Boys And Girls in America

I really really really enjoyed this. Reminds me a LOT of The Mountain Goats. Listened to it on a Friday, forgot to rate it, listened to it again on a Monday and liked it even more the second time.

I always like this band just fine but it does seem like very much a Springsteen shtick with not as talented a vocalist.

I remember when the record came out. It was their third album, but it was the first one that everyone started talking about. Their heartland rock, epic rock reminiscent of 70s Springsteen and that bigger-than-life music that was so rare to hear from a new band in the mid-00s left us all impressed. I always felt like their music lacked songs, themes and melodies that you could really hold on to. But just for their musical conception, their brilliant narrative and for being such a rare bird, they deserved their moment of glory, short but intense

Like a rockier Counting Crows. I like the storytelling and the piano. Classic rock done properly! Riffs and grooves, but not too heavy or grungy. Although I like the lyrical content that I could make out, I’m not a fan of the over talkative vocal style (Springsteen just about gets right). Excellent and worthy inclusion nonetheless.

Hey man I get it. You did some drugs. You’ve listened to Springsteen. You don’t have to rub it in my face. I’m into the tunes but exhausted by the imagery

Brilliant record.

Love this album. 4 stars.

This actually was a very entertaining listening experience! Musically probably not very groundbreaking, and I know of bands that do this even better, but this sound immediately hit my musical sweet-spot. "Gonna walk around and drink some more!" Heck yeah!

Very 'American sounding' and incredibly lyrical. Some Springsteen vibes at times. Good album

This sounds like the lead singer from Soul Coughing lost all interest in jazz and became obsessed with drugs.

This had a good vibe. Period.

Not sure what makes this stand out to the other 2000s Rock. Not bad, but just not very noteworthy to me.

Whatever my conclusions, the Hold Steady are honest about some aspect of life in this country. The quote that frames it comes from On The Road, which - fair enough - I had a similar ambiguous reaction to, preceded by anticipation. I guess there is an emotional problem, and a structural one, cooperating. Bleakness need not ruin an album concept, but it is challenging to work into the Song. And that craft arrives, tacked-on and ultimately not satisfying; not dissatisfying either. An amusical experience I'm grateful enough to have had.

boring rock. dude can't sing. 2/5.

Not jiving with this one at all, even if ‘80s rock revival was having a moment in the late aughts. The instrumentals sound dated on arrival, and though there are few bright spots in the arrangements creatively, the vocals sink any interest I may have had after that point.

Not the worst 3 2

Personally don't like this sound at all.

The vocalist is very much on top of the music and you feel more noise and interruption. And the music is better than him.

These guys always reminded me of early 70s Springsteen

This album is an updated heartland rock for the 21st century. It has decent guitar work, strong melodies, and is varied enough to stay interesting while still having a cohesive identity. So much of this sound has been done since that it’s hard to review this fairly, but it is a good album.

Great rock album. Not the most original, but the performance is spot on.

I fell for the song “You Can Make Him Like You” not long after this was released based on a recommendation on NPR’s Sound Opinions radio show. I liked the album a lot - still the first song I heard from them remains my favorite.

Boys and Girls in America is excellent, I feel like I've missed out by not listening to this lot before. First of all there is clearly a hell of a lot of Springsteen influence in here, which isn't a bad start, and the vocal delivery being almost spoken-word throughout but not in a way that detracts from the storytelling or the music manages to work, but the song compositions are what grab me, they're so well crafted, they accentuate the story, they're full of emotion and hooks and light and shade and all of that. Same Kooks and First Night are both great early on then it closes with a terrific five-song run of Citrus/Chill out Tent/South Town Girls/Girls Like Status/Arms and Hearts that I'm already playing back for a second run. Has a real epic heartland sound to it and I'll have some of that every day of the week, it's a very high 4 that I might end up giving a 5 to when push comes to shove, maybe only missing out because of the standard of 5s from the actual project being GOAT albums.

Lyrical rock

This was a wonderful surprise. I actually checked out The Hold Steady’s album before this last week off a random recommendation, which I enjoyed but didn’t stick with me too much. This was a slightly more streamlined sound - maybe a bit less individual but a really good display of everything it was going for. A lot of the tracks had this huge stadium rock atmosphere but still with that indie edge, like Bob Mould leading the E Street Band. It kicked off with so much energy and just kept that momentum going, with stellar songwriting throughout. The one low point for me was probably Chillout Tent, and the lyrics in general were a bit hit and miss. Still - a fantastic album and a band I’ll definitely be returning to

I always liked The Hold Steady. Kind of like a more snide Elvis Costello with a good helping of Springsteen thrown in. They do have better albums though.

