''Boys and Girls in America'' is the third studio album by
The Hold Steady
The Hold Steady is an American rock band originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, now based in Brooklyn, New York, formed in 2003. The band consists of Craig Finn (vocals, guitar), Tad Kubler (guitar), Galen Polivka (bass), Bobby Drake (drums), ...
, released on October 3, 2006, by
Vagrant Records
Vagrant Records is an American record label based in California. It was founded in 1995 by Rich Egan and Jon Cohen. The label focuses on rock, but features artists in a variety of other genres including folk, soul, electronic, and pop. It is home ...
.
On August 18, 2006, first single "Chips Ahoy!" was released as a free download from music site
Pitchfork Media
''Pitchfork'' (formerly ''Pitchfork Media'') is an American online music publication (currently owned by Condé Nast) that was launched in 1995 by writer Ryan Schreiber as an independent music blog.
Schreiber started Pitchfork while working ...
. The second single, "Stuck Between Stations" began to appear on
campus radio
Campus radio (also known as college radio, university radio or student radio) is a type of radio station that is run by the students of a college, university or other educational institution. Programming may be exclusively created or produce ...
playlists in November 2006.
Backing vocals for the track "Chillout Tent" are provided by
Soul Asylum's Dave Pirner
David Anthony Pirner (born April 16, 1964) is an American songwriter, singer, and producer best known as the lead vocalist and frontman for the alternative rock band Soul Asylum.
Early life and work
Pirner was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin and gr ...
and
The Reputation's
Elizabeth Elmore
Elizabeth Elmore (born April 30, 1976) is an American singer-songwriter and lawyer who has worked with the rock bands The Reputation and Sarge.
Career and education
Elmore formed Sarge in the Chicago area in 1996, and the band broke up in 199 ...
.
Dana Kletter
Dana Kletter (born October 21, 1959) is an American musician and writer.
Biography
Kletter and her twin sister Karen were born in Baltimore, Maryland and raised in New York. Dana began playing piano at age four. She attended American Universi ...
(ex-Blackgirls, Dear Enemy, and
Hole
A hole is an opening in or through a particular medium, usually a solid body. Holes occur through natural and artificial processes, and may be useful for various purposes, or may represent a problem needing to be addressed in many fields of en ...
's ''
Live Through This
''Live Through This'' is the second studio album by the American alternative rock band Hole, released on April 12, 1994, by DGC Records. Recorded in late 1993, it departed from the band's unpolished hardcore aesthetics to more refined melodies ...
'') contributed backing vocals to "Chips Ahoy!", "You Can Make Him Like You", and "First Night".
The album title is a line taken from the opening lines of the song "Stuck Between Stations" ("There are nights when I think that Sal Paradise was right/Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together"), which in turn refers to a quote from
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
novelist
A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire to ...
and
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation.
Of French-Canadian a ...
's 1957 novel ''
On the Road
''On the Road'' is a 1957 novel by American writer Jack Kerouac, based on the travels of Kerouac and his friends across the United States. It is considered a defining work of the postwar Beat and Counterculture generations, with its protagonis ...
'' and its narrator, Sal Paradise. The title is repeated in the lyrics in "First Night."
''Boys and Girls in America'' has sold 94,000 albums as of April 2010.
Critical reception
The album received a metascore of 85 out of 100 on
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, making it tied with four other albums for the 12th best-reviewed album of 2006.
Magnet
A magnet is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is responsible for the most notable property of a magnet: a force that pulls on other ferromagnetic materials, such as iron, steel, nickel, ...
and The Onion's
AV Club
Av (also Menachem Av, ; from Akkadian ''ʾAbū'' "father") is the eleventh month of the civil year and the fifth month of the ecclesiastical year on the Hebrew calendar. The name comes from Araḫ Abu, "month of Abu", from the Babylonian calend ...
named it the best album of 2006.
''
Pitchfork
A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves.
The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to th ...
'' rated ''Boys and Girls in America'' 9.4 out of 10, and named it the fifth-best album of the year. They later ranked it as the 64th best album of the decade.
Yahoo! Music ranked the album #9 on their list of the top 25 albums of 2006.
The song "Stuck Between Stations" was ranked #12 on Pitchfork's list of the top 100 songs of 2006 and #63 on the best of 2000's list.
"Chillout Tent" was ranked #33 in ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
''s list of 100 best songs of 2006.
The 100 Best Songs of 2006 : Rolling Stone
/ref>
The song "Massive Nights" was always used at the Beginning of Colin Murray's Radio 1 Show, after the words, "New music, Alternative Classics, Drums" due to the drum roll introduction to the song.
Other versions
The song "Girls Like Status" was featured on the album ''''.
Track listing
All songs written by Craig Finn
Craig Finn (born August 22, 1971) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. He is best known as the frontman of the American indie rock band The Hold Steady, with whom he has recorded eight studio albums. Prior to forming The Hold Steady, Fi ...
, Tad Kubler
Tad Kubler is an American guitarist, known for his work with Lifter Puller, Song of Zarathustra, and, most-notably, The Hold Steady. He previously worked with Brett Johnson, bass player for Atmosphere, in the band Ten-fold Hate, in Minneapolis. ...
and Franz Nicolay
Franz Nicolay (born 1977) is an American musician and writer. He is best known for playing the accordion and piano in The World/Inferno Friendship Society and keyboards in The Hold Steady from 2005 to 2010 and again from 2016 onwards. He is also ...
; except where noted.
#"Stuck Between Stations" – 4:10
#"Chips Ahoy!" – 3:09
#"Hot Soft Light" – 3:53
#"Same Kooks" (Finn, Kubler) – 2:47
#"First Night" – 4:54
#"Party Pit" (Finn, Nicolay) – 3:56
#"You Can Make Him Like You" – 2:48
#"Massive Nights" – 2:54
#"Citrus" (Finn, Kubler) – 2:44
#"Chillout Tent" – 3:42
#"Southtown Girls" (Finn, Kubler) – 5:10
Bonus tracks on Japanese edition
#" Against the Wind" (Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
Robert Clark Seger ( ; born May 6, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. As a locally successful Detroit-area artist, he performed and recorded as Bob Seger and the Last Heard and The Bob Seger System throughout the 1960s, break ...
Cover) – 5:17
#"Stuck Between Stations" (Acoustic) – 4:13
Bonus tracks on Australian edition
#"For Boston" – 3:17
#"Girls Like Status" – 3:08
#"Arms and Hearts" – 3:51
#"American Music" (Violent Femmes
Violent Femmes are an American folk punk band from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The band consists of founding members Gordon Gano (guitar, lead vocals) and Brian Ritchie (bass, backing vocals), joined by multi-instrumentalist Blaise Garza (joined 2004 ...
cover) – 3:47
Bonus tracks on U.S. iTunes edition
#"Girls Like Status" – 3:08
#"Arms and Hearts" – 3:51
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boys And Girls In America
2006 albums
The Hold Steady albums
Vagrant Records albums
Albums produced by John Agnello