1. Don't Throw Out My Legos
December 23, 2024
This has to be my overall favorite "Neotheater" song. Right off the bat, it has one of the most well-made introductions to a song I've ever heard from any album. The choice of all the different spliced music snippets, as well as their placements relative to each other, captivated me during my first listen. Even the beats during the verses make me wanna bob my head to it every time. The buildup from the bridge all the way to the end of the song truly captures the train of thought of grappling with the fact that you now have to face the real world alone. At the same time, you desperately cling to the hope that you can still have the ability to come home and return to that safe space of when you were a kid, when not much else mattered other than your homework or playing with action figures.
There were points in my life where I related to this song for different reasons. In late 2022, I related to it because we were in the process of moving to a new house, which absolutely devastated me. I always knew the day would come when we would have to move out, but I was never actually prepared for when it finally came. It was a long time coming, at that point, but the idea still wrecked me. While the line "don't throw out my Legos" is directed towards a parent/parental figure in the song, I directed it towards... the concept of moving, pretty much. God, maybe? All I knew was that I didn't want to lose the life that I built within our old apartment, the home we'd lived in for eleven years at the time. I didn't want to forget how it felt to be here, to have grown up here. The lines "I'll come by when I'm grown / It won't be the same, though / I can't even go home" hit so much harder. During those first few months of moving our stuff to the other house, even before I knew anything about "Neotheater", there were days when I'd just sit in the backseat of my dad's car and stare at our apartment, tearing up at the thought that my days in there were now numbered. And after I listened to the song, I had this mental image of driving by that place and longing to step inside one last time just to remember how it feels, but not being able to. At the time, it was one of the worst feelings in the world.
Fast forward to late 2023, I was dealing with college admissions. The only two options that I was seriously considering were either UP or Western Sydney University. Studying in UP was something that I'd been praying for for months at the time, mainly because of the free tuition and the quality of education. However, my mom saw an ad for an open house day for Western Sydney University, and we decided to go just to see what it was all about. That event made me legitimately consider the idea of studying abroad, and even then, it wouldn't be so bad. If I were to study in Sydney, at least I could live with my brother and his family.
My family encouraged me to take my first semester in UP, whether or not I'd decide to move to Western Sydney University eventually to start another school year there. My parents were supportive and open to the possibility of God's will leading me in that direction, but the mere thought of moving away from them for any extended period of time mortified me. What if something would happen to them, and I couldn't be there to help? What if they get sick or get in an accident? Worse comes to worst, what if something happens to them and I won't be able to say goodbye? And even if nothing were to happen to my mom and dad in the next three years, what if I can never feel the same way about home ever again after being away for so long? My family and friends and the places I love will still be here when I get home, but so much will change between every opportunity I have to go home. I wouldn't get to be there for birthdays or hangouts with my friends or whatever mundane thing that I'd dearly miss.
Fast forward one year later, I'm studying in UP now and have no plans on moving to another university, local or otherwise. Still, it was a rather scary point in time where I related more closely to the original message of the song than ever.
2. Wow, I'm Not Crazy
December 24, 2024
"Wow, I'm Not Crazy" has always been one of my favorites from this album. I've always loved its gang-vocals, jamming-with-friends-at-a-party kind of vibe. AJR doesn't have a lot of these types of songs; "Sober Up" is also one of my favorites for the same reason. However, it earned its place this list only recently. About a month ago, I got back into AJR―not just their music, but them as well. I rewatched some of their Instagram livestreams from the pandemic era, where the three of them would gather in Ryan's bedroom, play their songs, and answer questions from fans. A familiar sense of joy welled up in me because it brought me back to when I watched these livestreams for the first time back in late 2022. But at the same time, a new emotion reared its head: emptiness. Seeing the brothers have fun and goof around made me miss my own siblings all the more, made me long for those kinds of interactions between us.
I remember telling two of my closest friends that I kinda identified with Jack because both of us are the youngest in our trio of siblings, but he and I differ in two major aspects. Firstly, the age gaps between Jack and his brothers are pretty small―Adam is four years older than Ryan, and Ryan is two years older than Jack. My brother is two years older than my sister, and my sister is sixteen years older than me. Pretty steep jump, yeah? When my brother was in third-year high school (which in 2002, mind you; three years before I was born), he moved to Singapore because he was offered a scholarship. He ended up going to college, getting his first job, and meeting his wife there, too. As a result, I grew up with my sister as my only older sibling figure. When I was about ten, she moved out because she'd gotten married, which means that I've pretty much spent almost half my life as an only child. I can probably count on hand the number of times we've all been together in the same room.
Secondly, in Jack's case, at least he and his siblings have more opportunities to meet up and hang out. I think Adam lives not too far away from Ryan and Jack, which is a far cry from how things are with my siblings and I. I still live with my parents, my sister lives about two hours away, and my brother lives in an entirely different country. I'm fortunate that I get to see my sister more often than my brother does, but even now, part of me still can't help but mourn what could've been. In a way, I guess some part of me envied the AJR brothers, because at least they all got to spend a lot more time with each other growing up. Sometimes, I wondered what it would've been like if I didn't have such a huge age gap with my sister. What would it have been like for the three of us? How differently would things turn out?