Rating: 6/10

Indie rock. Ni fu ni fa.

The hideous album cover did not prepare me for a fairly solid alt-country album.

I mean, this was great, musically on point, very enjoyable. I'm guessing THS kills it live. More than a little derivative, but it was a fun summer listen. Fave Songs: Stuck Between Stations, Hot Soft Light, Party Pit, Chips Ahoy!, Massive Nights

This was a pretty decent album. It’s like if Bruce Springsteen made modern alternative music with an Americana style. The album cover definitely threw me off a bit but I thought the instrumentals and lyrics were actually quite good. Based on how it’s rated I’m shocked it isn’t more talked about or popular. I would revisit this one. 7.1/10

I'm kind of surprised to see this band on here. I've heard a couple songs on here before, plus a few others, and they never sounded like anything special. This listen confirmed that for me.

A fine alt rock vibe, but nothing particularly special. Citrus seems the most interesting, but I'm not that big of a fan of the lead singers vocal style. Its fine but nothing i would seek out.

It's a steady album. Reminiscent of a lot of other artists in the genre. Party Pit carried on a bit. I'm sure he's still walking.

Bruh

Like Springsteen for millennial teenyboppers. Rating: 3 Playlist track: Stuck Between Stations Date listened: 25/11/24

A little Springsteen-y, a little Warren Zevon-y maybe? I warmed up to it.

Heartland rock as all get out. I had tickets to see them open for The Gaslight Anthem (my favorite band) before, but unfortunately had to miss the show. Finding out the singer is from Minnesota is surprising, cos you could slot this in with the Jersey Shore Sound pretty easily. Off-kilter, vocals of Thin Lizzy and music of E-Street Band. Might need a while with this one, but it's a bit long and doesn't immediately grab me. Favorite track: "Chips Ahoy"

This started really strong and very Springsteenesque. But then as it went on it really lost steam and became quiet generic. Even though it was a brisk 40 minutes, it felt a lot longer. My personal rating: 3/5 My rating relative to the list: 3/5 Should this have been included on the original list? Nope. Nothing really special about it.

Don't judge a book by its cover!

I didn’t realize how far reaching the Elvis Costello plague is. 2006 and it still sounds like his music.

Good alt rock record.

The singer reminds me of the Modern Lovers and Counting Crows put together and the lyrics remind me of Alice in Chains insofar as every single song is about drug use. I do like the dense jangle of their jam but they stray dangerously close to Hipster-ville. Maybe that’s not so bad - someone has to live there.

Bruce/heartland rock filtered through modern rock sounds. I want to give this more credit and I was into a few songs for sure...but this dude's voice and vocal approach wears on you.

If you like your Springsteen a bit more rocky then this is the album for you. It's fine but it's not for me.

How is this from 2006? So mediocre 80s stadium rock, it must have sounded like a relic when it came out. Ok, but no better. Other bands and artists have covered this ground in a much more enjoyable and entertaining way. Sounds like a whole bunch of other albums already in the book, but a tiny bit duller.

Mixed feelings on this one. The vocals are undeniably annoying and I don’t think we really need a post punk Springsteen but it does kind of rock out and I kept coming back for more.

July 8, 2025 HL: "First Night", "Massive Nights", "Chillout Tent", "Teenage Liberation" (bonus) Based on the cover, the Hold Steady does not sound like I thought they would. It looks like how "Shake It" by Metro Station sounds to me. Anyway, solid pick! Once I got past the reverence for 80's Americana (which I thought was a crutch for another band on this list, Titus Andronicus), it had the feet tappin'. 3.5/5 edit: ohhh I should have known that name! They provided one of my favourite musical moments in Game of Thrones, covering "The Bear and the Maiden Fair" in the credits right after a particularly grisly cliffhanger.

Bigger, brasher Arab Strap with any subtlety jettisoned. I love Arab Strap. Not this.

Ok

pretty basic rock

This just felt a little nostalgic for a kind of thing I never missed.

Music for the iPod generation. I found the lyrics to be cynical, often veering towards misogyny. The mid 2000s was a desolate wasteland for music, and while this isn't the aggressively bad worst of it, it's not something I would ever actively choose to put into my earballs. I say at the top of this review that it's music for the ipod generation, because it sounds like it has been mastered to listen to on cheap-end earbuds, which was the style at the time.

I don't miss the indie landfill years. This is marginally better than the dreck of that era, but it wasn't memorable.

It was okay

Based on last.fm, letsfathom, and aoty, this is very adjacent to my own user submission--Titus Andronicus' The Monitor--but I didn't really care for it. I don't like dude's voice and single style and I'm annoyed by the piano. I can see people saying the same about my album, so I'm curious how people who really love this feel about The Monitor.

