The All-American Rejects - Swing, Swing

April 01, 2012 Critic Jonni 0 Comments

The All-American Rejects are an American rock band, who have got my Sunday revisit this week. I reviewed "Beekeeper's Daughter", and have done a few others in the past. The band consists of Tyson Ritter, Nick Wheeler, Mike Kennerty and Chris Gaylor. They have been around since 1999 but released their first song "Swing, Swing" in 2002.

Swing, Swing was written by Nick Wheeler and Tyson Ritter, as expected since most of the songs are written by these two. This song charted at number 13 here in the UK, which is surprising, as rock was in back then, and this song would have no chance at getting to that chart position nowadays. But what's even more surprising is that The All-American Rejects have yet to beat that chart position, meaning this is their highest charting single to date. Apparently it is about Tyson's ex-girlfriend, and it was written when times were really difficult, and the second verse is about moving on.

The music video portrays the song amazingly, but this band looks so young, but what do you expect? Considering it's 10 years ago since it was released. That band is definitely not the band we see in Beekeeper's Daughter. They've grown up and become more confident in themselves, they don't look like the average band no more. But I still don't understand why it was such a hit in the UK.

It is both performance and narrative. It's a pretty good first music video, considering others we have seen in the past. And although not the best, it's not bad either. As for the performance side of things, they look pretty nervous, and not entirely sure what to do, which is weird since they aren't like that no more.

As for the narrative, it's easy to understand, and we follow a couple going through their relationship, everything's all good and then something happens with the car and they have an argument, and they end up splitting up. I like how this one focuses on the male's side of the relationship, usually a lot of music videos decide to focus on the girl's side of things.

Overall a great first music video from these guys, still cannot believe this is their highest charting single in the UK to date, I hope they can release a single soon that will get into the top 10, there's lots of good potential singles on their new album. But promotion is one of the most important things, and they aren't doing much.