stuff but to put it bluntly, this album was just never meant to happen (pun intended).
