Line #42 Music/TheFrontBottoms


1	[[quoteright:345:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tfb_7819.jpg]]
2
3	An indie band from Bergen County, UsefulNotes/NewJersey. Originally formed in 2006 as a three piece consisting of guitarist/singer Brian Sella, drummer Mathew Uychich, and keyboardist Brian Uychich. Since 2010, the band has officially consisted of just Brian Sella and Mat Uychich. They currently play and tour with Tom Warren and Ciaran O'Donnell. They’re notable for their somewhat humorous [[{{SelfDeprecation}} self-deprecating]] lyrics, using voicemails from friends in their songs, and being from Jersey.
4
5	Discography:
6	* ''the Front Bottoms'' (2011, Bar/None Records)
7	* ''Talon of the Hawk'' (2013, Bar/None)
8	* ''Rose'' (EP, 2014, Bar/None)
9	* ''Back On Top'' (2015, Creator/FueledByRamen)
10	* ''Needy When I'm Needy'' (EP, 2016, Fueled by Ramen)
11	* ''Going Grey'' (2017, Fueled by Ramen)
12	* ''Ann'' (EP, 2018, Fueled by Ramen)
13	* ''In Sickness and in Flames'' (2020, Fueled By Ramen)
14	Prior to signing, they self-released 2 eps and 2 full-lengths.
15
16	----
17	!!Their music provides examples of:
18	* AbortionFalloutDrama: "Lone Star" is about a young guy who pays for his girlfriend's abortion. In addition to draining his bank account, which he's not happy about, it messes with their relationship and the two of them spend the months afterward crying all the time, having nightmares, and begging God for forgiveness.
19	* AccentUponTheWrongSyllable: The combination of Brian’s North Jersey accent and his tendency to elongate words can lead to this, especially in live performances where he changes lines without changing the music. Notable in the album version of "The Feud":
20	--> I'm just saying it's a bummer man, sor-RY for interrupting
21	* AudienceParticipation: A few songs, most notably the chorus to "The Beers", where Brian tends to let the crowd sing over him. There's even hand gestures. "Maps" gets handclaps
22	* BlackComedy: The video for "Backflip" shows Mat and Brian having happy times with buddies, playing "hilarious" pranks on their friends that result in the friends' deaths (i.e. covering a guy with silly string and setting him on fire), and making shit-eating, "oops", expressions at the camera afterwards. The whole effect is pretty funny.
23	* BreakupSong: Most of their songs are about dysfunctional or failing relationships in one way or another, but there are a few straightforward examples:
24	** "The Feud" is about a couple where the girl is in love with someone else, but is trying to get her boyfriend to break up with her first.
25	** "West Virginia" is a lament about still being in love with an ex who's never coming back.
26	--> "Love of my life, gone forever
27	--> Love of my life, gone for good"
28	* ChangingChorus: "Funny You Should Ask" modifies the chorus slightly to reflect a very different context each time. The first time it's
29	--> "'Cause I was young, I thought I didn't have to care about any''thing'' but I'm older now and know that I should x2"
30	and follows a verse talking about innocent young love. The second verse is filled with resentment against an ex-girlfriend and the following chorus changes to:
31	--> "But ''you'' were young, you thought you didn't have to care about any''one'' but you're older now and ''wish that you could''
32	--> 'Cause you were young you thought you didn't have to care about anyone but you're older now and know that you should"
33	The last chorus is similar to the second one but switches back to first person perspective.
34	* ConveyorBeltVideo: The video for "West Virginia" has the camera moving continuously from room to room in a house party without the appearance of cuts. When it revisits a room, things have clearly changed off-camera.
35	* ClusterFBomb: The speaker in the voicemail in the bridge of "Swimming Pool" manages to drop the F-bomb in some form or another about 14-15 times in roughly 30 seconds
36	* ComingOutStory: According to [[http://propertyofzack.com/post/9965543548/propertyofzack-track-by-track-the-front-bottoms this article]], it's the inspiration for "Hooped Earrings", though it’s not totally overt: "This is about a friend of mine that asked me to be there with her when she came out to her mother."
