Blackpool Lights: This Town’s Disaster

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You think I’d eventually run out of The Get Up Kids spin-off bands, but I’m an industrious fellow. This one, Blackoool Lights, is the product of The Get Up Kids guitarist, Jim Suptic, and some other dudes from other bands I’ve never heard of. Granted, you listen to This Town’s Disaster and you’re like, “Hey, Paul Westerberg’s voice has gotten way better!” But, alas, this isn’t a late-career Replacements resurgence or even a solo Westerberg joint, but a poppy vaguely Americana version of the band Suptic clearly wanted things to be. A good example, but one that just kind of hums along. 

So, what did this band want to be? And, look, that was probably a question on a lot of rock bands’ minds back in 2006 when this came out. Which, if you’re keeping track, was exactly 20 years ago. That’s kind of insane. But, point is that things were dicey in the rock community back then. Probably a statement that could be made about a lot of mainstream rock music from the end of the very short grunge era on. Were you going to be My Chemical Romance or The Killers? Were you going to be an arena rock band dressed in all-black or in rhinestones and $600 vintage jeans? Seems this band was like, to hell with it, we’re going to make traditional heartland pop rock music. 

The issue is that with this comes the inane radio lyrics. Not the complicated jumble of SAT words of your favorite 90s indie rock band. Nor the esoteric poetry of your other favorite indie band. Nope, the take here is to speak in trite life lessons. Do this! Do that! And this is what’s gonna happen! The rhyming dictionary — 4th grade version — gets a real workout. And this is what separates this from their obvious reaches in their Replacements and Goo Goo Dolls reaching. I’m not saying they’re The Rembrandts or something (despite it maybe sounding that way), but the paint-by-numbers fortune cookie stuff isn’t going to cut it when the people are looking for something different. Something a bit darker. Or a bit more anthemic and soaring. 

That’s what this is: pedestrian. It’s absolutely fine, mind you. Completely inoffensive. But just so generic in its sentiment I’m not sure how to categorize it. Old-fashioned. That’s another term for it. Like back in the 50s and 60s when groups would just sing to a general person in a room. Nothing specific, nothing personal. Little platitudes and whatnot. The funny thing is, listening to this in 2026, some of the tracks sound uncannily like something I recall hearing at some juncture in my past. But that’s super-unlikely. It just sounds like something else I’ve heard. Lots of something elses. And is most certainly dated. It’s something about the way the songs are constructed that feels definitively old. But like not in a cool vintage way. Like in a lost era for indie rock when everything sounded generally like a Gin Blossoms retread or a forgettable radio rock band like Tonic. Ultimately, it all just sits there. Nothing to get hyped about, nothing to get angry at. And, for me, that’s a place music never wants to be.