"The opening lines of Jack's Mannequin’s debut
album Everything in Transit, Something Corporate singer/pianist Andrew McMahon's
side project, remind us all too well of Andrew's recent struggles with leukemia. Written before his diagnosis, the line turned
out to be eerily prescient of his coming sickness."
So begins the 2005 review on absolutepunk.net for
one of the best albums of the [so-called] naughts. A lot has happened in ten years: Andrew
recovered from lymphoblastic leukemia, recorded two other Jack’s Mannequin
Albums, SoCo's "The Astronaut" was played as a wake-up call on the International
Space Station, a Grammy nomination, got
married, had a baby and never ever stopped touring. I want to write him a letter to say I’m proud
of you. Seems kind of dumb, but I am.

The next song is a topic close
to my heart, and probably yours, "The Mixed Tape." Unlike McMahon, I can't write or perform my
feelings, but like him, with that mixed tape, "It's like I wrote every note
with my own fingers." You made
them. So did I.
Andrew
pulls off a spoken interlude during "I'm Ready" á la Nada Surf on "Popular," and the track brings up important social issues as
well: "I put on the same clothes I wore yesterday. When did society decide that
we had to change and wash a t-shirt after every individual use; if it's not
dirty, I'm gonna wear it." Preach on brother McMahon, I've been wondering that
for years. At the end of the rant he says, "My life has become a boring pop song
and everyone’s singing along." There he's wrong; he's made some the best pop
music in a long time and we should all be singing along. Ten
years after I'm going out on a limb: Everything
in Transit is the new millennium's Pet
Sounds.
Gotta go. I’m going to write that
letter to Andrew. AM8
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