Too Young For Nostalgia: The Eternal Emo of Harrison Gordon
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SELF-RELEASED
Harrison Gordon is a band. Harrison Gordon is a man and a band… He’s a man with a band… The band is his name, but his name is also the band. Get it? Harrison Gordon is a dude with a band called Harrison Gordon. Harrison Gordon (the dude and the band) both rock.
Just to level-set, Harrison Gordon is textbook “Dudes Rock” music, just on a sonic level. The college-age rocker is up there with bands like Japandrdoids and Jeff Rosenstock in terms of boisterous shout-along, full-steam-ahead rock and roll. These are bands who all know when to bust out a well-timed “WOO!” or throw to a guitar solo. These are songs with plenty of group chants and opportunities for finger-pointing in a live setting, which is great because that energy is prime Dudes Rock territory. Sometimes, there’s nothing more healing than shouting along to a song, covered in sweat, and clutching a beer. It’s kinda my favorite way to see a band, which is great because despite sounding like the bands above, you’re much more likely to catch Harrison Gordon in your local bar or a sweaty basement than anything else. In fact, he’s a bit known for capturing that DIY vibe.
This video, which currently sits at 1.8 million views, is just some shaky iPhone footage of a DIY concert in a dimly lit Midwest basement. The ceiling is adorned with Christmas lights (of course), and the whole room is awash in a blue/pink glow, feeling very bisexual lighting. The caption reads, “you're in some random basement and this bridge kicks in.” Sure, it's a little on the nose, but it’s TikTok, and premises are allowed. Harrison Gordon, the dude, sings, and an army of kids offscreen shout along:
i sold my childhood wii
for $30
double A batteries
i′m too young for nostalgia
The chorus (admittedly pretty grounded in the late aughts) continues with the same melody and lays the pop-culture references on thick.
miss watching dragon ball Z
playing all the zelda’s
miss spamming kirby's down B
i′m too young for nostalgia
With each line, Gordon makes a new reference to a TV show or video game, stringing together a series of IP rhymes designed to pull at the heartstrings of your inner nerd. It’s geeky as fuck, but it’s earnest, and when the camera whips around to show the rest of the basement shouting and bouncing along, you immediately want to join in. Sure, his lyrics are nostalgic bait made to hook someone with intimate knowledge of Kirby’s move set in Super Smash Bros., but on the other hand, I AM THAT PERSON, so of course the bait worked. As the sea of college kids stand shoulder to shoulder, forming waves as they bounce up and down, the next lines are sure to make anyone over the age of 25 feel old.
we’ll im just complaining
wasting all my time
just wish I could get back to 2009
Told ya it was gonna make you feel old. Nostalgia? For 2009?? You’ve gotta be kidding me! We were still coming out of a recession! We had just come off a writer strike! Mainstream culture was at an all-time low, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was actively terrorizing us in theaters! What I’m saying is while it’s hard for me to romanticize 2009, for someone, like, five to ten years younger than me, it was a landmark year. In fact, maybe even a great one.
The good thing is Harrison Gordon is still self-aware enough to call out that line. What’s great about a line like “too young for nostalgia” is it’s an admission and a self-own, but it’s also a catchy chorus, and Gordon knows it. Despite being rooted in 2009, the references are deployed in a way that evokes a sort of evergreen nostalgia. They call back to an age when you and your friends could spend hours running around while debating Vegeta’s power level or strategizing how to beat the next part of a Zelda game you’ve been stuck on. It’s kinda the same energy as the “Is Fortnite Actually Overrated?” meme, but acknowledging the genuinely pure and enthusiastic nature at its core. Harrison Gordon recognizes this truth, wields it, and strikes.
Sure, the specific references may not carry to everyone, but I’ll be damned if I’m not among the target audience. To me, these lines very powerfully evoke a sort of timeless fandom. The specifics may change, but the feeling of passing along video game strategies on the playground and writing out hand-drawn cheat codes feels much more universal. It’s an easy age to romanticize, but that doesn’t make it any less powerful.
Harrison Gordon (the man)
Throughout the rest of his music, Harrison Gordon is supremely college-aged. He writes lyrics about the monotony of attending class and feeling like his degree is a waste. He also talks a worrying amount about drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, basically all the shared experiences, feelings, and sentiments for someone at the ass-end of college. What’s impressive is how well he’s able to transport you to that respective era of your life, regardless of what age you find yourself listening to the album at.
Harrison Gordon presents all these findings in the aforementioned Rosenstock shout but also shows clear reverence for bands like Prince Daddy & The Hyena and Worst Party Ever. Both “I am happy” and album closer “Ginger Ale” sound like they could be slotted in anywhere on Anthology among any of Andy Schueneman’s acoustic fare. But let’s zip back to the top of the record, which, in a ballsy move, begins with its title track, “The Yuppies Are Winning.”
The whole record kicks off with a slow-bobbing guitar riff that lilts back and forth drunkenly. It sounds like we’re picking up right where a dramatic Titus Andronicus album closer would finish. Just think about “The Battle of Hampton Roads” and imagine what comes after. What happens after the dust settles and we’re left half-winded and half-drunk at the end of the story? Harrison Gordon (the man) approaches the mic and sets the stakes in a theatrical fashion.
