Armstrong’s songwriting was at a personal peak, with each of the album’s fifteen songs touting one perfectly crafted hook after another. Leaving behind the love tunes he’d written in his teenage years, he was now grappling with the confusion that came with entering adulthood—confronting his mental health, his bisexuality, and the ugliness of the world in front of him. It was a coming-of-age record for a slacker generation. Armstrong brought another “Christie Rd.”–style ballad about his girlfriend moving to Ecuador to the sessions, but it didn’t fit thematically. The song wouldn’t be released
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