fun.
fun. is an American indie pop band based in New York City, New York that was formed by Nate Ruess, formerly of The Format. After the 2008 breakup of The Format, Ruess then formed fun. with Andrew Dost of Anathallo and Jack Antonoff of Steel Train. fun. has released two albums, their debut Aim and Ignite in 2009 and their latest Some Nights in February, 2012. The band went on hiatus in 2015.
Fun. provides examples of the following tropes:
- Bar Brawl: "We Are Young" music video is this...IN SLOW MOTION!
- Call Back: In several fun. songs ("Take Your Time (Coming Home)", "Some Nights" and "Why Am I The One?") "the desert" and "the sun" are used to refer to Arizona and California, respectively. This is a callback to The Format's "On Your Porch".
- A callback to two songs from fun.'s debut album is present in the song "Stars", with the line "Some nights I rule the world with "Barlights" and "Pretty Girls"." The titles are even in quotations in the lyrics, so it's a pretty obvious reference.
- "Take Your Time (Coming Home)" also contains the lyric "I'm through with causing a scene," a reference to The Format's "The First Single". Nate Ruess seems to do this a lot.
- Lyrical Dissonance: To wit, the verse in "We Are Young" reveals that this is about a guy and his date at a bar, who's friends have abandoned them to get high and they have lost a cell phone and the date's going to get drunk but all's well because toniiiiiiight, we are young.
- It's present in a lot of fun. songs as well as songs from The Format, Ruess' old band.
- "After all, you lost your band, you left your mom."
- One-Hit Wonder: For now, "We Are Young" is their only top 40 hit on the Hot 100. While it is too early to say whether or not they will have another top 40 hit, it should be noted that because similar rock bands like Foster the People hardly had any pop radio support after their first hit, fun. will likely suffer the same fate.
- Also, songs like "We Are Young," "Pumped Up Kicks," and "Somebody That I Used To Know" never got pop radio support until after their sales skyrocketed, so a follow up will likely need to reach the iTunes top 40 before it picks up on radio. Because Foster's follow up "Don't Stop" never had sales that strong, radio ignored it.
- Precision F-Strike: "Take Your Time (Coming Home)" from their first album, after an entire album with no profanity:
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If it's true, then what the fuck have I been doing the last six years? |
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- Their second album, by contrast, has several f-bombs, including one on the very first track.
