Syllabus

Syllabus is the debut studio album by American indie pop band Curriculum. All of the songs on the album, with exception of one track, were written by Gregory Preston Athanasiadis, Phillip Mandelbaum, Wyatt van Cleef, Dana Breckenridge, and Stephanie Kesh, who are all members of the group. Shawn Middlesbrough, another member of the group, did not contribute to writing any of the song though he instead produced the entire album solely. Originally supposed to be released on 16 January 2012, the album was finally released on 6 February 2012 via Blacklight Records.

An alternative ("indie") pop album that incorporates many sub-genres of pop music, as well as popular music from the 1980s, and dance/electronica, the album is considered to be a loose "concept" album that revolves around a college theme that primarily focuses on college life, campus and student culture, and academia. The songs themselves do not necessarily center around the college theme, which is mostly visual and theatrical (when it comes to the "skits" that precede - and sometimes follows - each track), but are still loosely related to it anyway since they are based on real life experiences and everyday situations of students who attend the same colleges as some of the members of Curriculum. Lyrically, the subject matter of the songs talk about typical topics such as love, enjoying youth, and nostalgia, while also talking about unorthodox and sometimes heavy topics such notably as male prostituion, the importance of working together as a team, the negative effects of being sexually promiscuous, and even the ever sensitive subject of HIV/AIDS.

Upon release, the album recieved overwhemingly positive reviews and became commercially successful. The album debuted and peaked at #1 on the UK Albums Chart and sold over 100,000 copies in the UK in its first week, leading it to be certified Silver by the URAPS (Urapopstar Recording Association Phonographic Selection). Naturally the first #1 album for Curriculum, since it is their debut LP, it is also the first #1 album ever for the band's management. The album has since been certified double platinum by the URAPS in the UK.

To date, the album has spawned three singles: "So Mainstream", "At A Party", and "Teamwork"; all reached #3 in the UK and were also international hits. A promotional single, "All I Need (All I Don't)" was also released from the album. "That's What They Always Say" is confirmed to be the fourth single from the album.

Background
The album somewhat dates back to when the band members were still teenagers attending high school in New York City. The members, who attended the same schools as each other for most of their early lives and had been friends since they were children, would often hang out after school where they would talk about politics, education, current events, pop culture, and hold contests within their social circle to see who could write the best poem. Some of the poems written when they would hang out after school would eventually be turned into songs through a collaborative effort from all of the members years later when they were now in college and would be later featured on the album. Some of the other tracks were written as songs, and without being poems first, by all of the band members (except Middlesbrough) before sessions for the album began, though they too were written over a varied span of time as well. It is believed that "Honeymoon Anthem" is the oldest track on the album; it was originally written as a poem by Athanasiadis the day after he experienced a "milestone moment" at the age of sixteen.

Production
Recording sessions for the album began in the spring of 2011. The band spent the whole week before sessions were scheduled to begin sorting through which songs they were going to record for sure. It is unknown what track they recorded first for the album. According to sources, the band recorded close to thirty songs for the album and originally decided to choose only ten for the final track listing. Eventually, due to a variety of reasons, the final number of songs that would appear on the finalized album went from ten to twelve.

At the same time, Syllabus was in production, Middlesbrough, who produced the whole album, was also secretly working with Suede on their debut album Today Is Our Day. Today Is Our Day came out in January 2012 and it was then that the rest of the band found out that Middlesbrough had been working with them. The group reportedly were surprised by this fact and disappointed that Middlesbrough did not disclose that he was also working on another project. All the same, the rest of the group remained supportive of his work done on Today Is Our Day, despite them not liking Suede.

