"Bummerland" is a song by American

pop Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop! (British group), a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Album ...

band

AJR is an American pop band founded by brothers Met (), collectively a trio of vocalists, , and songwriters. The brothers grew up in New York City, primarily focused on busking, singing covers and street tap dancing until shifting to songwriting ...

. It was released on August 31, 2020 via

S-Curve Records S-Curve Records is an American record label founded in 2000 by former Mercury Records executive Steve Greenberg. It is based in New York City. In 2001 the label established a distribution and licensing agreement with EMI Records. Among the hit ...

as the second single from the band's fourth studio album ''

OK Orchestra ''OK Orchestra'' (stylized in all uppercase), often abbreviated as ''OKO'', is the fourth studio album by American pop band AJR. It was released on March 26, 2021, by the band's own label AJR Productions. The album was supported by five singles ...

''.

Background

During the

Neotheater World Tour The Neotheater World Tour was the fourth concert tour by the American pop band AJR, supporting their third studio album, ''Neotheater'' (2019). It ran from September 20, 2019, to January 21, 2020, and covered 41 shows across Europe and North Amer ...

, the band began writing the song's instrumental, teasing it as a "confidential new AJR song" in episode 4 of their autobiographical documentary series ''Neotheater World Tour Doc''. In an interview on '' Zach Sang Show'', Jack Met mentions that the song had six different choruses written for it over the instrumental's lifetime, but were unable to find one that fit. The last chorus revision, written during the

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, was titled "Outside". AJR member Adam Met states that it was the only song on ''

'' that he did not like, with the meaning of the lyrics being mistakenly confused for

socialized medicine Socialized medicine is a term used in the United States to describe and discuss systems of universal health care—medical and hospital care for all by means of government regulation of health care and subsidies derived from taxation. Because of ...

. AJR planned on releasing " World's Smallest Violin" as a single in June 2020, but opted not to out of respect to the

Black Lives Matter Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a Decentralization, decentralized political and social movement that aims to highlight racism, discrimination and Racial inequality in the United States, racial inequality experienced by black people, and to pro ...

movement. During this month, the lyrics of "Bummerland" instantaneously came to Jack while the band was at

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...

, saying in an interview "once we actually started writing 'Bummerland' we were done in probably 20 minutes". Shortly after writing was finished the band immediately began recording the music video, with Ryan Met stating "as we were writing this one, we had this big feeling that it needed to come out right now" on his

Instagram Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...

. The song was teased on social media on August 23 and officially released on August 31, 2020.

Composition and lyrics

The lyrics to "Bummerland" describe hitting rock bottom with the optimistic mindset of "the only way to go is up", while also including

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s. The bridge of the song features "instrumoprhing", a transition from one instrument into another produced in a way to make it morph rather than cut, with "Bummerland" using a voice, trumpet, guitar, and violin. This is also used in the song " World's Smallest Violin" from the same album.

Music video

The official video directed by Edoardo Ranaboldo was released on August 31, 2020. The video begins with lead singer Jack Met sitting atop the Shorecrest Bed and Breakfast and later cuts to various shots of AJR performing the song in matching costumes. 1⁄7 of the video features the song's drum performance, playing a

taiko are a broad range of Traditional Japanese musical instruments, Japanese percussion instruments. In Japanese language, Japanese, the term refers to any kind of drum, but outside Japan, it is used specifically to refer to any of the various J ...

at Browder's Birds and a

floor tom A floor tom or low tom is a double-headed tom-tom drum which usually stands on the floor on three legs. However, they can also be attached to a cymbal stand with a drum clamp, or supported by a rim mount. It is a cylindrical drum without snare ...

in the ocean. The band additionally performs in a pink flamingo floaty on top of a car (later adapted into the single's cover artwork), a

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y truck, the ocean, a boat, and bikes at several locations in

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, primarily Browder's Birds

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farm and Lavender By the Bay lavender farm. The video has grossed over 16 million views as of September 2023.

Live performances

Due to the

, "Bummerland" was unable to be performed live traditionally within its release year, but the band experimented with other methods. The song made its live debut at

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concert series, being performed on August 19 and August 20, 2020, two weeks before the single's release. Later in the year, AJR partnered with UScellular to livestream an acoustic concert on December 18, 2020, featuring the first acoustic performance of "Bummerland". On December 26, 2020, AJR hosted virtual concert '' AJR's One Spectacular Night'', which saw the fourth and final 2020 performance of the song. In 2021, AJR performed "Bummerland" during the "

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" virtual concert for president

Joe Biden Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who was the 46th president of the United States from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice p ...

's inauguration. Upon ''

s release date on March 26, 2021, the band livestreamed an acoustic concert featuring "Bummerland" and five other songs from the album. AJR performed at virtual concert festival SUNYFest as an opening act for

Kesha Kesha Rose Sebert (born March 1, 1987), formerly stylized as Ke$ha, is an American singer and songwriter. Her first major success came in 2009 when she was featured on rapper Flo Rida's number-one single, "Right Round". Kesha's music and ima ...

on April 24, 2021, including the song in their setlist. On May 25, 2021, they performed a private concert at DTS Sound Space, marking the eighth and final performance of "Bummerland" before a return to the band performing standard concerts on July 2, 2021.

Other uses

The song, along with "

Way Less Sad "Way Less Sad" is a song by American pop band AJR. It was released on February 17, 2021, via the band's label AJR Productions and BMG. It was additionally released through S-Curve Records for radio airplay and through Black Butter Records for in ...

", was used in American baseball promotions for

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as their official anthem for the

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Personnel

Credits adapted from the album's liner notes. * Adam Met – vocals, instruments, composer * Jack Met – main vocals, instruments, composer * Ryan Met – vocals, instruments, composer, producer *

Chris Gehringer Chris Gehringer (born May 27, 1962) is an American mastering engineer at Sterling Sound in New Jersey. Gehringer is known for having mastered recordings by popular artists such as AJR, Dua Lipa, Drake, Ed Sheeran, Gwen Stefani, Harry Styles, ...

–

mastering engineer Mastering is a form of audio post production which is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the Audio mixing (recorded music), final mix to a data storage device called a master recording, the source ...

* Joe Zook –

mixing engineer A mixing engineer (or simply mix engineer) is responsible for combining ("mixing") different sonic elements of an auditory piece into a complete rendition (also known as "final mix" or "mixdown"), whether in music, film, or any other content of a ...

Charts

References

{{authority control AJR songs 2020 songs 2020 singles Songs about the COVID-19 pandemic