The Singles Jukebox

An anthem!

[Video][Website]
[4.50]

Hannah Jocelyn: Now this is an anthem. They’re playing Terminal 5 in October, but they’re clearly aiming for Madison Square Garden with a song as big as this. After the depressing nature of the Aaron Dessner-produced previous album, this song’s “we can do whatever we want” chorus – which probably no one else could pull off ever – feels earned and stunningly defiant. “Fountain of Youth” has a way of reincarnating cliches throughout; The Simpsons already made fun of the whole “children are our future” thing decades ago, before I was even old enough to get it, but this song rejuvenates that idea, the once-unassuming indie upstarts knowingly passing the torch to a generation not quite as earnest. With that in mind, I’ll even forgive the Mrs. President lines for sounding too pandering because everything else works, basically in spite of itself. It’s the song that “New Americana” wanted to be, but where that misses the mark in defining young people as One Nation Under Biggie And Nirvana, this one attempts to just stand up for the young’uns, a self-appointed Lorax for Millenials (groan) and Generation Z (groan) alike. But as someone on the cusp between those two generations, there are far worse fates than having a song this gorgeously skyscraping speak for me. 
[8]

Alfred Soto: The usual influences — Radiohead, Mumford — with an electronic overlay. This galls me less than its infantilism. Kids are great and I listen to music targeted at adolescents for hours at a time, but I like being older and have no regard for my youth: it happened, it was fun, it’s over. I especially don’t like bands getting pompous about it too.
[3]

A.J. Cohn: Maybe it’s that the anthemic is anathema to me, but on first listen, I reacted to this much as I would to any zeitgeist-y festival-ready indie rock vaguely celebrating youth — allergically. On further consideration, I’ve realized that this song is something subtler and sadder — its chorus not a celebratory chant for bros so much as an ironic lament. The fountain of youth is, of course, fantasy. The dreamed-for world where “We can do whatever we want/We can say whatever we mean” is, unhappily, illusory too.
[5]

Crystal Leww: Local Natives need a damn fountain of youth for this bored, tired sound of 2010 to sound fresh again. Everyone is mad at twenty one pilots for being corny, but the olds of guitar music are busy recycling the same sounds of Pitchfork 2010 and singing ironic platitudes like “I think we better listen to these kids.” 
[2]

Jonathan Bogart: At this point I’m going to have to put my distaste for midtempo anthemic hyperverbal yelpalongs down to generational differences. There’s so much of this stuff that it’s clearly connecting with some audience or other, but I just remember how poorly the earnestness-rock of my own youth has aged, and wonder how prepared all these haircuts are for becoming Counting Crows.
[4]

Thomas Inskeep: The build, and the chorus, here are reasons “anthemic” is a word. More fun than fun., at least. Sounds like a great big Modern Rock hit.
[5]