Boys and Girls in America is the third studio album by the Hold Steady, released on October 3, 2006 on Vagrant Records. The album was produced by John Agnello and preceded by the single, "Chips Ahoy!"
On August 18, 2006, first single "Chips Ahoy!" was released as a free download from music site Pitchfork Media. The second single, "Stuck Between Stations" began to appear on campus radio playlists in November 2006.
The album title is a line taken from the opening lines of the song "Stuck Between Stations" ("There are nights when I think that Sal Paradise was right/Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together"), which in turn refers to a quote from Americannovelist and poetJack Kerouac's 1957 novel On the Road and its narrator, Sal Paradise.[3][4] The title is repeated in the lyrics in "First Night."
Boys and Girls in America has sold 94,000 albums as of April 2010.[5]
Recording
Boys and Girls in America was the first of two studio albums to be produced by John Agnello, who had previously worked with Dinosaur Jr., amongst others. Reflecting on working with Agnello, vocalist and lyricist Craig Finn noted: "John came in with a little more weight, if you will. One of the things that doesn’t really get talked about enough is that, in a sense, a producer is a leader — maybe that’s the biggest thing they are. I remember working with John, and he put up a calendar on the first day, saying, 'These are your days off. One of them is Mother’s Day — spend time with your mom.' He kinda laid it all out. Up until then, I’d always worked [with the approach of] 'What time do you guys want to start tomorrow?' [Now] there was this idea of 'We’re taking this seriously. This is a job.' That kind of leadership signaled something — it raised the game a little bit. I’m always thankful to him for doing that."[6]
The album received a metascore of 85 out of 100 on Metacritic, making it tied with four other albums for the 12th best-reviewed album of 2006. Magnet and The Onion's AV Club named it the best album of 2006.
Pitchfork rated Boys and Girls in America 9.4 out of 10, and named it the fifth-best album of the year.[18] They later ranked it as the 64th best album of the decade.[19]
Yahoo! Music ranked the album #9 on their list of the top 25 albums of 2006.[20]
The song "Stuck Between Stations" was ranked #12 on Pitchfork's list of the top 100 songs of 2006 and #63 on the best of 2000's list.
"Chillout Tent" was ranked #33 in Rolling Stone's list of 100 best songs of 2006.[21]
The song "Massive Nights" was always used at the Beginning of Colin Murray's Radio 1 Show, after the words, "New music, Alternative Classics, Drums" due to the drum roll introduction to the song.
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