Deja Entendu: I've Heard This Before

As soon as millennials mention music in a conversation they often begin to conjure a list of their favorite and least favorite music, perhaps a few images of album covers that have become iconic to them. Few recognize the art and design that goes into creating such iconic images and logos. Fewer think of the tactile element that a vinyl record has as you release it from its sleeve and put it on the turntable to be played. Artists used to measure success on the number of copies sold rather than the number of files downloaded. Brand New’s180g vinyl press of Deja Entendu embodies the physical, visual, and audible qualities that make an album like this an iconic staple for its time, genre and generation.

Ever since the 2001 release of Your Favorite Weapon, Brand New has produced strikingly metaphorical imagery with Deja Entendu, The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me, and Daisy. The artwork of their albums seems to evolve with their genre. With its release in 2003 Deja Entendu’s “postmodern cover art hints at something more substantial than 2001's Your Favorite Weapon.” (Sutcliffe) Imagery adorning Deja Entendu, the sophomore LP that stole the show, was created by designer Don Clark. Now that “iconic image of a floating astronaut decorates the limbs of adoring fans everywhere.” (Maine) Clark seized an opportunity for “The ultimate collaboration of creative outlets.” (Maine) The intersection between striking graphic imagery and music that has become iconic to the punk rock music scene becomes so familiar to the real fans of albums like Deja. The floating astronaut on the cover of the record, and repeated in multiple different environments throughout the folds of this record, reads as a metaphor for life, possibly the listener’s or viewer’s own. Multiple different environments read as the different experiences and, and situations that one faces. It also can read as the apparent weightlessness and lack of effect one’s life has on its environment. Jesse Lacy seems to force this perspective on the listener when the very first words heard on the record are; “I’m sinking like a stone in the sea.” This line also introduces a nautical motif depicted throughout the album, especially in “Tautou,” “The Quiet Things that no one Ever Knows,” and “Play Crack the Sky.”

Just as the physical and the audible contrast each other, the outside and the inside of that packaging visually contrast each other. The bright orange and yellows of the sky and the astronaut over a bright turquoise seascape in the lower register are heavily juxtaposed by the toned-down dark blues and greens of the inner graphic spread. “The album opens into a gatefold with gorgeous artwork inside, featuring the moon man in tall grass beneath a cloudy, moonlit sky. The quality of the casing itself is splendid and gives plenty of room for the bright red, orange and green colors to shine.” The album spread is beautifully composed to compliment the black vinyl records and simple reverse side of the insert that depicts the simple topography of the lyrics to the songs on the album. The vibrant colors of the cover are not upstaged by the inner spread or insert. The main image is enhanced by the more simplistic imagery on the accompanying parts of the album. One repress of Deja, released on Record Store Day in 2015, alters and emphasizes this complimentary contrast in a new way by presenting the front cover with a die-cut silhouette of the original astronaut, revealing a floating green astronaut against the album’s formerly seen orange and yellow sky. This choice to juxtapose Clark’s original cover design in this way provides the environmental shift that the solitary floating astronaut implies. The original design with the stand-alone imagery is far more successful at becoming iconographic and striking the familiar chord that Deja is meant to hit. Tim Dotteridge of Mind Equals Blown comments: “[13] years ago, life became weightless. Just like the astronaut on the album cover, gravity became nonexistent. Since June 17, 2003, listeners have become so encapsulated within the beats, the melodies and the lyrics that their lives have become suspended in mid-air, their minds overcome by their hearts beating to the rhythms, and time interrupted by the compression of space into an intangible grain of sand. To metaphorically hold this grain of sand in your hand is to listen to Deja Entendu.” (Dotteridge)

In a physical and tactile sense, Deja Entendu embodies its title, implicative of familiarity. The cover and inserts of the album are made with a heavy matte cardstock or light board, making handling of the album comfortable and extending the feeling of familiarity. Depending on the generation, the act of removing the vinyl record from its sleeve within a sleeve is reminiscent of youth. Both of the 12” LP records pressed on 180g vinyl are thick and heavy, giving the user a sense of luxury contrasted with the bulky and often inconvenient reality of records in the twenty-first century. The thick, solid black sleeve inserts that house the vinyl are very different that the traditional thin white paper sleeves with a hole in the middle, adding to the feeling of luxury. Although music listening has evolved passed LPs, 45’s, and cassette tapes, the choice to press Deja into this medium is a successful extension of the familiarity implied by the title while still adding a new feeling of luxury and maturity.

