Ryan's Hope did what I think everybody in a serious punk, emo, ska (lol, serious ska), or metal band always secretly wants to do: they formed a fun pop punk band so they could write goofy, catchy songs and love life a little bit more. This is the story of how The Reaganomics were formed, from what I've read. Having recognition already, due to being on Punknews Records and Epitaph, they were immediately playing shows around in the midwest scene with OWTH and TB and shit. Things move pretty fast when you have some coattails to ride. These coattails aren't just lucky for them, but they're lucky for us. The quicker their awesome music is available to you, the better.
Earlier this year, Reaganomics released the full length Lower the Bar. It's full of singalongs, humorous lyrics, and basically a mix of The Steinways, Off With their Heads, and Social Distortion. Honestly, it's not original by any means, but neither is creating a blog to review punk albums, so it's all good. If you go into it with the mentality that you're not going to be surprised by anything these dudes have up their sleeves, then you're going into it with the correct mentality. It also means that anything special that occurs will pack a more powerful punch, so it's a win/win situation!
"Stop Sending Me Evites to Your Shows" is a song about the social networking efforts of punk bands these days. I like getting the facebook invites to shows, except most of the ones I get are for shows that are happening 14 hours or so away, and that's annoying (I'm looking at you, Caffiends). This song is pretty much all you have to listen to in order to achieve an overall understanding of The Reaganomics. Basic chord progression, gruff vocals, cool leads, and humorous lyrics you can sing along to. It's stupid fun, and 60% of the time, this works all of the time. It's hardly worth the effort to mention too many other songs because of this, but I mean, the song "Ed Hardy" is pretty funny and also a nice sing along, as is "Don't Worry, We'll Play First" and "Nice Life". It describes almost every song, and it really is enough to get you to go check this album out.
This used to be the style of pop punk I'd go out and paint the town red while listening to, or something. If this album came out in 2009, I would be punching in skulls just to obtain it, and I'd be making my friends' ears bleed listening to it a million times. But at this point, my interests have went in different directions, and it doesn't do it for me anymore. It's something I can listen to, but it's nothing I'll ever get all diehard over again; I even quit writing this style of music not too long ago. I wish I found these guys sooner, when it would've meant more to me. But then, it would've been an unfair review, with me giving it a 10/10 and posting their lyrics on facebook for a week. Whereas now, I'm going to say it's like a 3/5 on a good day, and I'm going to honestly recommend them to people I know are into this stuff.
You can stream some songs at punknews here, and you can buy the album from this site here. Tell me if you like it! :)
Love,
-Idle
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