The South PacificBoard

Geriatric League

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Studio album by The Geriatric League

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Released 7 August 2020

Recorded 2020

Studio LC Studios, Rothera, Volaworand
ANRC, Libra, Auphelia

Genre Pop - dancepop

Length 46:23

Languge English, French

Label LC Records

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Alternative Cover

Warzone Australia Version

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Singles from Geriatric League

1. “Get Off My Lawn!”
Released: 5 June 2020

2. “Pudding”
Released: 3 July 2020

3. “Tied Up”
Release Date: 8 August 2020

4. “Back In My Day”
Release Date: 10 September 2020

Geriatric League (album)
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Geriatric League is the debut studio album by TSP government/musical group the Geriatric League. It was released on 7 August 2020 by LC Records. The album was recorded during 2020 at LC Studios in Rothera, Volaworand, and the Auphelian National Recording Centre in Libra, Auphelia, by producers Lacey Underwhere and Carol Aychar. Geriatric League is a pop album that incorporates styles such as dance, opera, musical theatre, and hip hop. It is considered to be the record that brought government sponsored music back, opening the doors for a wave of other groups and inspiring Aumeltopia’s second album, Biscuit Brigade, to come out that same year. Conceptually, the album centered on the idea of older players taking over a traditionally youth-oriented facet of TSP and was compared favourably to the music of the Auphie-Aumy-Voly LC a year prior.

A worldwide commercial success, Geriatric League peaked at number one in more than 17 regions and dozens of nations across the world, and was certified Multi-Coconut in 78 nations, Lampshade in 32 countries and Palm in 61 countries, including 10-times Coconut in Volaworand and Fihami , eight-times Coconut in the South Pacific, and seven-times Coconut in Erinor. It became NS’s top-selling album of 2020, selling 134.8 billion copies in its first week of sales, becoming the best-selling album in music history by a government group and one of the best-selling albums of all time.

Two singles were released from the album ahead of its release. The lead single, "Get Off My Lawn!", reached number one in 234 countries, becoming one of the best-selling singles of all time and selling over 80 billion copies worldwide. The next single, "Pudding”, released number one in 157 countries. "Tied Up" was released a day after the official album due to distribution problems, but debuted on the top 20 in charts across Europe, Gay and Lazarus, charting number one in the North Pacific. In the band's native the South Pacific, all three singles went to number one on the TSP Singles Chart and, on the Llama Hot 100, the album spawned seven top-ten singles. Due to its unexpected popularity on radio stations and on social media, inspiring the Back in My Day Challenge going viral on several social media platforms, “Back in My Day” is slated to be released as a single in September of 2020.

Background

In Spring 2019, Auphelia and Volaworand worked together on the Local Council and helped write several songs and perform vocals on Aumeltopia’s first album, Biscuit Dreams. They found their styles worked well together and also released several moderately successful singles in that time, including “Double Post Delight”, which charted at its height #2 on the Llama Hot 100, becoming the sleeper hit of the summer, though it failed to make traction in other regions, at its best only reaching #36 on TNP’s Star Charts.

The Auphelia-Volaworand partnership broke up on good terms later in 2019, and they stopped recording music at that time. In March 2020, Auphelia began to work on a new album, with her girl group, Maybe Not, featuring her, Not auphelia, and Maybe auphelia. Needing to find a recording studio, they started to meet with producers, musicians and other business executives, among which were composer Carol Aychar and writer Lacey Underwhere, who introduced Auphelia to Drystar as a potential studio executive to contact. Maybe Not would put their album on hiatus in April and take a break as a group later that year, but Drystar would continue working with Auphelia on a potential new solo album. Together they composed a song called "Porch Pirates", which served as the inspiration behind the song "Get Off My Lawn!”. Eventually Volaworand became involved in the production of the Auphelian album, and together the three decided to form a group known as The Geriatric League, based on their advanced ages relative to the usual NS user age.

