Lucky by Nada Surf
This is not the same Nada Surf you remember from somewhere around the time MTV stopped being about music. In fact, now that I say that, the single Popular may have been one of the last great MTV music moments before the once revolutionary channel dissolved into a vat of vapidness. Not that pop music doesn't have it's fair share of vapid, it does so by design. However, I think most everyone can admit that MTV did find a couple of gems over the 15 or so years of concentrating on music. You may have heard of a band called Nirvana or perhaps another one called The Buggles. I remember liking Popular quite a bit when it came out. Enough to figure out how to play it on the guitar. It's one of the few songs I can play halfway decent. But some number of months before my guitar revelation, probably while shuffling through a bargain bin somewhere, I picked up a copy of the High/Low release. I still play it in rotation quite a bit today. It probably plays a large part in my affinity for Nada Surf. Not enough to keep track of their catalog mind you, but an affinity.
Fast forward ten plus years and bypassing two albums I completely ignored, I found myself purchasing a copy of Lucky almost solely based on a live performance which featured them playing nothing but acoustic instruments. I think the drummer played on a bucket. It was a far cry from Popular. The weird thing is, I wasn't all that much of a fan of the acoustic performance. But I was intrigued by a bunch of what I stereotyped as surf pop punks playing an acoustic set. Hey, we all get old. And occasionally that maturation process produces good stuff. Not always, but sometimes it happens. I thought High/Low was very underrated and drawing the trend line from that release to the acoustic performance I heard signaled that there was an obvious line in that direction.
And I'd have to say in this case it was true.
If you want the loud Nada Surf, you're not going to get it here. Instead you're going to get solid songs with rich instrumentation and very top of the line production. Right from the start you are hit with See These Bones. Hands down song of the year so far me. Something about the way it's arranged and recorded gives me that chill that only a few songs can. Neko Case's Hold On, Hold On springs to mind, as does The Long Winters Hindsight. But back to Nada Surf. There are a half dozen other great tunes on here and two, I Like What You Say and Everyone's On Tour bridge the gap from the High/Low days. The latter is much closer to the old stuff than the former, but both have a much more mature feel to them that somehow makes you yearn for the louder stuff, and yet still makes you understand that you have to accept Nada Surf on their own terms. And for the most part they are terms I can accept. It's definitely not your kids Nada Surf anymore. It's more your dad's Nada Surf. Maybe sometimes it is hip to be a little square.
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