Some music changes you. It changes the way you listen, it changes your expectations. Modest Mouse definitely changed the way I listen. As a sophomore in high school, and when that massive, epic event took place in my mind, it sent me careening off on an entirely new trajectory, one I never expected to sail. Good News for People Who Love Bad News was that catalyst album, and it is an album that has gone on the rollercoaster ride of esteem in my library. To an extent, it has more or less lived my musical journey alongside me, which sounds absurd, but feels truer every day. Whatever you might think about Good News, whatever I might think about it, it is a huge chunk of the reason that I am writing this – and you’re reading this – right now.

Let’s back up a little. I was raised primarily on soft Christian pop rock, and that genre essentially defined my childhood. I grew to absolutely hate it. Thanks to an increased access to the internet and Pandora Radio at the beginning of my teen years, I set sail to listen to literally anything else. I first encountered top-40 pop music and, quickly growing bored, moved on to indie rock. Every once in a while, I heard a Modest Mouse song, quickly forgetting about it later. Later on, however, the song “Dashboard”, off the record We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, caught my ears and quickly became a regular headphone jam. It was strange, it was different, it was wholly apart from anything I had ever heard before. Isaac Brock’s voice was perfectly horrible, and the instrumentation packed sufficient quirk for the song to endlessly maintain my interest. Later on, challenged by a friend to listen to an album all the way through, I decided to listen to their best-selling record, Good News for People Who Love Bad News, and that’s when the explosion occurred. I loved every song to death, and I loved the way the album worked as a whole. I loved the sound of the guitars and Brock’s growling vocals, and the ways that some songs would blend into each other. I had never thought about music in this way, and I became obsessed with “albums” as a thing. I later listened to Modest Mouse’s other records, like The Moon and Antarctica, and The Lonesome Crowded West, and frequently counted their songs as among my favorites. And on top of it all, holding the number-one spot, was none other than Good News.

There were so many things I enjoyed about this record. For most die-hard Modest Mouse fans (including now myself), Good News represented a shift in the band’s direction – moving away from the brash, absurdist experimentation in music and lyrics, and toward something that sounded a little bit more radio-friendly, with catchy singles and ordinary song structure. Good News is still weird, but not as weird as it could have been, and some people criticize it for that. To sophomore James Joseph, accustomed to radio-singles and soft rock, each individual creative decision made in Good News was a glorious act of transgression, pure joy. I loved Modest Mouse because Isaac Brock sounded like he coughed up blood with every verse, the guitars were plucked in very dissonant ways, and the lyrics were about dark, depressing things such as death. Listen to the way that “The World at Large” blended perfectly into “Float On”, which in turn beats right into “The Ocean Breathes Salty”. That’s the sound of joy in a young, angsty heart. Other, slower jams like “Blame it on the Tetons” and “One Chance” were perfect to relax to on a Saturday afternoon. Back then, half the wonder from Good News came from its sheer novelty. It was the perfect record for its time – as much a blessing as a curse.

My musical journey, having begun, continued with amazing, blistering pace, and I explored music from all genres and decades, finding new favorites almost each week. Months, and then years passed. Good News still held that number one spot on that list, but I listened to Modest Mouse less and less, and that list began to matter less and less as my love of music began to eclipse my desire to keep track of my favorites. One day, the thought of Good News came to my mind, and I opted for a little nostalgia…but left feeling strangely empty. The novelty had worn off. How had I ever thought this to be better than The Moon and Antarctica, or The Lonesome Crowded West? Those were way better! I thought to myself. I preferred the earlier sound of Brock’s high-pitched yelps, and the lyrics? The Moon and Antarctica, an absurdist, long-winded meditation on death and afterlife, compared to…what is “Dancehall” even supposed to be about, anyways? It all seemed to be grade-school nihilism. And the instrumentation, the gentle plodding of percussion and quirky, meandering guitar work on the earlier records was miles better than the crash of distortion in Good News. It was a sell-out! It was the end of an era for Modest Mouse, and it was thoroughly disappointing. This realization came at a period in my life when, to be frank, I thought that I was better than other people because my taste in music was more avant-garde. I had no patience or respect for popular music, nor for people who enjoyed it. (My high-school friends still give me appropriate and deserved flack for this attitude, much to my mortification.) And, somewhat disheartened, I put away Good News and did not listen to it again for a long time.

But life is long, and time does strange and then stranger things. As my musical interests continued, they shifted again back towards the popular end of things. After a while, artsy, avant-garde music grows exhausting and frustrating, and I began to see the wonderful value in a well-made pop-song. I recently picked up Good News and gave it another spin. That original spark, the spark of youthful enthusiasm and novelty will never return to this record, but Good News has definite value beyond that. After all, who doesn’t love “Float On”? It’s a killer track, and so are several others. While it may represent an affection for popular trends that would never go away in Modest Mouse’s discography, and may not be a Moon and Antarctica, it’s a strange, unique, wonderful beast all on its own, and I’m still a fan after all is said and done.