Your Favorite Track On The New Andrew W.K. Album *You're Not Alone*.

I can't tell if this is a joke poll or not but I actually listened in its entirety this morning and I'm going with "Break the Curse"

on one listen I'd say "The Devil's On Your Side", because that ending is just absolutely ridiculous and amazing. it's too good an album to vote right now though

the spoken word interludes are kind of amazing too. at first I thought I was listening to a Spotify ad or something.

yeah, the longer tracks in the second half are where it's at, though the opening one-two of "Music is Worth Living For" and "Ever Again" is pretty awesome as well

how did it take until 2018 for this guy to write a song called "The Party Never Dies"?

"Party Mindset" after one listen

I honestly haven't listened to anything by him since I Get Wet but I'm really digging this. More Meat Loaf/Queen pomp relative to that one. The uplift I needed tonight.

Listening and enjoying!

There's a lot of shared DNA with Ginger Wildheart's stuff imo

fun fact - "Party Mindset" sounds nearly identical to this song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAtOSH6lilM

which was released on...wait for it....STEEV MIKE RECORDS

:o

And on I Don't Know Anything he really, really wants to break free...but for legal reasons has to delay the resolution in the chorus

Playing Spot The Rip-Off could be a fun exercise but definitely against the party spirit

I sometimes wonder about his religious background. You could replace "party" with "prayer" on most of these and not lose much (besides, you know, at least 5/6 of his audience)

Isn't there a reference to God on at least one song? I only listened a couple of times.

I believe so, plus on another he proclaims he's "at the foot of the cross"

but then again Jesus refs are old hat in bombastic hard rock

"I Will Find God" is a pretty rad song. i think there is def a strong spiritual dimension to his work and would cosign swapping God or prayer w party, they are all sort of hinting at the same sublime state of mind and joy in the face of emptiness.

gonna listen to this today. so psyched!

There is this: https://www.villagevoice.com/2015/02/18/ask-andrew-w-k-how-can-i-believe-in-a-higher-power-when-i-dont/

aww that is adorable

Voted for "Break the Curse" a number of listens later.

am narrowing this down myself

think it's between 'the devil's on your side', 'music is worth living for' and 'the party never dies' but i'm still considering others

'music is worth living for'

Definitely a contender

has anyone seen him live before? he's playing here in May and tix are pretty reasonable

Yes. One of the best nights of my life.

He’s doing an AMA now. Not sure how many questions he’s gonna get through if he keeps on typing out 4 paragraph responses

He's amazing live.

I listened to his interview on the Metal Hammer podcast yesterday. Really thoughtful guy. I still haven't heard the album yet, but I'm going to give it a good listen when it comes out.

I saw him in Ottawa in 2002. It was pretty fun and high-energy.

Prices are looking good but geez, mid-May. I honestly don't know where I'll be then yet.

Yeah I want to see him now!

Voting 'The Devil's On Your Side' btw - it was pretty obvious it'd be that one really but the rest of the album was strong enough to give me pause

i saw him live last year. it was insanely awesome!

saw him a couple of years back and it was absolutely incredible

this is a great album too

ok I got a ticket thx for the endorsements

need to poll all awk songs whose titles reference partying at some point

I guess I already voted, but after listening five times last night on a long car trip, I'd like to change my vote to Total Freedom and convince others to do the same. (this is despite the weird autotune stuff on the vocals.)

Seems like he's come a long way in his songwriting since Close Calls. The end of Devil's, the almost choral arrangement of Give Up On You, all of Beyond Oblivion; the melodies in general seem a little more dynamic, even, especially compared to I Get Wet.

im just hearing "Party Mindset" for the first time. good lord this song is fun! this is like the perfect mashing of Beach Boys and "End of the Century"-era Ramones. the start of it made me think of Eno or Berlin-era Bowie but by the time he sang "Don't need no friends to get me by/I couldn't figure out that scene" it was the new Beach Boys punk song i never knew i wanted.

his singing is really good, he has only gotten to be a better singer since "Close Calls". the layered vocals has always been a big part of the appeal for me (he's like the metal Nilsson)

the start of it made me think of Eno or Berlin-era Bowie

The intro reminds me weirdly of Sonic Youth's "Free City Rhymes".

