Ten years ago yesterday, April 7th 2004, one of Modest Mouse’s most popular and influential albums was released: Good News for People Who Love Bad News. Although it has only been ten years since its initial release, it is already considered a classic by many, with songs like “The World at Large”, “Float On”, and “The Good Times Are Killing Me” standing the test of time.

GNFPWLBN is one of Modest Mouse’s most distinct and memorable albums because of the strange yet comforting sound and feel of the album. GNFPWLBN starts out with the ten second “Horn Intro” before leading into two of Modest Mouse’s most popular songs: “The World at Large” and then “Float On”.

The next track, “Oceans Breath Salty” sets up the sound for the middle portion of the album which, in all honesty, gets a little bit weird. With harsh, strange (yet amazing and encapturing) songs such as “Dig Your Grave”, “Bury Me With It”, “Dance Hall”, “Bukowski”, and “Satin in a Coffin”, the middle section of GNFPWLBN gives the listener a strange death and destruction sort of theme.

Many people who know of Modest Mouse that are more familiar with their classics from this album would be surprised by the middle portion of GNFPWLBD, where things can get a little cryptic and strange. With lines like “Are you dead or are you sleeping…God I sure hope you are dead” from “Satin in a Coffin”, or “If God controls the land and disease / keep a watchful eye on me / …. Well who would want to be such a control freak?” from the eighth track “Bukowski”, this middle portion of GNFPWLBN is definitely a shock to those who hadn’t heard it before.

After “Satin in a Coffin”, the 58 second “Milo (Interlude)” separates the stranger part of GNFPWLBN to a calmer part of the album that’s a little more similar to what would be expected from Modest Mouse.

After “Milo (Interlude)”, one of my favorite songs on the album, “Blame it on the Tetons”, brings the listener into a calm and sleepy part of the album, somewhat of a refuge after the harsher middle section. “Blame it on the Tetons” leads into “Black Cadillacs”, a song that fills the listener with a sense of nostalgia for a place they’ve never been. With lines like “And it’s true we’ve named our children / after towns we’ve never been to”, “Black Cadillac” continues the trend of sleepy, beautiful songs in this third portion of the album.

After “Black Cadillac”, things start to pick up again with the last few songs of the album, such as “The Good Times are Killing Me” and “I’ve Got it All (Most)”, ending with another “Horn Intro”, which truly brings the album full circle.

Good News for People Who Love Bad News is one of the best and most well-constructed albums of all time. With different phases of the album giving the listener different feelings, it’s obvious that lots of feeling and raw emotion went into the lyrics and writing of this album. Ten years after its release, Good News for People Who Love Bad News is still a popular and often listened to album. Another ten or 15 years down the road, it’s not unlikely that GNFPWLBN will become a staple album of our generation, a classic album that will always be remembered.