“Monsters” by All Time Low ft. blackbear & Demi Lovato, Wednesday, June 1, 2022
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While the rock music was falling out of favor in the 2010s, All Time Low's career continued to gain momentum. Formed in 2003 and heavily influenced by NoFx and Blink -182 the band became a force in the emo phase of the Warped Tour scene. The band became famous for their jocular onstage banter and their mock-turned serious feud with Metro Station. And in that jocular nature, the skinny, nerdy bandmates clad in only their tighty-whities appeared on MySpace's home page the week before their sophomore album So Wrong, It's Right dropped in 2007.
I DON'T MIND IF YOU FUCK UP (RUIN) MY LIFE. Fast forward thirteen years. I deleted a lot of music I acquired in college if I didn't like the songs. I enjoyed laughing at Blink- 182 videos in middle and high school just as much as any lower-middle class American white boy, but joke pop-punk got old when emo bands dug into deeper subjects. It turns out that All Time Low was digging a bit deeper in the 2010s, flying under my radar of rock music. Moreover, lead singer and primary lyricist for the band Alex Gaskarth began writing for pop acts while performing in a more commercially-viable version of All Time Low. In April of 2020, the band released their album Wake Up Sunshine, featuring a version of today's song "Monsters." The original version only had guest vocals by emo-rapper blackbear; however, a remixed version was later released as a single featuring Demi Lovato. I first heard this song when Rick Beato was complaining his way through the top ten songs on the iTunes store last year, and I couldn't believe that All Time Low was still together and producing great music, even by Beato's standards. Even without the hip-hop and pop diva elements that blackbear and Lovato bring to the track, it's clear that the band has learned how to write a song in their 20+ years together. But the icing of Lovato's powerful vocals in the second half of the track that helped to take the song to #1 on the Alternative Airplay chart.
WHY DO THE MONSTERS COME OUT AT NIGHT? Demi Lovato has been a pop friend to emo and punk music, even posting an "Emo Night Takeover" Spotify playlist with tracks from Acceptance, Fall Out Boy (Demi is also featured on one of the band's tracks), Underoath, Dashboard Confessional, Flyleaf, Paramore and others. At first, "Monsters" seems like a childish ditty, reminding listeners of when they were kids, scared of what was under the bed or in the closet. On a closer listen, the lyrics of "Monsters" deals with toxic relationships. Everything seems fine in the daylight when friends are around, but at night true colors are shown and abuse turns a loved one into a monster. Rapper blackbear's struggle with sobriety is the them of his verse. And while the singer didn't contribute to the lyrics, Demi Lovato has had a well-documented struggle with addiction, mental health, and abuse which the singer talks about extensively on their 2021 record Dancing with the Devil...The Art of Starting Over. "Monsters" hits during lucid moments when the speaker starts to think, why do I stay in a bad situation? Beginning to acknowledge that it is a problem is a good first step. The trick is not to fall into the same pattern with a different person.
Happy June everyone! New month, new playlists. Check them out on YouTube, AppleMusic and Spotify. And also look for my upcoming Pride Playlist featuring LGBTQ+ musicians and maybe a few allies! Let's have a great summer together!
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