Sounds Good Feels Good is 5 Seconds of Summer's second studio album that was released on October 23, 2015 by Capitol Records & Hi or Hey.
Tracklisting[]
- Money 2:54
- She's Kinda Hot 3:36
- Hey Everybody! 3:17
- Permanent Vacation 3:26
- Jet Black Heart 3:42
- Catch Fire 3:27
- Waste The Night 4:27
- Vapor 2:59
- Castaway 3:35
- Fly Away 3:33
- Invisible 3:33
- Airplanes 3:39
- San Francisco 4:19
- Outer Space / Carry On 6:39
Album Background[]
Following the release of their live album "LiveSOS" in 2014, 5 Seconds of Summer took a break for the holidays.
Aside from the track "Invisible" (which was penned in August 2014 at Ocean Way recording studio in Nashville, Tennessee), the majority of the album was written in 2015 in Los Angeles. The band flew to Los Angeles in early 2015 to start writing and recording what was to become their second album.
On their headline tour beginning in early May, the band began performing "Permanent Vacation" which was a new song off their album.
On August 12, 2015, they announced the title and cover art for the record, with pre-orders starting on August 14th in each time zone. Each pre-order got an instant download of the new tracks "She's Kinda Hot", "Fly Away", "Jet Black Heart", "Money", and "Hey Everybody".
Many songs touch on severe topics like depression and mental health. The band stated that the album was written as a way for them to work through personal issues, and from there they worked to make it an album for their fans, as well.
In an interview with Notion magazine, the band stated: "With the first album we were 16 years old when we wrote it. But now we’ve been on tour for four and a half years, we’ve experienced stuff. We’ve written about a lot of different things on this album because we’re older and we’ve experienced more of life, so we’ve got more to talk about."
Album Cover[]
The album cover for "Sounds Good Feels Good" was designed by Richard Andrews, who created the album cover for the band's last two albums: "5 Seconds of Summer" and "LiveSOS."
Annie Zaleski of The A.V. Club described the cover as a "clear precedent of the early-’00s pop-punk boom."
Chart Performance[]
"Sounds Good Feels Good" debuted at number one in 5 Seconds of Summer's home country of Australia, with 16,150 album sales, outselling The X Factor Australia judge Chris Isaak's album, "First Comes the Night" by over 10,000 units.
It became the band’s second number-one album in their home country.
In the United States, the album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with 192,000 album-equivalent units (179,000 in pure album sales). They became the first band (not vocal group) to have their first two full-length albums debut at number one in the United States.
Critical Reception[]
"Sounds Good Feels Good" was generally praised for its maturity compared to the band's debut, but was criticized for its lack of cohesiveness and cliche themes.
On Metacritic, the album gained an average score of 67 based on 11 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Awarding the album four stars at Alternative Press, Maria Sherman states: "The band have a real responsibility to the consumer, and Sounds Good Feels Good delivers...It's 5SOS' attempt to find community in their new sound and those who support it, a concept that lives both on the record and well outside of it. It's a strong sentiment: follow them and you might find something to relate to. That's a powerful thing."
The staff from Rock Sound published a review of the album in their October 2015 issue giving the album an eight out of ten rating, where they write: "Album number two finds the four man phenomenon firming up their identity and becoming their own band" and closing with the remarks "this is the New Broken Scene, it sounds good and it feels even better".
Kerrang! awarded it a 4/5 rating, commenting: "Sounds Good Feels Good won't change the world, but it might just change your mind".