page_title: Lights and Sounds
section_title: Musical style
hierarchical_section_title: Lights and Sounds / Music / Musical style
caption_attribution_description: Ryan Key performing in support of the release of Lights and Sounds in September 2006
context_page_description: Lights and Sounds is the fifth studio album by American rock band Yellowcard, released on January 24, 2006, in the United States through Capitol Records. Lights and Sounds is Yellowcard's first concept album, which was inspired to reflect what the band was feeling at the time of production and how they have matured in the process. Lights and Sounds also departs from the sounds on Yellowcard's previous album, Ocean Avenue, which broke away from its pop punk sound to a more alternative rock album.
  Lights and Sounds debuted to mixed reviews from contemporary music critics, receiving criticism as the album fell short from the standard set by its predecessor, Ocean Avenue. Upon the album's release, it charted at number five on Billboard's 200 and Top Internet Albums' charts, making it the band highest charting album to date. The album accumulated sales of just over 315,000 copies, which failed to match the 2 million sales of their previous album. Yellowcard went on to explain that the disappointment of the sales were due to their going "a bit too far" with the expectations they had thought the album would exceed.
context_section_description: With Lights and Sounds, Yellowcard broke away from their original pop punk sound to a more alternative rock album. The album is somewhat of a concept album, made to reflect what Yellowcard was feeling at the time of production. Ryan Key, in discussion of this, said that Ocean Avenue was about "finding your place in the world" and explained that Lights and Sounds was about "realizing that you've gotten lost". The band has cited Radiohead's Kid A (2000) and Guns N' Roses' 1991 albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II as major influences for the album. Yellowcard also credit Aphex Twin, Mouse on Mars and Explosions in the Sky for inspiration, regarding the music sound in the album.
  In an interview in August 2005, Key explained that the album was a "definite departure" and "more political" than what Ocean Avenue had contained. In discussion of the album, Key said that the band had matured and that the music in Lights and Sounds would be different from their previous album. Though, Key added, "...we have to be careful, we have to try and write songs [in the style of the ones] we wrote before. We have to make a conscious effort not to think about the fact that we went from being a nothing band ... to having a bunch of hit singles in like, one year." Printz Board of The Black Eyed Peas collaborated with Yellowcard on the song "Two Weeks from Twenty" where he played a trumpet solo. The song, "How I Go", features a duet with Dixie Chicks' lead vocalist Natalie Maines, and features a twenty-five piece orchestra, which was conducted by violinist Sean Mackin. According to Peter Mosely, the band liked the Dixie Chicks' and even thought of collaborating with Maines on Ocean Avenue for the song "View from Heaven". Mosely also revealed that the band approached Maines about singing on "How I Go"; "The original plan was just for her to sing back-up (on the song). [But] it ended up turning into a duet." He also added that Maines took a demo of the song and returned to the studio, Sunset Sound, where the band were working, in addition to the Dixie Chicks working on their album, with lyrics and vocals of her own.
  Mackin also composed an entire string section and conducted an orchestra in the album. In an interview with Daily Nexus in June 2006, Mackin revealed that the conducting was the easy part and that the composing part was much harder. In this interview, Mackin also commented, "composing was getting so frustrating since I wasn’t writing as fast as my mind was thinking, so going back I wanted to make sure that each of my arrangements for this album and the 12 different songs were completely different".
caption: Ryan Key performing in support of the release of Lights and Sounds in September 2006
exif: {}