37	* ElementalMotifs: "Legit Tattoo Gun":
38	--> "I am the water in the puddle of the shade of a tree
39	--> You are the sun, when I freeze over, you cannot touch me
40	--> The tree feels bad- you can tell by the way that it felt
41	--> But he still won't move, and the ice won't melt"
42	* EnterStageWindow: "The Beers" mentions coming into a house party via the window.
43	* FightFurYourRightToParty: The video for "West Virginia" features a girl dressed as a bunny and a guy in a whole-body Panda fursuit. The video seems to take place at a Halloween party as there are a number of oddly-dressed people in attendance, providing some justification for this.
44	* FishEyeLens: The video for "West Virginia" was entirely shot with an extreme wide-angle lens, giving the whole thing a trippy, MTV appearance that makes the fairly mundane content of the video (a Halloween party) seem deranged and surreal.
45	* FrenchAccordion: "Au Revoir (Adios)" is about a guy condescendingly using GratuitousFrench to break up with his girlfriend. The variants of the chorus that use "Au Revoir" and the verse explaining it have an accordion riff in the background.
46	* GenreBusting: Good luck figuring out how to label them beyond just indie (Website/TheOtherWiki labels them as “acoustic-dance-indie-punk”). Almost every time they’re asked to describe their music, they come up with something different.
47	* GratuitousForeignLanguage: The narrator of "Au Revoir (Adios)" uses basic French to try and insult the woman in the song (by implying she's stupid). She proceeds to throw it right back at him, but with Spanish.
48	* ImportantHaircut: In "Hooped Earings", the narrator helps his friend cut her hair short against the wishes of her mother. The haircut is given a lot of focus in the song, and it symbolizes the friend being newly out as a lesbian.
49	* {{Joisey}}: They're from New Jersey, and the general setting shows in frequently in their music. Many music videos are filmed in a suburban landscape. "The Beers" mentions being on steroids, another song talks about someone whose grandfather's in the Mafia, hitting a few classic Jersey stereotypes. The overall sad and emotional feel of their discography fits with the stereotype of New Jersey as a depressing place.
50	* LocationSong: "West Virginia" and "Rhode Island" are both titled after states, though both only mention the location in passing, being more about people who happen to be in those states at the moment. Similarly, "Santa Monica" is named after the town and associated beach in California, which is mentioned but not the main point of the song. "Fairbanks, Alaska" is actually about being in Fairbanks, however.
51	* LyricalDissonance:
52	** "Flashlight" is catchy and upbeat, but the lyrics are very sad, about losing someone you used to be in love with to homelessness and substance abuse.
53	** The last verse of "Lone Star" follows directly from the chorus and forms the emotional climax of the song, with Brian's voice cracking as he screams the words. But the lyrics, variants on "Because freshness is expected from any Hip-Hop artist, I avoid using traditional techniques"[[note]]Brian is not a HipHop artist by any stretch of the imagination[[/note]] have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the song, a dark one about abortion, and the mundaneness of the lyrics contrasts dramatically with the delivery. Could be taken to represent the POV character entering a HeroicBSOD.
54	* LyricalShoehorn: Inverted. Their lyrics are typically long, rambling but grammatically correct sentences, often without rhyme or any sense of meter, crammed into just a few bars of music. E.g. the opening lines of "Twin Sized Mattress"
55	-> This one's for the lions living in the wiry broke-down frames of my friends' bodies. When the floodwater comes it ain't gonna be clear it's gonna look like mud.
56	* NonAppearingTitle: On their self-titled: "Looking like You Just Woke Up", "The Boredom Is The Reason I Started Swimming. It's Also The Reason I Started Sinking.", "Legit Tattoo Gun", "Hooped Earrings". On Talon there's "The Feud", "Lone Star", "Backflip". Bathtub also repeatedly uses ''shower'' instead of bathtub. From ''Back On Top'': "Summer Shandy", "Historic Cemetery", "The Plan (Fuck Jobs)", "2YI".
