Dear Friend, I’m starting a new series as well as beginning to facilitate something things with the Instagram account under the name ‘arikwright’. I hope you will follow along with the weekly/daily posts that will accompany this new series. I will be occasionally listening to an artists full discography and making a playlist of all the songs off of them that I like. A link to the playlist as it grows will be at the bottom of the post.

Let’s start off with facts. This is the debut album of the band Twenty One Pilots. Released and recorded in 2009 this was in heavy emo vibes, I would even categorize this as theatre kid music. Back then the group was a three piece consisting of Tyler Joseph, Chris Salih and Nick Thomas, both of whom would only be on this album. Back then the band would participate in Battle of the Bands contests in Columbus based music venues. Important note, Josh Dun, the bands drummer would be the bands drummer. However he isn’t on this record, and due to it’s low budget; the album would feature computer made drum beats. This album marks the only self-released music and Tyler Joseph’s mom would give away tickets to shows at OSU. The album cover was made by friend of Tyler Joseph, John Rettstatt.

As far as my taste for the album I liked:

Opener Implicit Demand For Proof establishes the early sound really well. Melancholic and very emo. Very of it’s time. Closer Isle of Flightless Birds has a tinge of the spooky that will emerge on later records like Trench or Clancy. I liked 4/7 of the album. Over half but some of it just isn’t my speed. In fact I tend to like the more less played songs on this album over all. Songs like Fall Away and Oh Ms Believer are the highest played songs and they don’t make the list for me. Songs like Isle of Flightless Birds and Fall Away show early Tyler Joseph rapping too, showing that this was always a staple of the brand.

I want to focus on the good things of the album and facts primarily but HOLY SHIT, I can’t get over it. I do not like the way ‘fall away’ is said in the song of the same title.

https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/2ZfgtVZVMjQKoyUw3fnHr5?utm_source=generator

Dear Friend, I’ll be exploring more of this in coming weeks likely finishing by the end of the year. Please let me know what you think and as always, you will be alright.