JOYCE MANOR ALBUMS RANKED FROM BEST TO WORST
In honor of the 7th anniversary of Joyce Manorâs debut album, here are The Jamâs hot takes on the bandâs four full-lengths.
Though sometimes remembered as little more than the âConstant Headacheâ album by much of the bandâs fanbase, which has grown astronomically since this albumâs release, the 18 minutes of blistering, hook-filled basement punk on Joyce Manorâs full-length debut set the stage for hordes of indie-inspired, emo borrowing punk bands to come (whether they were directly pulling from Joyce Manor or not) but has rarely been matched since. In 2011, emo had converted to a mainstream sect with Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco, and the like preaching the adapted gospel. Guitar-based indie rock that spawned in the early 2000s had given way to a major label rebranding of âindieâ that bared few resemblances. Joyce Manor harkened back to the college rock and DIY punk ethos of late â80s and early â90s acts that now define âclassic indie.â
By the time the California quartet recorded this album theyâd mastered simplicity, ferocious energy, and sentimentality. The blink-of-an-eye songs meet somewhere between The Ramones and early Violent Femmes, cutting songwriting down to the hooks and nothing but. Melodies are simple and instrumental breaks are really just melodies without words. âConstant Headacheâ takes the structure to a fully realized pop song, while others avoid explicitly playing melodies but outline it with quick changing power chords, like the pleading âLeather Jacketââwhich eventually gives way to a melody-as-solo finale. Front man Barry Johnsonâs lyrics read with just the right amounts of gentle emotion and youthful angst to appeal to the punk kids without alienating the melancholic ones.
Joyce Manor is a pop album in disguise. The production is indisputably lo-fi and the influence of punk and hardcore can understandably deceive on first listen but the taste for melodies and fearless editing make it one of the catchiest punk albums of the last decade. Despite the shameless pop aspects, itâs also one of the quirkiest and most idiosyncratic albums to come from the indie-punk-emo boom of that period (rivaling even The Front Bottoms at times). The lyrics are quotable by being effortlessly odd and unusual: âwhen you make a decent living will you buy me a train set and a hat so that I can sit alone in my room sending people away from the ones they love or crash them into buildings explosions derailments and screaming children oh my god I think Iâm in love,â Johnson sings on âDerailed.â The album is a gem, and one that rarely gets the credit it deserves.
Never Hungover Again is probably the best starting point for Joyce Manor. In contrast to the self-titled debut, the bandâs third album has finely crafted production, less aggressive instrumentals, and a far clearer pop influence. In an early feature on Joyce Manor in the artists to watch section of Alternative Press, the band cited Green Day and Weezer as influences. Though the fast tempos and relentless drums of the first couple albums threw listeners off the trail, Never Hungover Again delivered on the promise of those references with an accessible and refined sound.
Still clocking in under 20 minutes, Never Hungover Again could again be summarized as quick punk takes on squeezed down pop songs, but the emphasizing and diminishing of certain aspects distinguishes the album. The tempos lean a tad slower, or at least the drums clear up space by tending towards steady beats over rapid-fire endurance tests. The added space makes melodies more easily recognizable and Johnsonâs songwriting finds new ways to squish pop songs to half the length. âVictoriaâ overlaps verses and choruses to cut a straightforward pop song, with bridge and all, in less than two minutes. The lyrics, while still charmingly unusual, have largely traded out stream of consciousness run-on sentences for quirky tidbits with (at least vaguely) more relatable subjects. âLike old friends whoâd never ask âhow can you be happy when you wear all black?â And they care, because they wannaâ Johnson quips on âSchley,â a highlight track that boils the chorus down to one line that eventually explodes in a garage rock ending section.
The touching up of Joyce Manorâs sound is almost flawless. The polished recordings make the music joyfully clear and Johnsonâs songwriting is aging beautifully. But there are occasional missteps. âHeart Tattoo,â while a fine hit for many of the mainstream-leaning pop-punkers new to the band, sacrifices Joyce Manorâs tact with cheesy, Tumblr post-begging metaphors that pull the refining process into question. Still, elsewhere the band more explicitly states influences only hinted at before, producing some of their most interesting material: the new wavey âFalling In Love Againâ and Smithâs-esque âHeated Swimming Poolâ as examples.
3. Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired
If Joyce Manor is under credited, Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired is forgotten. Not present on the bandâs Bandcamp or Spotify pages, itâs unclear if the band wants their second album to disappear or some sort of contract technicality has led to its obscurity. When I saw the band less than two weeks after the albumâs release in April of 2012, they refused to play almost any songs from the album despite audience requestsâmy memory leads me to believe they played only âIf I Needed You Thereâ and âViolent Inside,â but Iâm far from certain. Theyâve also reworked âSee How Tame I Can Beâ and âBride of Usher,â the two most new wave leaning tracks, as more traditional garage-punk Joyce Manor tunes for a split with Toys That Kill (in my opinion, the reworkings only prove how great the songs were to begin with, despite not fitting the bandâs usual style).
Whatever the reason for OATIWSGTâs uncertain legacy, itâs a great album worth seeking out (itâs available on UK label Big Scary Monsterâs Bandcamp, iTunes, and in physical formats if you look around). Itâs possibly the bandâs most diverse collection of songs, though that fact is obscured by the lo-fi glossing that covers all the tracks. âSee How Tame I Can Beâ and âBride of Usherâ borrow melodic and rhythmic tricks from â80s new wave and post-punk, the former featuring a drum machine sound and prickly guitar and the later featuring acoustic guitar and tambourine recalling The Smiths. Explicitly stating some influence or at least awareness of the â80s culture, Joyce Manor knocks out a speedy punk cover of The Buggles âVideo Killed The Radio Star.â And, alluding to the softer tracks on the bandâs most recent album, âDrainageâ and âIâm Always Tiredâ give briefâeven by Joyce Manor standardsâtape hissing acoustic numbers to the already varied album.
Even with more stylistic variety the bandâs standard quick paces, short durations, peppy punk drumming, and Johnsonâs signature throaty yelp are all there; itâs actually somewhat misleading to describe the tracks as diverse. âViolent Insideâ delivers an easy Joyce Manor hit that never was and opening track âThese Kinds of Ice Skatesâ has all the lyrical peculiarity that one might expect pairing lines like âyou canât make a mistake on these kinds of ice skatesâ with âdonât you be my black plastic case for your glasses.â Though it could be seen as a collection of miscellaneous tracks and experimentations OATIWSGT actually plays as a surprisingly cohesive whole.
Perhaps itâs their most successful album yet, perhaps itâs their most critically acclaimed, though Iâd guess Never Hungover Again takes that title, but Cody is their least endearing work. On their fourth album, Joyce Manor falls victim to many of the common failures of an indie or punk act moving to a major labelâexcept, theyâre signed to Epitaph and itâs their second album with the generally reliable punk label. More likely, the group saw the success of the more polished and refined Never Hungover Again (that could be success critically, financially, or personally) and attempted to expand upon it.
Cody combines elements of the bandâs second and third albums while continuing to move more into mainstream pop-punk territory. Itâs even brighter than Never Hungover Again with even more simplified and relatable lines but it follows less genre constraints, as OATIWSGT did. On âFake I.D.â Johnson offers witty quips about what seems to be a Kanye West debate following a hook-up, before reducing the death of a friend to âI feel sad, I miss him he was rad.â The songwriting simplicity walks a dangerous line between purposeful and poorly thought out often losing balance and allowing cheap rhymes and easy teenage cool kid references (fake I.D.s, smoking weed, etc.) to slip in.
To the bandâs credit, their pop-punk often veers away from the tropes of a genre plagued by stereotypes and clichĂ©s. While there is a pitch-corrected tone to the vocals and the music has a certain I-could-spend-hours-debating-which-Weezer-album-is-best sense to it, Joyce Manor opts for less nasally singing and chugging chords leaning instead towards power pop chunky riffs and jangling guitars. Tracks like âLast You Heard of Meâ and âStairsâ even nod briefly toward the shoegaze revival and âDo You Really Want to Not Get Betterâ makes a surprisingly sincere attempt at Tumblr-era sentimentality. Though itâs a definite weak spot in Joyce Manorâs discography, Cody opens up the bandâs music to a much larger audience without totally betraying older fans expectations. And, to be honest, if youâre just being introduced to the indie and punk genres now, itâs probably an excellent gateway. âCC
Only full-length (if you can call these 20-minute little spurts âfull-lengthâ) albums are included in this list. âCollectionâ isnât included because it is a compilation of other releases, mainly âConstant Headacheâ which isnât included because itâs just an EP and some of the material appears on âJoyce Manor.â They also have some splits, earlier demo-type releases, and do a great cover of The 6ths âFalling Out of Love With You.â Youâre all big kids, use the internet and look âem up. If youâre not a big kid, my apologies. Send me a message with a parent or guardianâs signature and I will attempt to guide you through the internet. Also, how the heck did you get here if you donât know how to use the internet?