Athanasiadis, in an interview days after Syllabus would be released, revealed that some of the songs on the album were "remixed" for the finalized version of the album by Middlesbrough and without the rest of the band being notified that this would happen. Athansiadis would say that he and the band "were shocked and somewhat blindsided at what we heard. We recorded some of the songs a certain way but then we played back the finalized version of the album we were surprised that they sounded completely different. Only our vocals were untouched, though he added a bit of AutoTune here and there on some songs. We were surprised." Athanasiadis also noted that the band almost "sued and fired Shawn for his actions but, since the songs sounded good to us, we changed our minds. He promises to consult with each and every one of us from now on when he wants to remix a track or take it in another direction. It is all about teamwork." It was also reported that Middlesbrough did the same exact practice when finalizing and mastering Suede's debut album Today Is Our Day.

Writing, themes, and lyrical content
Despite the album's overall college-related concept, the songs on the album do not necessarily have any themes or lyrics that allude to college. The songs, however, are still loosely related to the album's college concept mainly because they are based on real life experiences and "everyday situations" of the band members' fellow classmates who attend the same colleges as they do. The songs are meant to loosely reflect the college theme of the album which would primarily focus on college life, campus and student culture, and even, academia. Some of the songs were written as poems by at least one of the members before they began working on the album; of course eventually they were turned into regular songs from their original poem form. Other songs on the album were written after the recording sessions for the album had started. The subject matter of the songs range from talking about love and nostalgia to male prostitution and HIV/AIDS awareness. Except for "All I Need (All I Don't)" and "Streets of Gold", all of the tracks on the album were written by Gregory Preston Athanasiadis, Phillip Mandelbaum, Wyatt van Cleef, Dana Breckenridge, and Stephanie Kesh.

"All I Need (All I Don't)" is the first track on the album and is not written by any of the members of Curriculum; it is instead written by Ava Knox, Drew Peters, and Chris Peters and was originally recorded by the British girl group [Loud Females] for their debut album [Silence of the Overground]. The band covered this single and eventually released it as their first promotional single in 2011. Reasons as to why the band chose to cover this song vary with some of the members said it reminded them of "successfully shaking off rejection and abandonment" while others said they wanted to "keep the oozing sexuality from the song while trying to add a little sophistication to it". "So Mainstream" is the second track (and lead single) on the album and is about a supposed social and cultural war between "indie" culture and mainstream acceptance. The song was inspired by another alternative song that had found eventual massive mainstream success, after spending a considerable amount of time being an underground hit. "Streets of Gold" was written by legendary singer-songwriter Ben Johnston and is about struggling to make it big as a superstar while living in Los Angeles, the city where Hollywood is located at.

"That's What They Always Say" is considered to be one of the most provocative songs on the album mainly because it talks about male prostitution. In the song, a man becomes a gigolo, makes a good living off of it, but keeps his profession from those close to him; needless to say, the man's friends and family notice his sudden financial success. The song was rumored to be inspired by the dating and love life of band member Mandelbaum, though he completely and strongly denies this. "At A Party", which is the albums' fifth track and second single, is about a group of partygoers who are trying to stay young and continue to attend parties as they age with time. The song features cultural references to the 1980s and 1990s. "Dirty Young Man" talks about a young man in his twenties who prefers to date women who are older than him. The song is meant to address the "cougar phenomenon" and is again rumored to be based on true life "encounters" regarding Mandelbaum; again, Mandelbaum strongly denies that any songs on the album, including this one, is about him or his love life.

"Honeymoon Anthem" is considered to be the most romantic and sensual track on the album and talks about a couple madly in love who go on a romantic getaway. The song was initially written as a poem by Athanasiadis and is inspired by a "milestone moment", as he describes, that happened to him the night before when he was sixteen years old; he also cites his first trip to Iceland as inspiration for writing the poem (and later song). "Teamwork" is a song about teamwork and working together and staying united as a team. The song was inspired by the band's fondess of international sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics. "Sirens" talks of falling in love and entering in a relationship with a woman who is considered dangerous and a "femme fatale". "Sirens" was inspired by the three sirens in the epic poem Odysseus.

