i'm undecided

Sloan's Never Hear the End of It has been an ongoing debate for me. I hated it — hated it — when I first heard it. Shocking really, as the song I had heard in advance ("Fading Into Obscurity") was really just perfect.

So I hated it when it came out in the fall. Saw Sloan live in the winter and liked a song or two a little better. By May, when they recently played a couple of shows, I'd been won over to a few more songs. Still not 30, and there will always be a handful that make me angry of hating them so much, but at this point, I am OK with the album.

Now, "Fading Into Obscurity." I really liked it the first time I heard it, and I loved it when I heard it live. And yesterday afternoon, when they played it at Summerstage, I almost lost my mind. (When they played "The Other Man" with Andrew Whiteman standing onstage, I did temporarily lose my mind. And not in a fun way. But that's a whole 'nother story.)

Some of my love of "Fading Into Obscurity" is that the song is about me (it isn't, at least not that I know of, but it totally is. I can write 20 essays about why) and some of it is that it's a little punchier live, but most of it is that it's so perfectly built that by the time it gets to the first "I'm undecided ..." (at 3:01) I am so on board. By "out of favor with the flavor of the week..." (at 3:25) I'm in a frenzy.

Will you be? Probably not, but I think you will enjoy it anyway. It helps when you know it enough to sing along, for there is little that could be more satisying than belting out the final 70-something seconds.