I definitely agree about the singing and songwriting relative to I Get Wet.

yeah, I think this is far and away his best album.

yeah this is just... dang... i'm going to need at least 3 months for this. so many incredible tracks! love the Queen style stuff. this record careens from gonzo prog opera to fist pumping (hardcore) punk pop from one song to the next, sometimes even within the songs. i mean i guess these are all the usual elements but the mix here is just so... potent and imaginative!

i love this record so much

i love how different he looks shaved and with short hair. and i LOVE the tucked in shirt with the pants in this video. like a totally different person. kinda like pee wee herman in street clothes. he looks like he's gonna fix my computer in the cutest way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16l8XzJUY_o

That's because it's Steev Mike.

I've been racking my brain as to what Total Freedom sounds like. It's really familiar. Like some radio friendly rock band from the mid to late 2000s like The Fray or The Script or OneRepublic or something of that ilk. Though I've also seen the suggestion that it sounds like Adele's Someone Like You, and that might be it.

Moments on the album do make me think of Folie à Deux-era Fall Out Boy.

"Party Mindset" sounds like the 1988 Brian Wilson album

I honestly haven't listened to anything by him since I Get Wet but I'm really digging this.

I saw him live circa I Get Wet and it was fantastic.

I sometimes wonder about his religious background. You could replace "party" with "prayer" on most of these and not lose much

PRAY TILL YOU PUKE !

"Music is Worth Living For" giving me strong Klaus Nomi vibes!

sund4r otm

20 dollar nose bleed

one of these songs sounds a lot like ELO i dont know which one.

"The Devil's On Your Side" is so good. that extended guitar solo is incredible.

it's probably song of the year so far for me

it doesn't have a guitar solo though

The emotional spirit of this album is incredible

it doesn't have a guitar solo though

my bad! it does have an ever-building orchestral-synth-and-drums instrumental crescendo

on repeat, love every track

I've been listening to Party Mindset on repeat all day so I'm gonna go with that one

(also crying)

Guys

I've just discovered Close Calls With Brick Walls

Guys

Why didn't you tell me about this earlier

Not Going To Bed is like the starter pistol for joy itself

This album is so amazing! Def. album of the year so far for me, and it will be hard to usurp the position. There's so many good songs on this one... Party Mindset is of course a clear stand-out. I'd also like to give a shout out to Total Freedom... it's just such nice melodies and his voice is so pretty on it, I've listened to it quite a bit on repeat.

kinda feel like when in Bill & Ted they reveal that Wyld Stallyns would be an all-important inspirational band that brought world peace, this album is the closest thing we have to that irl

Whoa that’s super otm

yeah that's very otm

"Ever Again" recently unlocked for me. i love it now. it's like an Ozzy song! "They made me think I was crazy"

"I Don't Know Anything" is like an "All Things Must Pass" song written and played by The Ramones.

this album is like the new Sgt. Pepper of power pop.

wall of sound/noise has always been a big part of the Andrew WK-Ramones connection

"The Party Never Dies" is SUPER Ozzy. this album is hot

Ozzy at the Olympics

Went with "Beyond Oblivion". It is truly massive and if you're ever able to sit and watch large ships leave a dock while this is playing, you should, had a pretty magical experience doing this. I also watched a good amount of Dunkirk to this album which was also pretty wild. I half recommend that. But anyhow, love the album, nearly went with "Total Freedom" which is incredible and weirdly inspiring. This is easily the most positive album I think I've ever heard.

imago you should get the comp of unreleased stuff called Mother of Mankind, which I believe came with the much-delayed US version of Close Calls. it's surprisingly eclectic, with a long reggae jam, some Stevie Wonder-style clavier funk, one track that out-Meatloafs the Loaf ("Coming Bad"), a couple that sound just like Sparks, plus some really epic instrumental stuff and tunes like "Kill Yourself" and "I Will Find God" which are sort of the flip side of AWK's persona. all that plus a tune which sounds like an IGW outtake, but is probably better than half of that album (you'll know when you hear it).

I'll check it out!

For all that the new album is amazing, I think CCWBW might be an even greater discovery

yeah Close Calls is incredible. get Mother of Mankind, it pretty much makes it into a 2xLP

Yeah so I just finished my first time through and was like "well shit, what can I listen to after that?" So here we go again!

i love the title track too. Meat Loaf-like fantasy power pop (like "This is My World") but with Disney strings and AC/DC vocals. "Make your dreams your destiny" Andrew W.K. as Jiminy Cricket.

the chorus of "Keep on Going" reminds me of The Rentals for some reason. its such a cool song! the "far away from everyone" bit makes me think of Sparks. this record RULES

I kinda wonder if he’s a closet Sparks fan, because he’s got the ability to emulate them pretty damn closely. Listen to “I Want Your Face”, it’s like a lost tune off Propaganda

can't stop thinking about how brilliant that "WELL I GUESS WE PROVED YOU WRONG" hook is

this album is so great. gtfo Pitchfork with this pithy 6.6. unless that was meant to be a 6.66.

pitchfork have the right to be miserable fucks

I'm going to the London show btw! :D

"is this guy for real always singing about partying all the time?" is the most annoying thing ever. do music journalists ever ask Robert Smith if he is for real with the makeup and goth music? or if Radiohead is for real acting miserable all the time?