This is NOT Bruce Springsteen

This was very close to being decent to me but just something was missing. Not terrible, just not my kind of thing.

Pitchfork gave this a 9.4/10. Critical reception across the board is seemingly positive as well. Kind of anthemic rock for millennials who just started drinking regularly and may or may not be developing a substance dependency. This is an album I, unfortunately, failed to connect with. In lieu of anything insightful, I pulled a quote from tumblr, who pulled a quote Jack Kerouac's 1957 novel On The Road: "Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk--real straight talk about soulds, for life is holy and every moment is precious." CONTENDER FOR THE LIST: I don't think so? Someone else make the decision for me.

'She said: "You're good with words, words won't save your life" / They didn't, so he died'. Oh the irony. Craig Finn's long strings of literary words about idle American youngsters spending their free time on booze and sex -- strongly inspired by Kerouac -- indeed won't save the overblown arena-rock simulacrum of his band The Hold Steady, filled with so many cheesy guitar licks and other stupid arrangements the latter often end up distracting from whatever strength the original compositions could have had under less hackneyed hands. Those overtones were already quaint in 2006. Twenty years later, they're simply unbearable. Too bad for the songs proper. Not that all the compositions are good anyway. Too many of them indeed go nowhere fast, often not holding the early promise of their bombastic introductions. But I guess it all depends on what it is you want from a good rock song, just like personal mileages vary on what a good book is. Anyone who's read *On The Road* indeed knows the plot of that novel is ironically quite static -- that it was just a mouthpiece to express fifties bohemian counterculture, whose real point was never to develop an entertaining story. Likewise, The Hold Steady's compositions are mostly backdrops for its singer's literary talents. Very few melodies and harmonies are memorable. Hooks are quite interchangeable. Progression is rare. It all checks out, doesn't it? Finn's (mostly) sprechgesang vocals are also an acquired taste, I imagine -- one you could try to dig if you put some effort into it. But the cost is probably way too high for any indie-rock fan who understands the meaning of the term "overkill". Interestingly, that raving Pitchfork review praising this album insistently labelled Finn as an American Jarvis Cocker, for reasons that partly eluded me at first -- in spite of the obsession of both artists for "common people" and sex. Then I saw a picture of Finn's geeky mug online, and it all checked out again. Guess looks and optics -- whether good or bad -- got in the way of that reviewer's better sense at the time. At least, Pulp have patiently learnt their way around a hit song as years went by. And they ended up writing legendary albums having truly interesting dynamics between said hits and deeper cuts. In comparison, Finn and his boys are merely going through the motions here, either musically or vocally / lyrically. Words won't save my life either, so I better stop yaking now (we have one flaw in common, Mr. Finn, I'll give that to you...). But of course, before I shut my trap, there's one last pivotal influence that needs to be finally addressed to explain what *Boys And Girls In America* is attempting to pull off. Should I really name it? Most of you readers have probably already seen Springsteen's name pop up several times in the reviews up there... So what of it? Not much. Why on earth would you go for a cheap secondhand copy of the Boss when you can get the original thing whenever you want? At least Titus Andronicus infused punk aesthetics in their own homage to the New Jersey legend, and Gang Of Youths could also take different (thunder)roads and avenues once in a while, never losing their natural elegance as they did so. Either way passes on the torch in a truly personal fashion. Whereas The Hold Steady seemingly stumble on the finish line. If they were even interested in passing on the torch in the first place... When your heartland rock feels so derivative, it becomes hard to believe you heart's really into it (even if it is). It only feels like you're just driving recklessly on the Boss Expressway, too intoxicated by your own shtick to realize your car has ended up on the wrong side of the road. Call that driving under the (anxiety of) influence. 2/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums. 7/10 for more general purposes. Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ----- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 33 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 42 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 82 (including this one) ---- Émile, quelques récentes réponses au dessus...

There were times when it sounded like Bruce Springsteen but in indie music fashion. None of that is a good thing. Thankfully, it was short.

Paint-by-numbers, boring rock for paint-by-numbers, boring people who've not heard enough music to actually know what's good out there. Guy who recommended this, how's much cheap beer do you consume in a given week?

This album sounds like it's violently fighting against every interesting idea that pops into its head.

Mmmmm.....is this from 2006 or 1986? It's quite bland and derivative. I think the issue is around the 'cult of the new'. You get into a trendy band that spreads via social media withouth realising they sound identical to other bands and singers from decades before. Not to say it's bad. Just unoriginal.