Recording and production

The group began their album by re-recording and rewriting songs that had been written for the solo Auphelia album and remixing some of the Auphelia-Volaworand singles from 2019, including “Candy from a Baby”. In the following months the group continued to meet with producers, wrote new songs, prepared demos and searched for a new manager. They met again with Aychar and Underwhere, who would help the group arrange several new songs for the album

In the first session with Aychar and Underwhere, they wrote "Feel Your Love", a slow, soulful song which was eventually recorded and mastered for the album, but not released because it was considered too similar to the Curlyhoward song of the same name. Similarly, "We Are Not Kidding", a song initially meant for the album, was never released supposedly due to the initials of the song's title spelling the word "wank" which is considered by many to be vulgar. Having completed that session, the group wanted to write something more uptempo, so they started to write the song that would be the ninth track of the album, "Pudding", which was recorded in under an hour—mainly because they had already written parts of the songs beforehand, using lyrics from an unreleased song Volaworand has written for Biscuit Dreams. The next song they recorded was a slow ballad and the third track, "Nurse Skirts". The song was inspired by Drystar’s infatuation with a red headed nurse he had met after his gall bladder was removed in 2017. "Our Old Lady of Funk" was written by the Geriatric League. In an interview about the writing process in the group, Volaworand credits Auphelia as the one who came up with the song's concept. During the writing process, each member wrote a small verse about themselves and a musical style they didn’t often use.

In May 2020 the group signed a deal with LC Records, and continued to write and record tracks for their debut album while touring TSP.

In June 2020, the album was announced with the release of the lead single, “Get Off My Lawn!”, which was ready for release ahead of most of the rest of the album.

In July 2020, to increase publicity for their new album, The Geriatric League collaborated with indie-rock sensation Land Without Shrimp on an independent single, “Cocktails”, officially credited to the group and featuring LWS.

The Geriatric League were fully involved in the writing of all the songs, and are credited as a group rather than individuals on the album, a revolutionary concept in most Feeder musical circles.

Composition

Lyrical Content

"Get Off My Lawn!" is the most emblematic song of the group’s philosophy and theme of age-related mischief. It highlights the slogans the group tend to cite like the respect for elders and draws connections between younger nations and hooliganism. The second single "Eternity" described the things the group had been through in life and NS and how they had survived more than the “haterz gonna throw at us, yo”. It received mixed reviews; some critics praised it as a catchy song, while others dubbed it as merely anti-youth sentiment. The third single "Nurse Skirts" focused upon the transience of love and fleeting nature of feelings. Critics praised the well executed concept, though some publications questioned the heavy use of Drystar’s leading vocals in the song, his deeper bass “not fitting the soaring feeling of this masterwork”.

"Fleeting Love" is the fourth track, sung almost entirely by Auphelia; it focuses on relationships and how after many disappointments, Auphelia gave up on men entirely. TSP Exposé Daily praised the song’s feminist lyrics and drew connections between it and the album’s eight track, “Lost in Time”. Critics praised its city pop style, popularised in Japan in the late 1970’s, as a classic throwback with lyrics that encapsulated the feeling of the era. The fifth track, “Cane-Cane”, is an upbeat song in the style of the can-can, heavily referencing lost physical ability with age and remembering the limber vitality of youth. The sixth track, "Our Lady of Funk", received generally positive reviews, with some finding it “infectiously groovy”, though some found the lyrics to be too repetitive and simple to match the dense lyrical complexity found in some of the album’s songs.

The seventh track, "Mourning Wood", is about life in the rural world, with critics complimenting the “raw honesty” with which the joys of life in isolation could bring, with many singling out a “magical combination of the deep timbre of Drystar’s rumbling growl and the ethereal beauty of Auphelia’s vocal performance”. The inspiration for this song came from Drystar’s own experiences. "Lost in Time", the eighth track of the album, is ostensibly about partying, but many critics noted several allusions in Volaworand and Auphelia’s lyrics to homosexuality, with some positing it is a semi-autobiographical account of their own lives. The song was well received by critics, who thought that the song was one of the group's "strongest and underrated songs" and that it "still feels relevant today". The ninth track, "Pudding" deals with vulnerability and the fear of becoming dependent on others in old age. It received glowing reviews from critics, The Souther Journal describing it as "soulful and tragic, while remaining hopeful”. The tenth track of the album, "Back in My Day", deals with preconceived ideas about people and how sometimes they are totally different from what they appear, and is generally regarded as the most youth-friendly track, with many critics citing it as a breath of fresh air in an album characterised by remembering the past. The eleventh and final track, “Tied Up”, features a calypso beat and speaks to the group’s willingness to try new things and not stay in a rut after all of these years.

