What's that? You haven't heard the song The End by Blue October? You owe it to yourself to give it a listen. Just, maybe have headphones on for this one. It's a little..... dark.

@beardalaxy@gameliberty.club never heard of them before but i love this. what's your fave album? i've got a long drive tomorrow to listen to something new on

@rosey ohhhhhhh duuuuuude okay. one of my favorite bands of all time.

my favorite album changes depending on the mood i'm in. let me do a small write up for ya lol... might take a bit but i'll try to be as succinct as i can xD

@rosey Okay, so "Spinning The Truth Around Part 1/Part 2" and "This is What I Live For" are their two newest ones and I haven't listened to most of the tracks on them. Most of what I heard from them is a lot more "happy" stuff and even has some weird auto-tune stuff going on, so I kind of just stayed away. So I wouldn't really recommend listening to those until you've listened to their other albums, personally speaking.

"I Hope You're Happy": This is a great middle ground between the more somber stuff and the newer, way more poppy happy stuff. My least favorite album of the ones I've really listened to but still good if you're in a bit of a happier mood. Tracks: I Hope You're Happy, Colors Collide.

"Home": Similar style to I Hope You're Happy, but with much better writing altogether. Leaning more towards the somber/reflective side. Big focus on self-improvement. I actually really like this one but it is quite far from "The End." Tracks: Home, Break Ground.

"Sway": A decent jump from Home towards being more dark/somber, whatever you want to call it. This is what I would call the most approachable album if you're looking for the darker Blue October. I like it a lot, I can actually play four of the songs from it. Tracks: Fear, Light You Up.

"Any Man In America": This is the ANGRY album. The lead singer was going through a divorce at this time and it shows, he basically dumped all of his thoughts into an album. It's got a more hip-hop flavor to it and also contains dark themes, naturally. This is a high contender for my favorite one, every song is favorited on my music app. Tracks: The Worry List, Any Man In America, The Feel Again (Stay).

"Approaching Normal": This is the album that "The End" is on. It doesn't appear on the non-explicit version for obvious reasons and it is swapped out with "Graceful Dancing." This one has a lot of songs about the lead singer's wife's affair, and about his daughter Blue. It's like Any Man In America but more poetic instead of being so raw. Tracks: Dirt Room, Kangaroo Cry, Blue Does.

"Foiled": Their most popular album by a long shot. Contains their "breakout" single "Hate Me." Definitely a more dark album, but I would compare it more to Sway than Approaching Normal or AMIA. It's more just kind of "sad" than it is angry or anything like that. Still is a great album though and it's obvious why it's popular. Tracks: Hate Me, Into The Ocean, Sound of Pulling Heaven Down.

"History For Sale": Up there with AMIA for my favorite album. Lots of more catchy songs on here while still being about darker themes. Also contains what is arguably their first successful song, "Calling You." Tracks: Calling You, Ugly Side, A Quiet Mind.

"Consent to Treatment": A more down-to-earth album that more prominently uses the violin. You can definitely tell it is early in their career because the sound is not as well manufactured, but that gives it a unique tone. A few darker songs, but it's very southwestern (the band is from Texas). It's like... southwestern emo, if that makes sense. The intro track is spoken word and it will make you laugh. Tracks: Breakfast After 10 (which is a remake), Angel (one of my favorites period).

"The Answers": The first album and definitely the roughest. Still has that very southwestern vibe to it. It's a lot more theatric, and most of the songs are slower. Has even more violin. It does have my favorite Blue October song of all time on it, "Italian Radio." The lead singer YODELS in it, it's great and very fun to perform! Tracks: Italian Radio, Two A.M. Lovesick.

I want to give a special acknowledgement to their single "The Scar" which is kind of hard to find if you are just looking at their discography. It's a hidden gem that's SO insanely good. It actually kind of reminds me of an alternate version of "The End" where it's post-separation and he's more saddened by and reflective of everything than just out for blood.

There's also Justin Furstenfeld's solo albums (he's the lead singer), the Open Book albums. They're both super good, just him singing some Blue October songs (and a couple of his own) with a guitar in front of an audience. Very, very powerful and raw. I wouldn't say you should listen to these until you've listened to everything else here because they'll have more impact. I'd also try finding videos form the concerts the songs were recorded at, because Justin goes into a lot more detail about what was going on in his life as he was writing all of this stuff.

Blue October also has a side project called Harvard of the South, though I haven't listened to them much. They're a lot more "basic" rock, which isn't to say they are bad but just that Blue October is a bit more experimental. Harvard of the South feels like an alternate path that Blue October could have gone down if Justin didn't get so fucked up.

******TL;DR******
Stay away from their newest albums for now, only give them a listen after you've checked out their older stuff. You might like them, I haven't gotten into them thus far and I don't think they are representative of the Blue October I like and recommend.

I would honestly recommend starting at History For Sale, since that is the beginning of the "Blue October sound" that sticks around for a while. Then just go through chronologically up until I Hope You're Happy. That gives you Justin's whole story more or less and it's a great "series" to get invested in and feel for him.

After that, you can go back and check out their first two albums, Consent To Treatment and The Answers. They're different and less manufactured, and have a much more southwestern style. I still really like these so you should give them a shot. Their single "The Scar" is an amazing song and needs to be listened to at some point as well.

If you're invested in Justin's story and want to hear him talk more about the songs and play them acoustically, check out some videos of his Open Book shows. If you don't want (most of) the talking, you can listen to the albums as well. They're really good but I don't think everyone would be into them without the context behind them.