"Guess WHO" is a considerably provocative track that is meant as a HIV/AIDS awareness song. Lyrically, it talks of a young promiscuous man who is "sexually irresponsible" and outrightly refuses to practice safe sex. As the song progresses, consequently, the man contracts the disease and later dies from it. The song was written as a cautionary tale to those who are promiscuous and refuses to practice safe sex. The "WHO" in the title is purposely capatalized and is reference to the World Health Organization (WHO). "Write Me A Song" is simply about music appreciation and is meant to be a "love song" of sorts to music. "Young Forever", the final track of the album, is about a person who gets nostalgic about his and his group of friends' supposed glory days when they were all younger and still in their youth. "Young Forever" was purposefully put at the end of the album as the final track because the band felt it would make a "perfect ending".

Composition
The album is an alternative pop album that incorporates elements of multiple sub-genres of pop music, and also dance and electronica. All the same, the album is generally an alternative album. All of the songs were produced by Shawn Middlesbrough.

"All I Need (All I Don't)" was remixed from the original state of the band's rendition of the song. Initially a mellow and acoustic-driven song, for the album the song was remixed to be more pop-driven and uptempo. Synthesizers were added to this arrangement. The band apparently were surprised by the remixed album version of their rendition of the song but mainly had a positive reaction towards it. "So Mainstream" is a mid-tempo song that incorporates elements of sunshine pop, surf rock, and guitar pop to give it a distinct "summery" feel. "Streets of Gold" is a mid-tempo song that can be described as anthemic. Athanasiadis sings his upper chest and head register and falsetto on the song.

"That's What They Always Say" is meant to sound like something "you play while driving through a red-light district of a city", as described by van Cleef. The song is slightly inspired by electropop, electronica, and 1980s new wave and pop music. "At A Party" is known for having a variety of sounds, and during the recording of the album, would be the band's first foray into dealing with dance-inspired music, something that was always either liked or disliked by certain members of the band. "At A Party" is inspired by dance music, dance-pop, synthpop, and during its middle eight, Oriental-inspired music. The composition of the song was inspired by and meant as a tribute to the American city of San Francisco, California. "Dirty Young Man" is an uptempo song that incorporates synthpop and rock guitars which gives it a noticeable "Las Vega-style" sound. Athanasiadis' vocals on the song are layered with each of the vocals he laid down per two takes for the track.

"Honeymoon Anthem" is meant to sound "sensual, sexy, and soothing" and inspired by "mood music". Indeed, the song contains elements of pop, adult contemporary, and, to a lesser extent, urban music. Van Cleef noted that the song has a "sleepy, soothing, lullaby feel to it". The song's melody and composition was inspired by Icelandic pop music. In the song, Athanasiadis sings the song in sultry low voice register while Kesh and Mandelbaum sing additional vocals on the song. "Teamwork" is meant to sound anthemic and is an uptempo song. The song's anthemic sound was inspired reportedly and oddly inspired by the 2000 Summer Olympics; it is also inspired by Australian and New Zealander rock music. With the beat of the song meant sound as a giant "handclap" of sorts, the song for the first time ever does not feature Athanasiadis predominantly singing lead on the song. Kesh sings lead vocals throughout most of the song, while Athanasiadis (with additional vocals from Mandelbaum) sings the middle eight only. "Sirens" incorporates trance and electronica music, as well as pop, and heavily uses AutoTune throughout the song; mostly the vocals sound as if they are talking or rapping the lyrics instead of really singing it. Athanasiadis recorded the song not knowing that AutoTune would be added and reacted poorly when he heard the final AutoTuned version of the song. The song was said to be inspired by "girl group pop" as well.

"Guess WHO" was fully inspired and modeled after 1980s pop music and was meant to sound "just like an Hall & Oates record". The melody for "Guess WHO" was inspired by the Hall & Oates rendition of "Family Man" (which was originally done by Mike Oldfield). "Write Me A Song" is an uptempo song that is meant to sound "extremely happy and is designed to make you feel free". The song incorporates elements of synthpop and features Athanasiadis singing his upper chest and head register, as well falsetto. "Young Forver" is a sentimental track that is meant to sound "understated but still anthemic"; basically, the song is meant to sound like a "subtle anthem". Vocally, all of the members of the group sing the full song in harmony except for certain single lines where lead singer Athanasiadis sings solo. Though all of the members sing the song in harmony, it was revealed that Athanasiadis' vocals were slightly turned up louder to make his voice stand out "a little bit" more.