Id imagine music journalists could at least identify a lot more with that last one

this is between "keep on going," "the devil's on your side," "break the curse," and "total freedom." "keep on going"'s been helping me out a lot lately so i'll probably go for it

i said on facebook a few weeks ago that this album is therapy, i.e. andrew w.k. cares about me for approximately an hour and i cry a lot and feel an odd weightlessness afterward

this album taking off on here has been my favorite thing on the board so far this year

brad/simon otm

yea there's definitely a therapeutic aspect to his work. this album particularly, but really all of it. I remember being a car and hearing the line from "You Will Remember Tonight" that goes "...and after all these years, this is your life", and it was exactly what I needed to hear in the moment

if you haven't read it, the response he gave to being named the American Association Of Suicidology's "person of the year" is incredibly thoughtful, especially since there are some suicidal themes in his own work (including a song outright called "Kill Yourself"). I mean look at the lyrics to Music is Worth Living For - "Give me the will to love/So below and as above/The only way that I'll survive/Music makes me want to stay alive"

I couldn't help but chuckle at the almosy mythic language he deploys in his response, honestly bless him

kinda feel like when in Bill & Ted they reveal that Wyld Stallyns would be an all-important inspirational band that brought world peace, this album is the closest thing we have to that irl

― Hazy Maze Cave (Adam Bruneau), Thursday, March 8, 2018 4:14 PM

Hard to believe it's been ten years since Dragonforce released Ultra Beatdown. Which is a clear influence on this album imo. He's edged closer and closer to that aesthetic and basically he's there now. It's just that the songs are shorter.

Is...is the next step really Dragonforce

The reason we stand with pride
Is the will to live and to reach for the stars
So never look back, you're always just one step away
(Solo)

you have a track record in turning me onto decent stuff but

but

heh im checking this Dragonforce album out this is great stuff but holy shit is it fast

damn he's playing the same day that i graduate

ask him to play the ceremony

Hard to believe it's been ten years since Dragonforce released Ultra Beatdown. Which is a clear influence on this album imo. He's edged closer and closer to that aesthetic and basically he's there now. It's just that the songs are shorter.

― everything, Friday, March 16, 2018 11:26 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean yes the power metal streak on this one is very strong

it feels like "The Devil's On Your Side" is an evolution of his darker material, alot of which is on "Close Calls"/Mother of Mankind" ("Pushing Drugs", "Slam John Against a Brick Wall", "I Want Your Face"). but less schizophrenic/New Wavey and more like some really good classic 70 hard rock. the lyrics are so good too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLDpYN8gZTA

that organnnnnnn

okay I'm on listen #10 right now and I think it's "Break the Curse". the last 2 minutes of that has got to be the most powerful shit he's ever done.

of course I'll probably want to change that next time I hear it. this is the most melodically rich album I've heard in a long, long time. it's kind of amazing because AWK always had this reputation of being a smart guy who was making dumb music but you really can't say that anymore.

Well, I've always thought he had a pretty strong melodic/songwriting quality (well, at least on the first album, I don't know about the rest).
As for this album, it does have very good melodies and arrangements.
That said, I think there are a couple of times when, surprisingly, I find he comes a bit short, mostly the instrumental moments : "Beyond Oblivion" which is nice but goes on for too long with only the same musical phrase over and over and not many compositional or arrangements ideas to help the lack of development.
Same with the instrumental part of "The Devil's on your Side".

EPISODE 114 – ANDREW W.K.
Andrew W.K. sits down in London with Simon and Brian to talk about his new album You’re Not Alone. In this wide-ranging conversation, Andrew describes how his philosophy, his knowledge of music and his instrumental skills inform his approach to writing and recording songs like ‘Music Is Worth Living For’, ‘Party Mindset’ and ‘You’re Not Alone’. The Party God also describes the processes behind some classics from his back catalogue including ‘Party Hard’ and ‘Don’t Call Me Andy’.

https://www.sodajerker.com/episode-114-andrew-wk/

This is great! I held off at first and only approached with jaded dread, as I'd loved Close Calls With Brick Walls and have since in most respects surrendered to brutally diminished expectations.

