The first time I heard "Hanging By A Moment" was sometime in the winter of 2001. I used to watch the music videos on VH1 in the mornings while getting ready for school, and if you tuned in consistently (basically, if you watched every morning), you'd always see the same videos. There was something so comforting about hearing those first two purring guitar notes (notes? I don't know any guitar terminology) at the beginning of the song. It also didn't hurt that Jason Wade was easy on the eyes (and he still is, but I'm going to forget his new hair exists)!
I was sold.
Soon after I picked up their debut album No Name Face, wore it out from too many spins on my Discman, told all my friends about my new discovery, went to their shows, bought their T-shirts, bought the tab book (and I don't play guitar...obsession overboard), and purchased every subsequent CD...
Their fourth album Who We Are was released during the summer of 2007, right before I left for my year abroad in France. I was a bit torn--I wasn't impressed with their first single (it was too radio-friendly and shouty) and wasn't sure I liked the sound direction they were heading in. What was perfect about their debut was this sense of rawness and honesty in the songwriting. Their new stuff didn't have that same...oomph, for lack of a better sound. I caved and bought it anyway, out of loyalty or something, not that they would have been aware of my betrayal, listened to it once, frowned, then fled to the land of Gauls and adopted Justice as my new patron saint.
It took about two years for the songs on album four to really grow on me, but it made me a little sad that I no longer proclaimed Lifehouse as my favorite band because they had evolved, and my tastes had changed, too. (In case you're curious, Beirut is my current favorite band.)
Whoosh, 2010. Their latest effort Smoke and Mirrors was released just this past Tuesday. I had heard "Halfway Gone" a few months ago and again found it too mainstream for my tastes. Sure it's catchy, but it's not the Lifehouse I fell in love with. Instead of impulse-buying the CD (I'm on a very tight budget at the moment), I streamed it off their MySpace and opened a TextEdit file to geekily take note of which songs I actually liked. Admittedly, a good handful (Check out "Had Enough"...how sad that I like all the break-uppy tunes!), but I'm not sure if I'm ready for purchase commitment. Yet I have this lingering guilt!!
While I'm no longer their biggest fan and probably won't line up at noon for an 8pm show again anytime soon like I had done many a time in my youth, I still have this fondness for them. I check their Twitter page, peek at their website from time to time. I'll watch them if they're on TV....and I wish I had a good boyfriend metaphor to end this post...
My LJ username's namesake is featured in this video! :)
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