Someday This Could All Be Yours Vol. 1 is the fifth and final studio album by the American noise pop band The Paper Chase. It was released through Kill Rock Stars on May 26, 2009. Written by producer and frontman John Congleton, the concept album centers on humanity's destruction through natural disasters with celebratory existential themes. In contrast to the band's earlier discography, emphasis was shifted away from recurring motifs and transitions in favor of more individualized songs. It was originally conceived as the first half of a two-part concept album.
The lead single, "If Nobody Moves Nobody Will Get Hurt (The Extinction)", was released to radio alongside the album's announcement on March 18, 2009, while an album release concert preceded its commercial launch. "What Should We Do with Your Body (The Lightning)" followed as its second single, released with a visualizer. Although the second volume was mostly completed, Congleton ultimately shelved it, and the Paper Chase disbanded. He continued under the name The Nighty Nite, whose debut EP incorporated material originally intended for the unreleased second volume.
Upon release, Someday This Could All Be Yours Vol. 1 received mixed reviews from critics. Reviewers widely praised Congleton's lyrical ambition, his production, and Jason Garner's drumming, with several highlighting the opening track as one of the band's strongest songs. Others criticized the album's relentlessly unsettling atmosphere, repetitive instrumentation, and perceived lack of artistic progression.
Background and writing When writing albums for the Paper Chase, producer and frontman John Congleton often created songs that shared lyrical themes and motifs. He lost interest in creating songs that functioned only as transitions over time, opting to write songs on the side that prioritized individual relistenability. He drafted an album focused on his acceptance of the world falling apart and finding solace in existentialism, describing it as "a very celebratory album" while theming it around natural disasters to create a concept album. Like the band's previous works, Congleton heavily used metaphors to allow audience interpretation, stating "once I make a record, it belongs to everyone else just as much as it does to me". The writing process started before the production of the Paper Chase's fourth album, Now You Are One of Us (2006).
The opening song, "If Nobody Moves Nobody Will Get Hurt (The Extinction)", was inspired by his revelation about human inability to control the world. "The Common Cold (The Epidemic)" revolves around a fear of intimacy and commitment issues, while "What Should We Do with Your Body (The Lightning)" was written about having repetition compulsion towards harmful limerence. "The Small of Your Back the Nape of Your Neck (The Blizzard)" discusses the negative effects of dogma, and "This Is Only a Test (The Tornado)" acts as a criticism of late capitalism. The album additionally uses biblical imagery, inspired by Congleton growing up around religious influences and disconnecting from Christianity in adulthood. He primarily composed it on acoustic guitar in contrast to his usual method of piano writing.
Recording and production The project's recording began when the band's label, Kill Rock Stars, requested that Congleton release a solo album. He agreed, feeling that the Paper Chase was close to ending due to their drummer, Aryn Dalton, quitting the band. However, the recruitment of drummer Jason Garner for live performances sparked renewed interest in staying together, leading them to record the album. In October 2006, Kill Rock Stars owner Slim Moon departed from the label and gave ownership to his wife, Portia Sabin. The new chairwoman requested that Congleton not release a solo album. In an interview with Punknews in early 2007, Congleton stated he had recently written a full album. Following its completion, he described the album as the only studio recordings of the Paper Chase he was happy with, considering the rest of their discography as largely failing to be what he wanted.
The band recorded a second album alongside the first, planning to release them separately as parts of Someday This Will All Be Yours, a title taken from a lyric. It was later retitled Someday This Could All Be Yours and initially planned for a fall 2008 release, while the second volume was scheduled for a 2010 release after being fully written, mostly recorded, and partially mixed. For the cover art of the first volume, Congleton contacted artist Daniel Delpurgatorio, who had previously worked with the band on other albums. He gave the prompt to create "somebody being thrown powerlessly through the air", which Delpurgatorio created using photograph manipulation to make a person flying through a tornado. This concept was designed to "illustrate how helpless we are in the face of such catastrophes".
Release
Various songs from their upcoming album were performed at concerts in 2008, including "What Should We Do With Your Body (The Lightning)", and a live acoustic performance at a record store that was posted to YouTube. On March 18, 2009, the Paper Chase announced their fifth and sixth studio albums as Someday This Could All Be Yours, a two-part concept album that would "explore the existential crisis inherent within a universe seemingly fated to exterminate its population". Alongside the announcement, "If Nobody Moves Nobody Will Get Hurt (The Extinction)" was released to radio as the album's lead single. An album release concert took place on May 23, 2009, where CDs were available for purchase early. Someday This Could All Be Yours Vol. 1 was released in the United States through Kill Rock Stars on May 26, 2009, and through Southern Records internationally. On June 19, a visualizer for "What Should We Do with Your Body (The Lightning)" featuring public domain footage was released on YouTube.
