Category Archives: set your goals

Don’t Want to Have to Call You up From a Pay Phone

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This is supposed to be a post about Set Your Goals, the sixpiece “post-hardcore” or “hardcore infused with pop” band from San Francisco. The band formed in 2004 and was fortunate enough to go on tour with The Warriors based off an EP they had recorded. They ended up signing with The Warriors’ label, Eulogy, and followed up the re-release of their EP with their first studio album, Mutiny! in 2006.

I thought Mutiny! was a decent freshman effort. Someone else must have thought so, too, because they went on tour with Anti-Flag and Alexisonfire the following year. Then in 2008, Set Your Goals played the entire summer on Warped Tour and got a contract on Epitaph Records in early 2009.

Influences such as this should make a dent on a punk band.

But This Will Be The Death of Us, released in July of this year, seems to take a step backwards. There is so much life and energy in Mutiny! that you would think could have been harnessed into excellent, mind-melting guitar riffs and stronger-than-ever lyrics, but it didn’t. I don’t know what happened. Instead, this album is full of lay-it-on-too-thick double bass and lay-it-on-too-cheesy rebellious rants you might hear from a fledgling teenage punk band, but not a bunch of guys in their late 20’s who have been around absolute legends in the punk industry.

[Download Set Your Goals – Summer Jam]

These sugary, anthem-y chants in This Will Be The Death of Us reminded me of another band: Hawk Nelson. This is an energetic punk band from Canada which has been around since 2004. They also happen to be a Christian band, which obviously precludes them from ever being invited to tour along with Alexisonfire or most of the other punk godfathers.

Somehow, though, the boys in Hawk Nelson have managed to polish their craft with every album they put out. They don’t get played on mainstream radio, although they did appear on a major motion picture and did get nominated for a Grammy. They don’t get invited to go on tour with anyone but other Christian bands or Christian festivals.

[Download Hawk Nelson – Long and Lonely Road]

But put almost any of Hawk Nelson’s singles up against any track on This Will Be The Death of Us and the only difference you will hear is a better execution by the Canadian boys. I ask what is the point of putting Set Your Goals on Epitaph at all. Compare “Let’s Dance” from Hawk Nelson and “Look Closer” from Set Your Goals.

[Download Hawk Nelson – Let’s Dance]

[Download Set Your Goals – Look Closer]

That’s how this post which was supposed to be about Set Your Goals becomes a post about Hawk Nelson. Would you like to hear some music that actually makes you get up and jump? Are you really going to overlook a decent band because they are Christian?

Check out some Hawk Nelson. They have a fourth studio album on its way next month, but below you can get the mp3 off the new release.

I like antiphony

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Taking Back Sunday
I was chatting with TLO on my way home from the office Wednesday. She was talking about how she had recently gotten a few CDs from a friend that was returning the favor after she turned him on to Four Year Strong, Bayside, and Meg and Dia. Apparently he fell head over heels about those bands, and that’s the payoff my friends. This is why we even put in the blood sweat and tears into this very blog. We love that feeling when someone falls in love with a band that we told them about.

Back to the story…

I asked her, “Well…what are you gonna hook him on next?” She replied, “I tried a few other bands, but they fell short for him. No one else sounds like FYS and Bayside.” Well… I HAD to agree.

Even after what I am about to share this week, the statement is still true. No band sounds like Bayside. There will never be another band like Four Year Strong.

but…

You could find “Band B” that happens to have all the same things you like about “Band A”.

I am of course talking about iTunes Genius and Pandora. We have mentioned iTunes Genius in one of our podcasts, but I’d like to talk specifically about Pandora. Both the iTunes Genius and Pandora use a formula for determining recommendations of new songs based on songs/bands you already like.

Pandora, specifically, uses the technology provided by the Music Genome Project. In a nutshell, it takes characteristics of a band/song and matches it with bands/songs that have similar characteristics within a certain range of difference. Like if a band has a male singer that writes emo-type lyrics usually in a minor key, it will recommend other songs that have male singers that also have emo-ish lyrics in minor keys. The characteristics that make up a song are known as its genome. Musicians analyze songs to put together these characteristics, which make it a little more scientific than some punk kid saying simply: “They sound just like the Foo Fighters.”

To best describe all that Pandora is, I created two stations. One based on Bayside and one based on Four Year Strong.

The first one is Bayside.

Bayside Station
Pandora selected many great bands and songs for my Bayside station, most notably Taking Back Sunday and the song My Blue Heaven. Why TBS? Well, its genome similarities to Bayside are:

basic rock song structures
mild rhythmic syncopation
a clear focus on recording studio production
mixed minor & major key tonality
string section beds
a vocal-centric aesthetic
mixed acoustic and electric instrumentation
electric guitar riffs
vocal harmonies

[Download Taking Back Sunday – My Blue Heaven]

I like Taking Back Sunday, but in my opinion, Bayside is far better, deeper, and more profound than TBS. I definitely don’t mind it showing up in my Bayside Radio playlist though!

Now, let’s see how Pandora does with Four Year Strong.

Four Year Strong Station

One of the first recommendations was a band called Set Your Goals and their song Mutiny.

[Download Set Your Goals – Mutiny]
Here are the characteristics that make this a good recommendation based on Four Year Strong:

punk roots
great lyrics
heavy use of vocal harmonies
call and answer vocal harmony (Antiphony)
major key tonality
paired vocal harmony
dirty electric guitar riffs
an aggressive male vocalist
prominent drums

I love this band on first listen! Enough to go to Amazon and buy it! The best part was that I had never heard of Set Your Goals before Pandora suggested them! [edit by TLO: I did. They are actually touring with Bayside right now. But they were also on the lineup for a Big D And The Kids Table show that we ended up skipping quite a long time ago. LOL] Mission accomplished! Maybe Pandora will help you find some new music? The one thing is that you might miss more cutting-edge indie bands by just relying on Pandora and the Music Genome Project, so you better bookmark inALLcaps.com just to make sure you don’t miss something amazing!