The Hold Steady

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Essential Albums

  • Boys and Girls in America (Deluxe Anniversary Edition)
    Boys and Girls in America (Deluxe Anniversary Edition)

    The Hold Steady’s third studio effort, 2006’s Boys and Girls in America, builds upon the stories lead singer Craig Finn had begun telling on albums like Separation Sunday and Almost Killed Me. These were vivid, interconnected narratives that, by the time Boys and Girls in America arrived, were together forming something akin to a cinematic universe. Yet, for all of Finn’s lyrical smarts, the songs on Boys and Girls in America were also pure, simple, and beautiful—and a ton of fun. The entire record almost feels like a driven, powerful live show, one where you barely stop dancing. And while it’s easy to make comparisons between The Hold Steady and the Boss, Boys and Girls in America features a large, arena-ready rock sound best described as Springsteen-esque—full of detailed stories about everything from mystic racetrack gamblers to aging scenesters. It’s a coming-of-age album from a band whose members were growing more comfortable with their own musical maturity. Boys and Girls in America marked a moment of pure evolution for The Hold Steady—one in which the group went from playing songs about a scene, to becoming a scene. The album played a crucial role in elevating the band’s profile, earning universal critical acclaim, along with a larger and ever-growing fan base, and eventually leading The Hold Steady to be named Blender magazine’s 2006 Band of the Year.

  • Separation Sunday
    Separation Sunday

    After The Hold Steady’s energizing 2004 debut—the short-story-collection-as-rock-record Almost Killed Me—the group returned in 2005 with Separation Sunday, an album that plays as a cohesive, somewhat experimental novel. Propelled by a borderline biblical narrative, Separation Sunday dives deep into the lives of lead singer Craig Finn’s recurring characters—including Holly (short for Hallelujah), Charlemagne, and Gideon—as they get into adventures (and trouble) in places like Denver, Chicago, the Twin Cities, and Ybor City. Filled with ripping rock ’n’ roll alongside Catholic imagery, resurrections, and an oftentimes drug-fueled scene, Separation Sunday is an original, artful record. Finn’s lyrics combine intensely specific references—he sings about actual streets, neighborhoods, and bands—with completely unreliable narration. He was telling an ongoing fictional story that felt very much encapsulated within reality, building a years-long lore that Hold Steady fans would still be debating and discussing years later. And on Separation Sunday, the band is doing some boundary-bending work of its own, pulling together punk rock, classic rock, bar rock, and mid-2000s indie rock to create a dynamic sound, with keyboardist and multi-instrumentalist Franz Nicolay joining in as a full-time member. The result is a raw, energetic collection of modern-day hymns, one that found The Hold Steady finding critical acclaim—and landing the group on the cover of The Village Voice, the first rock act to do so in 15 years.

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About The Hold Steady

A band who upheld the values and integrity of indie and punk rock, the Hold Steady were not afraid to embrace rock classicism, fusing the bar band vigor of the Replacements with the epic-scale musical backdrops of Bruce Springsteen while vocalist Craig Finn spilled out stories that were as impassioned as they were unpretentiously literate. Though they never had a massive hit, they attracted a fervently dedicated following who embraced the beery, anthemic style of their debut album, 2004's Almost Killed Me. They refined their music and lyrical stance while increasing their guitar presence on 2014's ambitious Teeth Dreams and they explored an alienated culture with a near-operatic sweep on 2021's Open Door Policy and 2023's The Price of Progress.

ORIGIN
Brooklyn, New York, NY, United States
FORMED
2003
GENRE
Alternative

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