Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night is a synth-pop, indie pop, and slow rock album with elements of pop rock, rock n roll, alternative rock, arena rock, alt-pop, folk, baroque pop, rockabilly, and psychedelic music. The album was conceived after a breakup in 2017 and completed during the COVID-19 pandemic. It sees Antonoff expand Bleachers’ musical horizons beyond the sounds of the 1980s, with a sound compared to artists like Bruce Springsteen, the Beatles, Arcade Fire, Sufjan Stevens, Vampire Weekend, the Chicks, Dirty Beaches, and Destroyer.
Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night seems like the most complete Bleachers album so far. Whereas others have seemed to jump around between different traces and traumas, this album seems to tie together Antonoff’s tendency towards the vulnerable in an effort to consider those aspects of family, life and society that he may have overlooked in the past. This is something he discusses on
The New Yorker Radio Hour.
Marginalia
All-star supporting cast aside, Saturday Night is unmistakably a Jack Antonoff joint, from that blunt baritone bellow to those Reagan-era stylistic fixations to the lyrics’ big-hearted optimism in the face of struggle. But it also exists in conversation with a current pop landscape marked by stylish minimalism and bedroom-pop intimacy
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On his own album, the tension between the current bleary, miniaturized trends and his stadium-sized tendencies makes for a strange and fascinating listen.
The pandemic had a massive effect on the music. Not because it was necessarily written about the time period, but because you write, record and produce differently based on the pace of your life, based on what’s going on in the world.
