Music / Motion City Soundtrack

Motion City Soundtrack (From left to right: Tony, Jesse, Matt, Justin, Josh)

Motion City Soundtrack is a Minneapolis-based pop-punk band, founded in 1997. The band is comprised of founding members Justin Pierre (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), Joshua Cain (lead guitar, backing vocals), as well as Matthew Taylor (bass guitar, backing vocals), Jesse Johnson (synthesizer, keyboard, headbanging), and Claudio Rivera (drums). They have released six albums: I Am the Movie (2002), Commit This to Memory (2005), Even if It Kills Me (2007), and My Dinosaur Life (2010), and Go (2012). Their sixth album, Panic Stations, was released in September of 2015. MCS combines rock music and Moog synthesizers, making for a unique sound. Their songs are also notable for their quirky (and sometimes pottymouthed) lyrics. Word of God says that the band can be categorized as Scrabble-rock, because of Pierre's love for big words. The group temporarily disbanded in 2016 to spend more time with their families and less time on the road, but announced their reunion in 2019, with a new album slated for January 2020.

Influences

Weezer

The Weakerthans

Green Day

Descendents

The Cure

They Might Be Giants

Alkaline Trio

The Rentals

These examples freak you out:

• Book Ends: Used hauntingly in "Happy Anniversary". ("I can feel it in my bones tonight...")
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Justin, for a long time. From the conception of the band until about 2007, Justin was a massive alcoholic and engaged in behaviors that we very destructive to both himself and the band. Nonetheless, it was tolerated because of his talent as a singer and songwriter. He has since cleaned up his act, though.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Justin isn't weird, he's just, uh, quirky.
  • The love interest of "The Future Freaks Me Out"
  And she says hey!
  I rock the Haro sport, I rock the cowgirl blues
  I rock too fast for love I'm footloose in my velcro shoes
  What's up with Will & Grace? I don't get drum and bass
  The future freaks me out
  • Justin shows a flash of this in "It Had to Be You" when he starts singing borderline nonsense in the middle of a Break-Up Song
  Let's get wrecked on Pop-Tarts and sex and see the Taj Mahal
  Let's save birds from Prince William Sound and skateboard through the mall
  Let's fight crime with mangos and lime and join the PGA
  Let's win big with every spin but hurry I can't wait
  Do you spend a fortune on those late night prepaid television scams
  In search of the perfect blender, steak knife, and non-stick frying pan?
• Cluster F-Bomb: Several songs, but most prominently "@!#?@!".
  • "@!#?@!" is also an interesting case of Lampshade Hanging—he's actually telling off a group of jerks for being foul-mouthed.
  You all need to go away
  you motherfuckers!
  You all need to leave me and my sensitive homeboys alone
• It's Not You, It's Me: The Conversation
• Lampshade Hanging
  • As mentioned above, "@!#?@!."
  • As well as "LG FUAD" for using a line from another song:
  I want to thank you for being a part of my
  "forget-me-nots and marigolds and other things that don't get old"
  Is it legal to do this?
  I surely don't know
  It's the only way I have learned to express myself
  Through other people's descriptions of life
• Long-Runner Line-up: They've had the same line-up since 2002.
  • Until 2013 when drummer Tony Thaxton left.
• Love Nostalgia Song: A few, including "Last Night" and "Fell in Love Without You."
  • In "Fell in Love Without You"
  Last night I fell in love without you
  I waved good-bye to that heart of mine beating solo on your lawn
  Every aching wound will cauterize and bruise
  In memory of what we used to call in love
  And only time will tell if violins will swell
  In memory of what we used to call in love
  We used to call it love
  • "It Had to Be You" can be taken as this
  It felt like a dream
  A beautiful scream
  That echoed forever and made us not afraid to feel a thing
  And after it ends
  We'll try to be friends
  We'll try to be friends
  They say that what doesn't kill us makes us who we are
• Make-Out Kids: The Trope Namer, with their song "Make Out Kids" on Commit This to Memory, though the couple in the song isn't really an example.
• Messy Hair: Justin Pierre's.
• One-Woman Song: Antonia.
• Punny Name: The band's name could possibly be a play on the term "original motion picture soundtrack".
• Science Fair: The video for "Her Words Destroyed My Planet".
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness
  • An example in "This is For Real"
  For a physical challenge I'm notoriously bored
  Intravenous delivery, electrolytes and more
  • "L.G. FUAD"
  I wanna know what it's like to be awkward and innocent, not belligerent
  I wanna know how it feels to be useful and pertinent and have common sense, yeah
  • "Hold Me Down"
  You're the leaky sink of sentiment, you're the failed attempts I never could forget
  You're the metaphors I can't create to comprehend this curse that I call love
  • "Fell in Love Without You"
  Every aching wound will cauterize and bruise

• The Oner: The videos for A Lifeless Ordinary and True Romance. Done with a twist in True Romance, as it's actually two oners spliced together, both filmed backwards.

• Shout-Out: Fairly often, especially on theIr fourth album, My Dinosaur Life

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