June 8 — “Glory” by You Say Party! We Say Die!

You Say Party! We Say Die!

If you only listen to one song today, make it “Glory” by You Say Party! We Say Die! (2010, from the album XXXX). You Say Party! We Say Die! was an indie-rock dance-punk quintet from Abbottsford, British Columbia. They released four proper albums between 2005 and 2010. During that time, one band member was serving a five-year ban from entering the United States, but they relentlessly toured the rest of the world. During a promotional tour of their last album XXXX, their drummer collapsed during a show and died two days later. After that, they changed the band name from “You Say Party! We Say Die!” to “You Say Party”. Less than a year after that, citing exhaustion, they declared an indefinite hiatus.

Technically speaking, the album XXXX was released in September of 2009. However, that was a limited release of something silly like 25 copies. It was released for real in early 2010. I called it #9 in my list of my favorite 15 Canadian albums of 2010, and it was longlisted for the 2010 Polaris Music Prize. For the record, XXXX stands for “love”. The album title and three song titles contain the four Xs, and it always stands for “love”.

This isn’t really supposed to be my type of thing. A lot of it is really dance-y. However, the bits that are really goth-rock (“XXXX/Loyalty”) and the bits that are really indie-pop (“Laura Palmer’s Prom”) make up for that. Also, today’s song is such an amazing tribute to early Blondie. I don’t know if it was meant to be that, but it really sounds to me like something that could have been on Blondie’s 1978 album Plastic Letters. Or maybe on some weird collaboration with Deborah Harry singing front for The Attractions. Either way, it sounds a lot like that style of late-70s punk rock. I’ll take that any day of the week.

While this isn’t the sexiest song on the album, I like it a lot.

“Glory” by You Say Party! We Say Die!

I really like how busy and energetic this song is. I’m still imagining it being 1978. At shows, kids would go nuts during this song. A lot of jumping around, a lot of jostling. Remember, in my mind it’s a song from 2010 being played in 1978, and moshing hadn’t become a thing yet. Anyway, I imagine it being a really fun, if not mildly violent event.

One of my favorite bits is at the end of the first verse. The little gasps between “Sex! Drugs! Boy!”. I also like the bit at the end of the second verse. There’s a mini-break, and then smack in the middle of the song at 1:06, “GO!”. I love that bit. The bridge leading to the third verse is really drum-and-organ heavy, with the drums being really rumbly and the organ really bass-y. The rest of the song is focused on the guitars and keys, with entirely different drumming.

In all, I just love how much fun this song is. I could stand for it to be a bit longer, but it sure is fun the way it is.

You can get a physical copy of XXXX from the Paper Bag Records webstore for a very low price, or if you hate physical copies, they also have digital downloads for less than what you would pay at most of the legal downloading places.