A tour for the album began in June, continuing through July 2009 in the United States. This was followed by a European tour in autumn. Concerts for the album were heavy on theatrics, with Congleton employing a manic stage presence and using suicidal and evangelical imagery. This was accompanied by intermittent sampling, including the Peoples Temple Death Tape. All shows for the tour ended without encores. Congleton described Someday This Could All Be Yours Vol. 2 as "an extremely heavy, depressive, slow record", detesting the idea of the band ending with such a downbeat album and finding it symbolic to set expectations and suddenly not follow through, aligning with the band's lyrical themes of death. He found further frustration from reviews of the first volume, feeling tired of being misinterpreted as severely depressed. After the release of the first volume, bassist Bobby Weaver and keyboardist Sean Kirkpatrick left the band, leading Congleton to retire the Paper Chase, with the band's continuation solely dependent upon the return of Weaver.
Congleton continued making music as The Nighty Nite, which retained drummer Jason Garner and recruited other musicians from prior session work. Following the band's formation, he strongly emphasized that it was purely a name change without any creative shift. Their four-song debut EP Dimples (2011) included tracks from the scrapped second volume of Someday This Could All Be Yours, as well as unused older material and a cover of the Magnetic Fields' "Meaningless". He found it hard to maintain the band after a short tour, expressing uncertainty in making a full album as the Nighty Nite. He later released the album Until the Horror Goes (2016) under the new moniker John Congleton and the Nighty Nite, consisting solely of material written between 2014 and 2015. Surrounding its release, he affirmed that Someday This Could All Be Yours Vol. 2 would not see a full release.
Critical reception
Dave Gurney of Tiny Mix Tapes gave the album 3 stars out of 5, complimenting Garner's powerful drumming and Congleton's production. "If Nobody Moves Nobody Will Get Hurt (The Extinction)" was highlighted as establishing the album through its intense, gradual development, but found the constant unsettling atmosphere to be overbearing. Chris Baynes of PopMatters scored it a 7 out of 10, commending the coherence in its concept and Congleton's dissonant compositions with bleak descriptions of "humanity's inherently self-destructive condition". He noted the lack of interludes and found footage as making the album more accessible compared to the band's other work, while picking out the opening track for its climactic "triumphant assault of strings and guitar". Sam Shepherd of The Line of Best Fit graded the album a 79%, praising its increased emphasis on melody and calling its intense arrangements the band's strongest work.
Alex Young of Consequence graded the album a D− for having a nihilistic topic without depth and the band's lack of development across their career, only praising the lyricism of the two singles. Kev Kharas of NME similarly found its lyrics to be exhausting and stated "I just want to hit him until he stops talking", rating the album 1.5 stars out of 5. Josh of Punknews rated the album 4.5 stars out of 5, praising its meticulously crafted songs, avoidance of clichés, and inventive use of piano and sound effects, predicting it to be the best album of Summer 2009. Matthew Fiander of Prefix Mag gave it a 6 out of 10, enjoying Congleton's clever storytelling and restraint from rehashing the band's signature sampling but finding that the album "runs out of ideas quickly" past its first few songs. Morgan Davis of Spectrum Culture gave it a 4 out of 5 star rating, praising Congleton's detailed songwriting and the band's dynamic usage of dissonance, highlighting the first half of the album as "perfectly sequenced" while finding the second half unable to match its momentum.
Brandon Bussolini of Dusted Magazine scored the album a 5 out of 10, criticizing the instrumentation as tame and repetitive but lauding Congleton's "mystifying" lyrics and voice while comparing him to Hutch Harris and Jamie Stewart. Jan Martens of éclat rated the album 4.5 stars out of 5, complimenting its juxtaposition of abrasive dissonance with melodic beauty and calling it the band's most overtly pop-oriented work. Ian Cohen of Pitchfork scored the album a 6.8 out of 10, praising the Paper Chase's distinctive arrangements while commenting on the band's limited artistic progression since their previous album. Pitchforks review was criticized by Pete Freedman of the Dallas Observer, arguing that it was an ambiguous and contradictory assessment of the album that overlooked the importance of the disaster-themed concept and misinterpreted the contextual purpose of its anthemic songwriting. Roxanna Hadadi of The Washington Post lauded the album's haunting soundscape paired with Congleton's "poetic, desperate lyrics", likening the melody of "The Common Cold (The Epidemic)" to Psychos shower scene and singling out "I'm Going to Heaven with or Without You (The Forest Fire)" as the best song of Someday This Could All Be Yours Vol. 1.