Although contrary to what the name implies, Deja Entendu projects inventive tracks that aim to allude to classic punk rock like Dashboard Confessional and The Eagles and create the feeling of familiarity in the act of listening to Deja on vinyl. These tracks have become iconic in the underground and cult alternative punk scene that was born out of the emo-punk scene of the late 90’s and early 2000’s. Deja Entendu is an “album which has established itself as a cult classic among pop-punk purists.” (Turner) Still, the record takes a massive leap into the future of Brand New. It goes beyond the teenage angst conveyed in “Jude Law and a Semester Abroad,” and “Seventy Times 7”, tracks off Your Favorite Weapon (released in 2001): which was a byproduct of Jesse Lacy’s feud with Taking back Sunday’s frontman (at the time) John Nolan. (Rettig) “Angst is flawed, miscommunicated and falsely identified. Lacey’s vocals are a potent reflection of this, taking advantage of emotional lyrical patterns in order to fully realize how a “deja entendu” is more than just a sound heard before. It’s a ripple effect; the words meet the melodies, the feelings meet the setting, and the music becomes remembered for the images, moods, and experiences that surround them.” (Dotteridge) “Deja Entendu, while a football field short of groundbreaking, has an air of substance and maturity…” (Sutcliffe) The maturity achieved by Brand New in Deja Entendu mentioned by Noah Sutcliffe is clear in their song-craft. The presentation of the record has matured with the ideas embedded in their sophomore album. Sutcliffe goes on about “Okay, I Believe You but My Tommygun Don't” and how this track “gives Brand New's formula away, but as the song progresses there are flashes of wit and maturity, even humor.” (Sutcliffe) It is apparent that Brand New achieves “deja entendu” with some critics stating that the band “accidentally covers ‘Yellow’ by Coldplay” (Heisel) with “The Boy Who Blocked his Own Shot.” And, “Accardi’s guitar on ‘. . . All I Have to Do Is Die’ … cribs from Joe Walsh’s ‘Hotel California’ solo.” (Haag) Criticism would be expected to surface from a “deja entendu” experienced when listening to the album. The experience is purposefully familiar, purposefully reminiscent of other alternative music. “The “deja entendu” experienced when listening to [Deja Entendu] doesn’t directly fit the definition, just as music doesn’t fit any mold, ideal, or substantiality. It’s just music.” (Dotteridge) This album replicates the feeling of “deja entendu” ironically, by introducing the user and the listener to physical and audible sensations that they have never heard or felt before and confronting them with the motions, both tactile and melodic, that are reminiscent of previous experiences with music.

The imprint that Deja has had on its listeners is astounding. The artwork along with the lyrical brilliance Lacey achieved in Brand New’s sophomore LP is unprecedented. Dotteridge commends the album by stating; “Deja Entendu is gold. It is intuition. It is new repetition. It is both perfection and imperfection. It is the lifeblood of bloodless intangibility, and it expands the outer limits of human connection. It is a masterpiece.” (Dotteridge) Jesse Lacy has clearly moved past the teenage angst presented in Brand New’s first album and into the realm of lyrical and musical brilliance, realizing achievable maturity within the genre of punk rock. Deja Entendu has become a staple in the punk scene. The album has rallied together generations; all aware of the “deja entendu” they experience when they enjoying the masterpiece set forth by Brand New.

Dodderidge, Tim. "Deja Entendu, But It’s Never Been Heard Before." Mind Equals Blown RSS. Disqus, 17 July 2016. Web. 31 Oct. 2016.

Haag, Stephen. "Brand New: Deja Entendu." PopMatters. 31 July 2003. Web. 03 Nov. 

2016.

Hauck, Keil. "Vinyl Spotlight: Brand New – Deja Entendu." It’s All Dead, 25 Apr. 2015. 

Web. 31 Oct. 2016.

Lacey, Jesse, Vincent Accardi, Garrett Tierney, and Brian Lane, perfs. Your Favorite Weapon.

Brand New. Rec. 2001. Mike Sapone, 2001. Vinyl recording.

Lacy, Jesse, Vincent Accardi, Garrett Tierney, and Brian Lane, perfs. Deja Entendu. Brand New.

Rec. Feb. 2003. Triple Crown, Razor and Tie, Steven Haigler, except "Play Crack the 

Sky," Mike Sapone, 2003. Vinyl recording.

Maine, Sammy. "Inside the Artwork: The Story behind Brand New's 'Déjà Entendu'" DIY Magazine. 1 June 2015. Web. 31 Oct. 2016.

Rettig, James "Taking Back Sunday/Brand New Beef Is Still Hot After 15 Years." Stereogum. 

28 Feb. 2015. Web. 03 Nov. 2016.

Sutcliffe, Noah. "Brand New: Deja Entendu." Brand New: Deja Entendu Album Review. 

28 Oct. 2003. Web. 31 Oct. 2016.

Turner, Mitchell. "Flashback Friday: Brand New's 'Deja Entendu' • Howl & Echoes." 

Howl & Echoes. 29 Jan. 2016. Web. 31 Oct. 2016.