Young Culture’s You Had to Be There was quite possibly one of our most anticipated albums of this year and it did not disappoint. We’ve been jamming out to the singles for a while (remember all our emo cowboy jokes?) and You Had to Be There 100% lived up to the expectations the singles gave us.
We didn’t think it could get any better than ‘Good Karma’ or ‘Tattoo’ but we were delighted to find that the album is full of bangers. Seriously, not a skip to be found. You can really see how far Young Culture has progressed throughout their musical career and it seems like they just keep getting better and better with every release. At least, you’ll see it if you listen to the new album, which you absolutely should. You can do that here, by the way, go stream immediately. In the meantime, let’s talk about some of our favorite tracks off You Had to Be There. Do we want to just list the entire tracklist? Perhaps. We won’t, but we could. As we said, it’s a no-skip album and gives us the best of the band we know and love.
‘Not In Love’
Young Culture made the right decision in choosing ‘Not In Love’ as the album opener tbh. We’ve only had this song for 2 days but it’s already skyrocketed its way to the top of on-repeat lists. The only thing that could take it down is another YH2BT track, but we’ll get to that later. If there’s one thing Young Culture knows how to do, it’s create songs with hooks that you just can’t get out of your head, and ‘Not In Love’ is one of those songs. There’s something about the way the vocals and the chorus hit you that will be stuck in your head for ages and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
‘Whiskey’
Are we aware that we’ve gushed over this song before? Yes. And you know what, we’re going to do it again because that’s how good this song is. If we’re talking about catchy hooks, this song is one of the best examples of that. ‘Whiskey’ was the final single to drop before You Had to Be There’s release and it really set the stage for us and took our excitement levels to the moon. Oh, and speaking from experience, we can confidently say that this song is so much fun to hear live.
‘We’re on Fire’
Okay yeah, so, you know that other track we mentioned that might knock ‘Not In Love’ off the top of our list? Meet ‘We’re on Fire.’ We’re kind of obsessed with the production of this song. Oh and these lines:
I’ll take that shirt off you babe
You threw mine into space
Guess you and I should rock it
We know it says “rock it” and not rocket, but following the mention of space from the last line, we like to imagine it as clever wordplay.
‘Silver Lining (Put It On Me)’
We love the sentiment of this song and how anthemic it is. Tbh, almost every YH2BT track is anthemic, the type of tracks you just can’t help but sing along to at the top of your lungs. We would love to hear ‘Silver Lining (Put It On Me)’ live because we feel like it would be so therapeutic to sing along to.
All in all, we just have to say how proud we are of Young Culture for You Had to Be There. The heart and soul of this band lives in this album and we’re proud to say that we have been here to see how far they’ve come. And seeing the YC fam’s reaction to this album makes it even more heartwarming. It really shows how connected the band is to their fan base and how much the fans love Young Culture. Seriously, they are the nicest people and we cannot hype these guys up enough. We can only hope that we’ve convinced you to check them out. And if you want, you can catch them on tour with State Champs right now, find out more here!
Let us know all your thoughts on You Had to Be There and your fave tracks (if you’ve managed to pick already) in the comments below or find us on our socials. We’re always buzzing about something on Twitter.
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