(Also: hi, everybody.)

Can totally see the Dragonforce comparisons, along with power pop-punk, though I hear ~Bad Religion & early 90s So-Cal suchlike more than the Ramones (vein-popped athletic heroism marking the divide). Also video game soundtracks, 80s synthpop, Jim Steinman, white drugs, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, etc.

Miss the aggressive, Devo-style, subversion & perversity of tracks like "Pushing Drugs" & "One Brother", but ambitious songwriting and slick production help grease the crack. My only real complaint is that "Party Mindset" has only just begun to mine the implied harmonies when it ends (the better to indulge "Break the Curse", I suppose).

On that note, it's funny how the one big "party" track is not an I Get Wet-style aerobic workout, but rather a mid-tempo barroom sing along. And that it celebrates oblivion's erasure of clarity, given the titles of the album's penultimate tracks.

Great, but I still miss the psychological horror and cognitive dissonance he was folding in a couple years back.

That Sodajerker interview was great, thanks for sharing it !
The more I listen/read about him, the more he seems like a great guy (and artist).
I feel like this album is growing bigger and deeper than I initially thought.

the stuff he says about tempo around the 27:30 mark is so OTM. really good interview overall, kind of confirms a lot of how I assumed he wrote his music.

that it celebrates oblivion's erasure of clarity

i didn't really take it that way. for me "Keeping clarity just out of reach" was a grasping TOWARDS clarity. ultimate enlightenment may seem forever separate from our material reality but we continue to strive anyways. hence keeping it "just" out of reach. thus "time in oblivion is time well spent" has more to do with that affirming tortured human existence. almost like how a Buddhist will say life is suffering but accept that don't deny it.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Ha, my fiancée made this comparison when she heard the title track ("sounds like those Christmas people").

When sent the digital promo as one single song. As the publicist said, "It's one single file as Andrew requests that you listen through fully in one sitting."

So Andrew would not approve of this poll!

fun fact - "Party Mindset" sounds nearly identical to this song

he goes into this in the interview, his collaborative work with Aleister X, the idea to take "Bad Vibrations" and make a new song of it. the original is a cool track (a bit noisy and high-end) but it's just the chorus over and over again with worse lyrics. i really love what they did with it for this album!

Anybody else in London about to PARTY

I think Max Tundra is gonna be at that show, see if you can find him

Break the Curse is the winner for me at the moment.

yea that song rules. love the multi-layered "Break the cuuuuurse" vocals in the ecstatic second part. the insanely cool baroque metal keyboard arrangements throughout are incredible. its this mini symphony of all these different party themes. a spiraling fantasy of decadence.

imago did the show rule?

obviously! and 'break the curse' was a highlight

also played 'you will remember tonight' which was amazing

when I saw him it was "Take It Off" and "Totally Stupid" in a row and that was totally transcendent

didn't get a whole lot of Close Calls but there was "Pushing Drugs" which was great

I just bought it from iTunes because I got a gift card. I'm already wondering if the CD is mastered with less compression.

Yeah they did Pushing Drugs too, it was fab!

http://www.kerrang.com/video/exclusive-premiere-andrew-w-k-releases-video-for-music-is-worth-living-for/

:)

I like his explanation

yes!

“Music Is Worth Living For finds me and my band mates in the throes of a colossal vision quest,” says Andrew. “Determined to party harder than ever, we steel ourselves against alien elements, and battle a formless but formidable storm. Multiplying myself, I attempt to transcend the whirling void by engaging in a series of flailing spiritual maneuvers, vainly wrestling with the emptiness of my own soul. Alas, I discover I had already been consumed by my own triumphantly pathetic creation. And at this moment of devastatingly poignant clarity, I realize I’m back where I started, trapped inside the hardest party of all: Being alive.”

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

still almost impossible. every time i listen to this album each successive song feels like a step up from the last one.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

they're all winners

Wow these results are a trip

(Not saying I "disagree" -- there are no wrong answers here -- it's just funny that, on an album with so many straight-up bangers, people were drawn to the more subtle, slow-building numbers)

I voted Break the Curse cuz the last 2 minutes were so overwhelming

honestly I still can't decide, I'm actually kinda leaning towards the title track now. kinda wild to hear AWK attempt a vocal performance like that

i voted for the title track mostly for the vocal performance. it's on some classic rock level.

anyway after like 15 listens to this I'm starting to think it would be an all-time classic if the mastering was better. it just sounds so brickwalled. but damn is the music good.

Still holds up