57	* ObviousStuntDouble: The video for "Backflip", which is about the band "accidentally" murdering their friends in horrible ways, cuts from a shot of the actor to a shot of a paper mache body that looks only vaguely like the victim before it is set on fire/otherwise killed in a horrible way.
58	* OneWordTitle: "Flashlight", "Maps", "Mountain", "Father", "Bathtub", "Skeleton", "Peach", "Backflip"
59	* {{Patricide}}: In ''Father'' "I have this dream where I am hitting my dad with a baseball bat// And he is crying and screaming for help// and maybe halfway through it becomes more about me killing him// Than it ever did protecting myself."
60	* RereleaseTheSong: ''Rose'' and ''Ann'' contain re-releases of songs from their self-published era, such as "12 feet deep" on ''Rose''.
61	* RockstarSong:
62	** Both “The Boredom Is The Reason…” and “Twin Size Mattress” are at least partially about touring and being in a band, but subvert this. The first talks about being stuck in a foreign country during the holidays alone due to touring. The second references the poor conditions they usually find themselves while on tour and how touring affects relationships.
63	** "I Swear to God the Devil Made Me Do It" talks about hoping of attaining financial success and making a difference through music, while also worrying about not being up to it or having enough talent.
64	* RuleOfPool – The music video for "Swimming Pool" opens with Brian pushes Mat into a dirty pool, clothes and all.
65	* SexAsRiteOfPassage – A darker take in "The Cops"
66	--> "The first time I had sex it was a stranger in a bathroom. My friends were right, and since that day it's felt the same."
67	* ShoutOut:
68	** ''Talon of the Hawk'' and the knife depicted on the album cover both refer to a knife Brian Sella once had, which was named after Deputy Hawk of ''Series/TwinPeaks''.
69	** A more literal one in "West Virginia", which has the line "This one goes out to all my friends in West Virginia", supposedly a shout out to an especially good crowd they had at a concert there.
70	* SillyLoveSongs:
71	** "Summer Shandy" is a pretty staightforward one about being in love on summer vacation at the Shore.
72	** Subverted in "Cough It Out" and "Peach". Both are poppy, upbeat songs that sound like simple declarations of love if you only listen to the chorus, but the verses reveal a relationship that is dysfunctional and darker than it appears on the surface.
73	* StalkerWithACrush:
74	** One way to interpret the opening lines of "Flashlight". Other parts of the song are about obsessing over the girl in question's actions and whereabouts, even though she's no longer in the narrator's life.
75	--> "Please fall asleep so I can take pictures of you and hang them in my room"
76	** "The Beers" also talks about looking through the windows of the home of the girl the narrator is interested.
77	* SurrealMusicVideo: The video for "everyone blooms" features the band members faces exploding into flowers and shooting through a psychedelic, CGI AcidTripDimension with no performances or plot to speak of.
78	* SweetieGraffiti: In "Cough It Out", the narrator sees the shape of the initials he carved with his lover everywhere in the branches.
79	* ThisSongGoesOutToTvTropes:
80	** "Twin Sized Mattress" begins with an obscure and poetic dedication: "This one's for the lions living in the wiry broke-down frames of my friends' bodies."
81	** "West Virginia" has one after the first verse, but before the rest of the song: "This one goes out to all my friends in [[TitleDrop West Virginia]]". The song (a BreakupSong) otherwise has nothing to do with West Virginia; supposedly the line references a particularly good show the band had in that state.
82	* TimeSkip: "Funny You Should Ask" skips from winter to summer in one verse, and takes place over a number of years as a relationship progresses from innocent teen love to a more jaded and fractious adult relationship.
83	* UnrequitedLove: The bridge of "Swimming Pool", with the narrator being aware of it, but confused as to why they would be in love with him in the first place
84	--> "How low is your self-esteem, and how low could it possibly be? And I know, I know, you're in love with me and I've been ignoring you"
85	* AWildRapperAppears: "Historic Cemetery" features a rapped outro by rapper GDP at the end of a song that's mostly rock.
86	* WomenPreferStrongMen: "The Beers": "and I will remember that summer as the summer I was taking steroids, 'cause you like a man with muscle, and I like you."
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Context Music / TheFrontBottoms