Mainstream music has begun is love affair with fun., with ‘We are Young’ blasting on Z100 every morning and evening during my short commute.  As much as I love artists who are actually talented experiencing this level of success, part of me died hearing Nate’s voice on Top 40 for the first time.  This isn’t the same as when Adele entered pop culture’s consciousness and started appearing on Top 40 stations. No. I have been living my lyrical love affair with Nate since I was 16, experiencing different stages of life with his choruses and verses in mind.

Nate - the lead singer of fun. - has a catalog of music to experience, music pop-music listeners will not hear unless they dig deeper to discover The Format.  While popular culture and Z100 DJ’s keep gushing about “how fun fun. is” and how happy ‘We are Young’ is, it took Nate years to become optimistic.  If listeners don’t know that, fun.’s music is far less meaningful, and I implore you to explore Nate’s past… and in essence, mine as well.

I am thrilled so many people may be impacted by Nate’s hand-crafted lyrics, with the music he labored tirelessly on accompanying them. But, don’t say you know Nate if you don’t listen intently to the journey that brought him to this mainstream success. Or, as he proclaims in the song ‘Dog Problems,’ “So, don’t you ever - no, never, ever - speak for someone you don’t know.”

I discovered The Format when I was a junior in high school through my then-best friend and then-boyfriend.  My AIM profile displayed Nate’s lyrics from ‘Interventions and Lullabies’ about being the most depressing person he knows, lyrics about getting out and past the hard times, lyrics about a sick father.  They rang true to me with my debilitating depression and my deepest desire to get out of Sussex County and away from the people hurting me daily. 

The Format was one of the first bands I listened to in my car upon getting a license, and my best friend and I would ‘Tune Out’ together, with me tapping the brakes, and her cracking the window while we laughed and bopped.

When I experienced my first true heartbreak the summer that followed, The Format’s next album came swooping in just in time.  Nate spoke curtly of his heart being ripped out in a way that I couldn’t muster.  Again, lyrics riddled my AIM profile.  The Format, like me at the time, was so upbeat, you would never guess on first listen that the lyricist was experiencing penetrating heartbreak and sadness.

I saw The Format live just once, on the evening before I left for TCNJ for the first time.  I think of it as the experience that kicked off my college career, and my online post about beginning college was aptly titled with a song by The Format: “I’m Ready, I Am.”  I was sleep deprived moving into TCNJ, and it seemed a poor decision to attend the show.  But, in early 2008, The Format broke up and I was thrilled I embraced the only chance I had.

When fun. began developing, I was thrilled, but skeptical about the style.  I admittedly do enjoy The Format far more, but was pleased with the similarities.  I felt like I came full circle when I finished my college career with Nate, as fun. performed at TCNJ.

Truthfully, it is shocking to me how Nate’s lyrics still radiate with me years later.  It isn’t just my high school experiences that come to mind.  Throughout college, there was some line or verse that always fit the bill of what I was experiencing.  I am older and have changed so much, that now the lyrics mean different things than they did then.

As a writer, who wants nothing more to create beautiful things, the same verse has been perfect for me over all these years: “I’m trying to find truth in words, in rhymes, in notes, in all the things I wish I wrote.”  I have found the truth in Nate’s lyrics repeatedly, and have found time and time again that although I wish I wrote his words, he inspires me to record me own.