“Young Adult Friction” – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
(Words/music: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart , available on The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Slumberland 2009)

Remarkably, I only experienced one moment in 2009 where I wanted to be in two places simultaneously.  The Pains of Being Pure at Heart played a tiny show in an American Legion hall in the next town over from me.  I would have been there in a heartbeat except that for months I had tickets to see Bruce Springsteen the same night.  So I was financially invested in seeing the Boss (who, aside from Polvo perhaps, performed at the loudest volume of any band I saw in 2009 even in the nosebleeds), and it was an excellent show, but a nagging suspicion (and my friend Matt, who I’m pretty sure went to see them) makes me wonder how much I would have enjoyed seeing The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.

I played the Pains LP a lot in 2009, but particularly took a liking to the songs on the first side of the record.  “Young Adult Friction” took less than ten seconds – basically by the change from the first chord to the second – to hook me in.  The fuzzy guitars, hazy vocals, and gently humming synthesizer sounded like a lot of records I loved, but that alone wasn’t enough to hold my attention (otherwise, I’d have a record collection full of every band that owned a tremolo pedal).  Instead, it was the songs themselves and not just the adornment that interested me.  “Young Adult Friction” specifically toes the line between witty self-awareness, youthful excitement, and reluctant melancholy.  Neither story nor sound are enough to carry a song alone, but when complimentary paired, the song benefits.  Sure, the Pains LP isn’t exactly groundbreaking (and yes, I could rifle off a list of bands they sound like, but that just says more about me showing off my back catalog recognition rather than saying something about the song) but music doesn’t always have to be challenging.  Sometimes, a good song played with the right mix of conviction, composition, and charisma satisfies like little else.

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