Get Hurt is the fifth studio album by American rock band the Gaslight Anthem. It was released on August 8, 2014, by Island Records. It marks their first album on Island Records, which absorbed the band and its previous label, Mercury Records.[1]
Produced by Mike Crossey and inspired by vocalist and guitarist Brian Fallon's divorce from his wife of ten years, the band was influenced by artists whose albums represented "career shifts".[2][3]
Writing
The band announced on July 4, 2013, via their Tumblr site, that they were "working on new songs for a new Gaslight Anthem album in 2014".[4]
Fallon cited Pearl Jam's No Code album as an influence and inspiration for the album.[5]
In an interview with Rolling Stone published May 23, 2014, Fallon described the album as "completely different than anything we had ever done before. Instead of going that extra step of just adding some organ or some background vocals, this time we actually really changed up a lot of the sounds."[6]
A post on the band's official website advised fans to "Get ready for some things you've never heard this band do!"[7]
"That record is always going to puzzle me," Fallon reflected in 2018. "It was such a confusing time in general. We tried to do something specific and then didn't go all the way with it. We sort of pulled back. I'm not embarrassed by it, but I wouldn't make it again."[8]
Recording
On March 10, 2014, the band entered Blackbird Studios in Nashville, Tennessee, to record their fifth studio album.[9][10] The band stated on April 14 that they had arrived at the "last week in the studio" of recording the album.[11]
Release and promotion
On June 16, 2014, the band announced the title of the album and released a teaser video with a snippet of a new song (later revealed to be the album's opener "Stay Vicious").[7] On August 5, the entire album was made available to stream via iTunes Radio.[12]Get Hurt was released in the United Kingdom on August 11, 2014, by Virgin EMI Records, and in the United States on August 12, 2014, by Island Records.[13][14] The album was originally scheduled to be released one week later than its eventual release date.[15]
The lead single from the album, "Rollin' and Tumblin'", was released on July 1, 2014.[17] The second single, "Get Hurt", was released on July 8, 2014.[18] The third and final single, "Stay Vicious", was released on July 28, 2014.[19]
Get Hurt received mixed reviews from music critics. Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average of ratings from mainstream critics, gave it a score of a 62, based on 29 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[20]
In Absolute Punk, Craig Manning wrote, "It's disheartening that the album isn't the game-changing record Fallon promised, and it's too bad that it doesn't have the thesis-statement cohesion of albums like The 59 Sound and American Slang. But the songs are still great, the production is still excellent, and the performances of the band members have rarely been in finer form."[21]Clash magazine's Mischa Pearlman rated the album seven out of ten, calling it "rock 'n' roll of the purest kind."[23] Tim Jonze of The Guardian gave the album two stars out of five, saying "Get Hurt is nothing but the same old overblown rock sound with every dial turned up several digits past 11."[25] Gregory Heaney of AllMusic rated the album four stars out of five, writing, "Get Hurt shows that so long as they're passionate about their music, it doesn't matter where the band are getting their inspiration from, because genuinely caring about something is always compelling."[22]