Skits
Through out the album, skits are heard to precede each track and, in the case of the final track, to succeed it as well. The skits plays up to the album's visual and theatrical college-related concept and are meant to segue into the following track. The skits that precede the tracks often hint or give a subtle message as to what the next track could possibly be about. For instance, in the case of "That's What They Always", the skit that precedes features a student who is struggling to pay his tuition and is in need of financial aid. He is then approached by a person who offers him a mysterious job. Though, "That's What They Always Say" is not about financial aid in any form of fashion, the song's preceding skit and the song itself both talked about financial issues. The mysterious job in the skit was also used to subtly hint at what the message is behind "That's What They Always Say" (which is about male prostitution and making a living as a gigolo).

All of the skits were acted out only by the members of the band. For sound effects that involves the skit to sound as if it is in a crowd setting, multiple takes were taken of the band having multiple random conversations and were later overlapped on each other. For the skit preceding "At A Party", audible noises from an actual party that the band was invited to were recorded.

Artwork, titling, concept
The album's artwork is meant to present the album as an concept album of sorts that revolves around a college-related theme. The cover art and inlays often involve college themes to them and mostly feature a header at the top of the page that is college-related and pictures that is related to that particular header. The album's color scheme for the artwork involve only two colors: green and grey, though sometimes black is often involved. The color scheme for the artwork was inspired by the band's fondness for the Harry Potter book/movie series, particularly of the "house" that is featured in one of Hogwarts (the main setting for the series) called Slytherin, which uses green and grey as their "house colors".

The album was called Syllabus to reflect the album's visual college concept. "Syllabus" was also a former name for the band as well.

Overall, the college concept was meant to express the band's fondness for college life and culture, and as well as education. According to Athanasiadis, we "love living on a college campus. There is so much to do. Not mention, it is a good place to observe how people interact and what the culture is like on that campus. I still cannot believe that a college campus can have a culture of its own! Anyway, we factoring all of that, we decided to make a little college campus of our own...and within our own album too!"

Release and promotion
Syllabus was released in the UK and also worlwide on 6 February 2012 and in the United States and Canada the following day on 7 February 2012. The album was initially supposed to be released on 16 January 2012, the same day that their second single "At A Party" was supposed to be released. For a variety of reasons regarding the band's management dealing with personal problems and the sudden and threatening head injury of band member Breckenridge, both the album and the single were pushed back. The album was pushed back to its final release date (6 February) while the single was pushed back to 5 March 2012. The album has twelve tracks and only comes in one edition. The band outrightly refused to do a "deluxe" or "special" edition for the album as they saw that as "pointless and senseless".

The band ended up having a "listening party" on their official blog and also on the website of their record label, Blacklight Records. The "listening party" was a track-by-track reveal with each track being posted separately per day. Before each track was revealed, an audio message by the band was recorded and could be played by the listener before they decided to listen to track, explaining what each track on the album was about and what would be its meaning. The track-by-track reveal was supposed to take place for twelve consecutive days (since the album has twelve tracks) and was supposed to be done on the day the album was released. However, the album reveal went over by almost a week and finally concluded the Friday on the week the album was released. On the day the album was released, the band revealed the artwork and inlays to the album on their official blog.

Singles

 * "So Mainstream" was the band's debut single and their first single to be lifted from Syllabus. It was released in the United Kingdom and Ireland on 21 November 2011 and in the United States and Canada on 22 November 2011. It reached #3 in the UK and Ireland, becoming their first top three singles in those countries while debuting in the top twenty in Canada and the US.