I never really pondered much on those questions because I knew the answers would only depress me. I was okay with not knowing those answers for sure, but what I *did* know was that, in my heart of hearts, I missed my siblings. I missed hugging them, having fun with them without one of being separated by a screen. Furthermore, I never felt this yearning so strongly up until that point, until I got into college. This was around the time in the semester where I was cramming a lot and rushing things, getting caught up in everything. I felt like, at the end of the day, when I wouldn't be cramming or rushing or making up for lost time, it would just be me. Truthfully, I could've managed my time better, but the feeling still sucked.
Strangely enough, when these thoughts first struck, the first people I told about them weren't my siblings; it was two of my friends. I guess it was because the three of us talk often despite the business of school; these people have essentially become siblings to me. And after I'd vented about all this stuff to them, I had to come with my parents to an event, and as I was getting dressed, I remembered this song. It's so incredibly important to have people in your life that get you, that make you feel like you're not crazy. If I hadn't expressed those feelings to my friends, they'd just be eating away at my brain. But if they weren't there to listen, I would've felt like I was just screaming off into space. I can yap about my problems all day long, but what gives it meaning is that someone out there understands you and knows what you're going through.
3. 100 Bad Days
December 26, 2024
Okay, don't get me wrong: I've always loved this song, but I never really considered it as one of my favorites. Sure, it's a relatable explosive anthem that everyone can sing along to, but if I made this list when I first started out as an AJR fan, this song would probably be replaced by "Finale" or "Turning out pt. ii" (both of which are great songs, don't get me wrong).
They say that when you're happy, you listen to the music, and when you're sad, you listen to the lyrics.
Leave it to college to give me a reason to cling to this song like a lifeline. In mid-November of 2024, we had an exam coming up in one of my major subjects. Our prof for that major was great―super solid guy, super approachable and friendly. I even had him as an internship supervisor when I interned at where I go to college now. However, the curriculum he had to teach was just... not it. There were too many topics being crammed into two one-and-a-half-hour sessions per week, and the topics in question were super heavy in math. The math behind sine waves and crap, stuff like that.
99.99% of the fellow freshmen I'd spoken to were struggling hard with this particular subject. The back to back typhoons that came in late October/early November helped to buy some time, but one way or another, the exam was still going to happen.
Trust me, I tried my best to prepare―we all did. I tried my best to rewrite my own notes from our prof's slides, but the problem was that understanding each lesson probably took four to five hours at most. Between all the other stuff happening in my other subjects and my personal life, I didn't have that kind of time. One guy even came up to my friends and I and gave us a Google Drive link with a reviewer for that unit. (I never got to open it, but shoutout to Miggy for the link, I'm sure you helped some amount of people)
Our exam was scheduled at 6-8 PM that day, so we had the entire morning to prepare. In the afternoon, I remember gathering with my friends in the library and going through the weekly quizzes and trying to understand the lessons as best we could in whatever time we had. One of my friends and I had Math from 2:45 to 3:45. He opted not to go so that he could review more, but I ended up going to class to take a break. That subject was crazy enough that it made calculus more relaxing.
Fast forward a few hours and we all filed into the exam rooms. Almost every freshman in my department was there―a bunch of teenagers crowding the lobby of our building. The air was filled with nerves, excitement, and a bit of resignation―a screw-it-we-ball kind of attitude. In my mind, whatever this exam would throw at me, at least I know I did what I could. I wouldn't say I did my best; if I truly did do my best, I think I would've been at least a bit more confident. Still, like everyone else, I just wanted to get this over with.
As expected, the exam sucked ass. And also as expected, I ended up failing.
I distinctly remember walking out into the lobby and coming up to my friends, the same one's I'd reviewed with a few hours ago. We discussed what answers we decided on, whether or not we got to answer the latter pages of the exam. We were at least happy that the parts that we did study came up. Most of the multiple choice questions were copied directly from the weekly quizzes, but as for the other parts that required actual solving, I wasn't so lucky. I even left an entire page blank because I had no idea how to proceed with the question.
At the end of the day, one thing was certain: we all threw that exam, hard. But one of the most interesting things after the fact was the cocktail of emotions in the air: relief, resignation, grief, a bit of remaining adrenaline.
As my dad drove me home that night, "100 Bad Days" popped into my head. At this point, I'd already gotten back into AJR after nearly two years of not listening to their music. After I took a shower and got ready for bed, I put that song on and just danced my heart out in my bedroom, feeling every single lyric in my bones. One line that hit super hard in that moment was, "We had to work a bit more hard, only just to get a little bit less far / We can laugh about it all tomorrow, couldn't we?" The aftermath of that exam was such a profound experience in retrospect―going through something so hard with your friends, and coming out of it heaving the biggest sigh and even laughing about it afterwards. It's one of the best feelings in the world that can come out from going through one of the worst things in your life at the time. There's this catharsis, this sense of relief and freedom that washes over you in that moment. That even if you absolutely blew it, you can relish in the victory that it's over, and look back on it and laugh no matter how badly it went.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Ryan reiterated the main idea of the song:
We kinda figured out how to twist it into a more unique idea than "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger", you know? Which has been done a bajillion times. We thought, "What's a more realistic relatable way to talk on that concept?", and we came up with this idea of "what doesn't kill you actually makes you a lot more interesting, and it gives you good stories to tell people". And at the end of the day, that's, like, the most fun thing to do.