Well, rent’s six hundred dollars
And gas is up to five
So, if you end up getting sick
I guess you'll just have to die
A chorus of “whoa’s” and “nah nah nah’s” follow behind Gordon, accompanied by a glockenspiel that feels like it’s making direct eye contact with Prince Daddy & The Hyena’s “***HIDDEN TRACK***”
And man, I don't know what to think now
Is it worth sticking around?
I'd have a better carbon footprint
When I'm six feet underground
Then he belts out the name of the album, singing:
The yuppies are winning
We're fucked this time
It’s a dire message that anyone should identify with on some level. The feeling that the Bad Guys are winning has never been stronger than it is now. By the end of the song, you’ll be screaming along to one of Gordon’s strongest hypotheticals as he asks, “Did I ever even burn that bright?”
Harrison Gordon (the band)
One of the commenters on the above-linked TikTok, who went by the name stoneraleks81, remarked of Gordon, “dude looks like he can build you a computer and replace a transmission, but sounds like a sad angel. Beautiful.” Harrison Gordon, talking from behind a profile picture of Appa from Avatar: The Last Airbender, responds, “this made me tear up bro you’re a modern poet.” Once again, I must say, dudes fucking rock.
But that commenter was right; Gordon is a stocky dude with a strong build. I’ll put it this way: he looks just like he sounds. You can even hear a bit of hardcore flavor when a gang vocal pops up midway through “BLEACH,” and it just makes you want to throw yourself up against someone. There’s also a delivery or two on “things will get worse” that make me sneer like whenever Josh Martin gets the mic in a Wonder Years song. Did you see the video of the Drug Church guitarist taking off his own instrument to dive into the crowd during his own band’s song? It all feels like that.
Just like Chris Pratt in Parks and Recreation, Gordon isn’t afraid to lean into the bit and make an ass out of himself for fun. He has a similar build to Sam Kless of Just Friends and Mom Jeans, just a touch more kawaii. Online, you might see some self-aware shitposts or a picture of the frontman in a maid’s outfit attached to a message tagging emo rippers TRSH. He’s self-aware and makes good rock music, a Jack Black phenotype for the ages.
There are plenty of other electrifying moments on The Yuppies are Winning, like a group chant at the end of “SNOT” or the Classic Emo WOO! That kicks off “things will get worse.” The mid-album cut “Excedrin” proves that you gotta know when to start the song with a guitar solo; it’s a power move, but absolutely rips when done right.
“The Next Great American Spirit Strikes Back!” is a song that captures the pure emotional and physical recklessness of a mid-20-something. It’s the pseudo-heart of the album, the point where things are most matter-of-fact and frank, the same way one might feel halfway through a six-pack at a basement show.
“cigs inside” is another song about leaning into your worst impulses. Unlike the hyper 2009-ism of his hit song, “cigs inside” poses a timeless question that every young adult has to ask themselves, but Gordon manages to keep it broad and universal. The only specifics here are student loans, Polaroid pictures, and unwashed sheets. The title feels like it’s already fulfilled its destiny, emblazoned on hats in a Budweiser logo rip that feel like they’re poised to become an iconic merch item.
By the time you’re finished with “cigs inside?” you get dumped off into the emphatic “OI! OI! OI!” of “Kirby Down B,” and we’re right where we started off.
At a few different points while writing this, I was hesitant to even mention the virality of “Kirby Down B” because that’s not the point. A good song is a good song regardless of whether it racks up a million views on TikTok or not. I was similarly hesitant to make so many comparisons between Gordon and other bands like Jeff Rosenstock and Prince Daddy. As an artist, I could see how it could get tiring after a while to constantly be told what you sound like, or perhaps even diminutive to suggest that you’re only an echo of someone else’s work. Luckily, Harrison Gordon, the man and the band, both rock.
One of the main reasons I like that video of “Kirby” is that it so clearly displays the way that music like this can scale. Sure, the song sounds kick-ass on the record; it’s a great recording with tons of energy, and I spent like a month listening to it every day. In that TikTok video though, you get such a different version of the song. You get to hear the same words backed by a chorus of 20-some other people singing along. Sure, it’s off-key and probably a little slurred, but does that really matter more than the cumulative effect that basement full of people has? I don’t think so. To be one of those voices is a divine experience, and that’s why I love music like this. It can stand on its own and thrive but also be lifted up by the same people who connect with it, becoming genuinely communal and connective in the process.
I may not be as nostalgic for 2009 as Harrison Gordon, but his music makes me feel that way, and I believe that’s the true magic inherent in emo music. This genre is inherently reflective and self-conscious, and when you’re a teen, it just feels affirmative to hear someone else struggle with those same things. Once you find yourself on the other side of that phase of your life, it can be just as rewarding to look back on that time and remember all those feelings from afar. When listening to Harrison Gordon, I finally feel like I’m on the other side of that. It's not like I’ve “grown up” past the genre; it's more like I’m viewing someone else’s nostalgia from the opposite side of adulthood. To me, that’s proof you’re never too old for nostalgia.