 * "At A Party" was the second single from the album. The solo album version of the single was supposed to be released but when postponed and later re-announced a single mix was made featuring Blonde Ambition as the official release. Supposed to be released in January 2012, it was released in March 2012 instead. "At A Party" peaked at #3 on the UK Singles Chart.


 * "Teamwork" is the third single from the album. The single mix of the song featured Kleo. The video of the single premiered first, thus announcing that it would be the new single from the band since the song did not premiere on the internet or radio first nor did not even have a prior released press statement from the band or the band's label, Blacklight, either. The single was purposefully released on 23 July 2012, the same week that the 2012 Summer Olympics started. The band, for months before, had hinted and later confirmed that "Teamwork" would be a single and would be released on Olympic. They did not officially announce as a single, however, until late June 2012. The single peaked at #3 in the UK, becoming the band's third consecutive #3 single there, and #10 in the United States.


 * "Honeymoon Anthem" was released as the fourth single from the album. It was released worldwide except in the UK where it, as elsewhere, was planned to be the third single from the album before being replaced by "Teamwork". The band has plans to release the single in the UK in 2013.


 * "That's What They Always Say" is the confirmed fifth single from the album. Originally supposed to be released in October 2012, the single will be released in 2013.

Promotional singles

 * "All I Need (All I Don't)" was the band's debut promotional single and their first ever release. Originally recorded in 2003 by Loud Females, Curriculum memorably posted a YouTube video of themselves covering the song which attracted millions of views and positive feedback. The band recorded a studio version of their rendition and released it on US iTunes; they later admitted that it was a promotional single and not their first official single, which was "So Mainstream". Due to downloads alone, the single reached #63 on the US Billboard Hot 100. Though it was planned to be released in the UK as a promotional single, plans were cancelled in favor of the band promoting "So Mainstream" more. The band confirmed that "All I Need (All I Don't)" would be on the album.

Critical response
Upon release, Syllabus managed to receive overwhemingly positive reviews from critics and the public. Many complimented the lyrical content of some songs and also as an album overall. Production and overall vocal performance were also praised. One critic felt that Syllabus could "introduce indie music to a whole new wider audience who is currently so focused on liking thumping and trance-like dance pop music". The album did receive some (minimal) mixed reviews as well but overall managed to predominantly received a lot of praise and garner a lot of positive reactions to its content.

Commericial performance
Expected to do well, or at least decently, on the charts and in sales, the album managed to exceed expectations.

Syllabus debuted and peaked at #1 on the UK Albums Chart, were it sold 103,630 copies in its first week. It was certified Silver by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) after its first week of sales. To date, the album has sold more than 757,000 copies and has been certified 2x Platinum by the URAPS (Urapopstar Recording Association Phonographic Selection) in the UK.

The album also debuted at #2 in Australia, #4 in Ireland, and #6 in New Zealand; it has been certified Gold in New Zealand by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RAINZ). In the United States and Canada, the album debuted at #2 in both countries. In the United States, the album sold more than 136,000 copies in its first week of sales and has sold a total of more than 1,000,000 copies; it has been certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

The album has also charted at #31 in Germany.

Personnel

 * Writing - Gregory Preston Athanasiadis, Phillip Mandelbaum, Wyatt van Cleef, Dana Breckenridge, Stephanie Kesh, Ava Knox, Drew Peters, Chris Peters, and Ben Johnston
 * Composition and production - Shawn Middlesbrough
 * Lead/main vocals - Gregory Preston Athanasiadis; Stephanie Kesh (on "Teamwork")
 * Background vocals - Gregory Preston Athanasiadis, Phillip Mandelbaum, and Stephanie Kesh.
 * Additonal lead vocals - Phillip Mandelbaum and Stephanie Kesh.
 * Additional vocals - Curriculum (all members; on "Young Forever")
 * Guitars - Gregory Preston Athanasiadis, Phillip Mandelbaum, and Dana Breckenridge
 * Drums - Wyatt van Cleef
 * Keyboards/piano - Stephanie Kesh