Styles and themes

Geriatric League is a pop album with a diverse inclusion of musical styles such as dance, R&B, hip hop, soul, opera, new wave, and funk, which lead some reviewers to call it a pop collection. The lead single, "Get Off My Lawn!" is an uptempo pop song with elements of hip–hop, rap and dance music. Two of the three ballads of the album, "Nurse Skirts" and "Mourning Wood" feature Drystar and heavy piano backing.

"Lost in Time" is influenced by early-1990s Europop, and incorporates a disco-style beat that resembles the music of the late 1970s, similar to “Fleeting Love”’s 1970’s city pop influences. "Our Lady of Funk", another heavily dance–oriented song, and features a rap section performed by Auphelia in French.

While the album is marketed as marketed as a takedown of youth culture, several concepts of the album centred on other themes, embodying a feminist and pro-LGBT message, with Volaworand citing Madonna as a major influence in the group’s writing process.

Singles

Released as the group's debut single in June 2020, "Get Off My Lawn!" currently tops the TSP Singles Chart for the eighth week and received a Coconut certification by the Llama Music Association (LLAMA) just from preorder figures. In later in June 2020, it was released in other regions, topping the Star Charts in TNP for five weeks. By the release of the main album, "Get Off My Lawn!" had topped the charts in 234 nations and 11 regions, reaching the top five in an additional 17 regions. It became the best selling song released in June by a TSP artist since the 2012 single by Alice Parker, “A Thief in the Night”.

"Pudding" was released as the album's second single in early July 2020. It became the group's second number-one single in TSP, dethroning “Get Off My Lawn!” During its debut week, it was certified Coconut by the LLAMA. It was a commercial success across four Pacifics, reaching the top 10 in most of the charts that it entered. As a result of its popularity, the song was released as the opening track in Warzone Australia with an alternate album cover, receiving a Koala certification by the Warzone Australian Recording Industry Organisation (WARIO) and receiving a smashing reception in the Rejected Realms and Balder, entering the top five in both.

"Tied Up", released as the group's third single a day after the album’s initial release due to distribution issues caused by the recent of raid of South Pacific, though a limited release was authorised for late July, two weeks after its initially scheduled release date. It was generally well received by music critics for its experimental style and was a commercial success. It has currently peaked at #5 on the TSP Singles Chart. The song was released in the North Pacific a day before the South Pacific, peaking at #2 on the TNP Star Charts, and receiving a Gold Star certification by the Recording Union of Northern Tracks (RUNT). It performed similarly in other regions, peaking inside the top 10 on the majority of the charts that it entered.

"Back in My Day" was released as a part of the album as the tenth track, not initially to be released as a single. However, it’s unexpected popularity in several regions has led to it being slated for a physical release in early September 2020 and available for digital download in mid-August 2020. It became the most played song ever in a day on Forest radio in the week following the release, being played a total of 83 times on 12 August 2020.

Critical reception

Volaworand in promotional shoot

The album received nearly universal positive reviews from pop music critics. TSJ‘s reviewer called the album "immaculately crafted pop" that is "infectious" and "irresistible", adding that "Volaworand and Drystar don’t have great voices, but they do exude personality and charisma". Erinor from the same paper called the Geriatric League "elders with attitude" and described the content of the album as "fascinating", cautioning that "the members may not be ideal role models". The Stalker from Hell’s Bells called the album a "devilishly good pop collection", and said that the song "Lost in Time" is "perky yet tough, catchy yet melodically surprising".

Forest’s Turbeaux called the album "a wickedly good time" and that it was "one of the most fun and exciting pop releases of the year". Agalaesia from SPINN called the group "another basic music group" that "offer a watered-down mix of hip-hop and cheesy pop balladry" and notes "the members don't get bogged down by anything deeper than mugging for promo shots and giving out campaign promises".

Auphelia’s vocal performance was especially noted by critics, with The Salaxalans of The Spiritus Spud saying: “the songs are nearly all instant classics, but Auphelia is what makes this album legendary”. The East Pacific News Service noted that small bands performing a wide assortment of musical styles usually relied upon heavy instrumental portions to lean on, but that “Auphelia and the boys are up to the task of leading every song”.

Track Listing