I love it when songwriters cover themselves! Yesterday, Vista Blue's new EP, finds Mike, Mark, and Donna tackling seven songs Mike wrote for The Robinsons between 1999 and 2009. As a huge fan of Mike Patton's singing and songwriting, I'm thrilled to hear him revisiting songs that he mostly wrote when he was in his 20s. I sometimes lose my mind when I realize how long ago the 2000s were. The math tells me that even the newest songs on this album would be old enough to drive a car, and the oldest ones would be eligible to run for Congress. At any point that these songs were being written, Donovan McNabb was my favorite football team's quarterback.
It must have been fascinating for Mike to reacquaint himself with songs he wrote when he was young and interpret them from his present-day perspective. Are any of us really the same person we were 20 years ago? So often, we look at the things our younger selves left behind and cringe. But Mike has found at least seven Robinsons songs he liked enough to put back into the universe. And I'm so glad he did. Any Vista Blue fan who's not already a Robinsons fan will be as soon as they hear this EP! You get all the buoyant charm that you've come to expect from Vista Blue but with perhaps a little more of a pure pop-punk style. And it's clear from the jump that Mike's flair for endearingly clever lyrics is not something he only recently acquired. This all makes me very disappointed in myself for not being hip to The Robinsons back in the day. Had I known back in the early 2000s that there was a band in Chalmette, Louisiana channeling The Mr. T. Experience by way of The Blue Album, I would have been all over that!
If you're in the "Why doesn't Mike write more love songs?" contingent, you'll be delighted by "Chalmette Romance," "You're Just a Cover," "The Lucky One," and "If Bill Gates Was My Dad." "I Love You (But the Game Is On)" has me cracking up because it reminds me of my own marriage and all the useless Philadelphia sports knowledge that my wife has had no choice but to absorb as a consequence of living with me (and yes, countless times, I've urged her to hang on because there were only two minutes left in the game). "I Hate Sonic Records" is perhaps the first love song I've ever heard that primarily exists to make fun of an overpriced record store. Mike wrote "Bedtime" before turning 33 as a response to Pulp's "Dishes," making it a perfect transitional song between his twentysomething compositions and the stuff he writes now. Because I so quickly forget that 2004 wasn't five years ago, I always relate to songs about navigating full-fledged adulthood and embracing being uncool. And when it comes to that particular kind of song, "Bedtime" is about as perfect as it gets. If this isn't the single best song in the entire Mike Patton songbook, it's at least in the top five.
I've always found the question of quantity vs. quality to be a false dilemma fallacy. It's absolutely possible to have quantity and quality. Vista Blue is nearing 80 releases at this point, and nothing the band has ever put out has felt sub-par or phoned-in. I shouldn't be surprised that I love a new release from what is probably my favorite band, but I do have to admit that Yesterday has turned out to be far more than what I expected it to be. This is not just a band re-doing a bunch of old songs "just because." Clearly the song selections were carefully considered. These are tunes that need to be heard if this kind of music is your cup of tea. This release works as a personal reflection for Mike, but just as importantly, it's an absolutely brilliant pop-punk EP. If you like these songs and are still unfamiliar with The Robinsons, I would recommend looking into some of the band's titles on Bandcamp like 2001's Cool Down! Got It? and the compilation album Still No Apostrophes. More new stuff from Vista Blue is coming soon!
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