Golden Tickets by WHY?

"Golden Tickets" is a collection of personalized "theme songs" for and about seven specific WHY? fans. Over the the course of several months, Yoni and Josiah Wolf internet-stalked their fans for the purpose of crafting the homage which would end up on this album. The concept, Yoni explains, was that, "We would write a theme song for one customer who came to the [WHY?] web store and bought something every month. Like Mighty Mouse. It would be a song about that person. We'd read all about them on Facebook and Twitter, and sometimes even go so far as to contact their significant other to ask them questions. Then I would write the song on piano, and my brother would take the skeleton of lyrics & piano and turn it into a fully realized arrangement." These songs, which the band referred to each as a "Golden Ticket", were given away to fans in a variety of ways. One Golden Ticket was used to to raise money for victims of the Tsunami in Japan. They sold another Golden Ticket on eBay to benefit victims of Tornado devastation. The band held an iconography contest, and gave a Golden Ticket to the winner. They also hosted a video contest and awarded a Golden Ticket to a man who didn't attempt anything interesting at all, but merely sent the band footage of himself, shirtless, mouthing a monologue with no sound (the words Yoni imagined this man was speaking became the lyrics for "Dropjaw"). All the Golden Ticket songs are collected here. And as a special surprise, one more literal Golden Ticket will be randomly included with the limited edition gold vinyl. So that one more person has the chance to receive a final melodious homage.

3.0 / 10

The concept behind Golden Tickets, a concept album from Yoni Wolf's WHY?, is generous and sweet. However, these songs represent the nadir of the project.

On the heels of their 2012 full-length Mumps, Etc., the brothers Yoni and Josiah Wolf of the wordy indie act Why?