Music / Mayday Parade

Mayday Parade is a band from Tallahassee, Florida that formed in 2005 when members of two popular local bands Kid Named Chicago and Defining Moment converged together. Pretty much all of their music involves girls and fall into the genres of Alternative Rock, Indie Rock, Pop-punk, Pop-Rock, and Emo. They've has gained a surprising amount of popularity among the scene while still being received fairly well for their genres, especially from their debut album.

Members

• Derek Sanders: Lead Vocals, Keyboards, Lyrics
  Wrote lyrics for: the Album: Anywhere But Here, Songs: Champagne's For Celebrating, You Be the Anchor..., So Far Away, The Memory, Amber Lynn, Terrible things
• Jason Lancaster: Co-Lead Vocals, Rhythm Guitar, Lyrics
  Note: Jason Lancaster left after the release of their debut album A Lesson in Romantics.
• Jake Brundrick: Drums, Backing Vocals
  Wrote lyrics for: 3 Cheers for 5 Years
• Alex Garcia: Lead Guitar
• Brooks Betts: Rhythm Guitar
• Jeremy Lenzo: Bass Guitar, Backing Vocals

Discography

• Tales Told By Dead Friends: (EP) (2006)
• A Lesson In Romantics: (LP) (2007)
• Anywhere But Here: (LP) (2009)
• Valdosta: (EP) (2011)
• Mayday Parade: (LP) (2011)
• Monsters in the Closet (LP) (2013)
• Black Lines (LP) (2015)
• Sunnyland (LP) (2018)
• Out of Here (EP) (2020)
• What It Means To Fall Apart (LP) (2021)

Tropes featured in Mayday Parade

• Break-Up Song: "When I Get Home, You're So Dead", completely.
• Cover Version: They covered In My Head by Jason Derulo, When I Grow Up by The Pussycat Dolls, and Somebody That I Used to Know by Gotye for different volumes of Punk Goes Pop.
• Downer Ending: Their albums pretty much run on these since all but a few of their songs are about collapsing (or already collapsed) relationships with their girlfriends.
• Drunken Song: Not actually what "One Man Drinking Games" is about.
• Dual-Meaning Chorus: Arguably used in a few of their songs.
  • Their song "Anywhere But Here" refers to someone having another girlfriend to keep his mind of his real girlfriend, but a few have also taken the song to refer to a drug of some sort.
  Derek: Secret love, my escape, take me far, far away. Secret love are you there? Will you answer my prayer?
• Genre Savvy: Their songs "Last Something That Meant Anything" and "If You Can't Live Without Me, Why Aren't You Dead Yet?" have lyrics involving the writing of songs. Also, "If You Wanted a Song Written About You, All You Had to Do Was Ask" references performing songs.
• Grief Song: Several. "Miserable At Best" is the most well known - others include "Black Cat", "Walk on Water or Drown", "Everything's an Illusion", "One Man Drinking Games", and "Is Nowhere", among others.
• Loudness War: Many of their songs are fairly quiet with dynamic peaks. The best example is "One Man Drinking Games" which starts slow and gets much louder at the end.
  • The intro to ''If You Can't Live Without Me, Why Aren't You Dead Yet?" is especially loud.
• Music Stories: They have a lot of these.
• Non-Appearing Title: The vast majority of their songs have Non Appearing titles. It's easier to list the exceptions: "Your Song", "Jersey", "Miserable at Best", "Kids in Love", "Anywhere But Here", "The Silence", "Still Breathing", "Bruised and Scarred", "Save Your Heart", "Get Up", "I Swear This Time I Mean It", "Amber Lynn", "Terrible Things", "Oh Well, Oh Well", "When You See My Friends", "Priceless" and "Stay" are their only songs where the title appears in the lyrics at all. It may be worth noting that most of these- from "Kids in Love" to "I Swear This Time I Mean It" is from the album "Anywhere but Here".
• Precision F-Strike: The band is known for having pretty much no profanity in their music aside from one (very clear) instance in their song "When I Get Home You're So Dead".
  Jason: I hope he's leavin' you empty baby, this is just a fix.
  Derek and Jason: For such a simple little whore.
  • Another instance of this shows up in "It's Hard To Be Religious When Certain People Are Never Incinerated By Bolts of Lightning".
  But we know, yeah, everyone knows what a selfish prick you've become
• Re-release the Song: Jamie All Over and When I Get Home You're So Dead.
  • From Valdosta, the songs Jamie All Over (again), Your Song, Kids In Love, and Bruised and Scarred.
• The Runaway: Their song Ocean and Atlantic's chorus.
  Derek: She said she'll run, until her feet don't touch the ground. And as the waves carry me out, I'll keep listening, she'll never make a sound.
• Self-Titled Album: Their third album.
• Shout-Out: The Silence is a big shout-out to The Twilight Saga.
• "Somewhere" Song: Arguably Ocean and Atlantic and So Far Away
• Soprano and Gravel: Their first two albums pretty much run on Mayday's dual-vocals
  • Soprano: Derek, definitely. Despite that Jason can reach higher notes than him.
  • Gravel: Undeniably Jason. Until he left, that is.
• Stop and Go: Played straight in a few of their old songs.
• This Is Your Song: Your Song
• Three Chords and the Truth
• Title-Only Chorus: Stay
• Vocal Tag Team: Prior to Jason's departure, he and Derek were co-lead singers. Nowadays, Jake or Jeremy usually fill in for him on the older songs, and Jake sings harmonies on a few of the newer songs as well.

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