Album Review: everyone for ten minutes - Bleachers

Bleachers have been around for a hot minute now, but they often slip through the cracks of indie pop. Off the back of the millennial optimism anthem ‘We Are Young’, Jack Antonoff’s side project Bleachers originally existed as a departure from the immense pop success achieved via ‘fun.’. Antonoff saw Bleachers as a space to explore new sounds and more personal narratives, and this gradually turned into a space to produce an even stronger dose of millennial optimism.

In late May, Bleachers released their fifth studio album ‘everyone for ten minutes’. Following a two year break between records, ‘everyone for ten minutes’ promised to be the lo-fi soundtrack of a quaint summer. Ahead of their November/ December UK tour, Bleachers are setting out to bring that sound back.

For me, Bleacher’s 2017 album ‘Gone Now’ is a great example of manufactured nostalgia. With hits like ‘Hate That You Know Me’ and ‘Don’t Take The Money’ plastered across its tracklist, this album is able to take you back to a time that existed but you definitely did not live in. When I listen to it I reminisce on the time in my life when I lived in 2012 Brooklyn and I was painfully hopeful that my internship at a publishing house would develop into a creative full time job (none of this happened, obviously). Bleachers define that very-of-its-time hipster image, and it definitely helps that Jack Antonoff still wears those thick-rimmed glasses and stripy tees.

‘everyone for ten minutes’ opens with ‘sideways’ and immediately it’s clear that Antonoff has taken some time off to slow down, figuratively and literally. It’s an unspoken, maybe chronically online thing that Antonoff has recently been the subject of much discussion regarding his love life. The publication of Lena Dunham’s book just before the release of this album has him labelled as ‘the bad ex’ by a lot of cross-pollinated audiences as of late, but music always comes first. With ‘sideways’, Antonoff revels in his newfound love and gives a dismissive, subtle middle finger to all the discussion surrounding his personal life. Just enough of an anecdote is presented in this song, alongside crashing drums and that classic Bleachers wall of pop noise, for it to be obvious that he’s still romantacising it all.

As you move through the album, it’s hard to deny that Antonoff knows how to produce a crisp sound. Tracks like ‘we should talk’ and ‘you and forever’ (note how not a single song title is capitalised? That’s the millennial way…) begin to incorporate every tried and tested way to make a pop song technically good: artful autotune, a huge variety of horns, grandly building pre-choruses, eighties synths, vaguely insightful lyrics. There is so much going on in a good way and, logistically, it should satisfy that pop-hungry urge within me, yet I feel something is missing. Maybe it’s the punchiness of Bleachers’ earlier work that did such a good job of masking frustration and energy as danciness?

However, once met with ‘dancing’, an acoustic ode to lost memories and living with heartbreak, you get reminded of the good that maturing can do. The way this song builds from bare and stripped-back to a cathartic release, and then back to quiet again feels like the perfect direction for Bleachers to go in. Whilst the earlier perfectly formulated pop songs could easily be denoted as great songs, this is where I feel this album excels. Moving into ‘she’s from before’, a wispy western tune, the album loses some shape and starts feeling like Father John Misty but without the scathing sarcasm. But overall it is the second half that reminds me of Bleachers’ undeniable cleverness. The tenth track ‘i’m not joking’, despite the sickeningly sweet lyrics, is a stand-out for me. This feels like a real belter and the instrumental is layered beyond belief to bring out emotions you weren’t sure you had. Bleachers sure do know how to make a pop record.

Bleachers tour the UK in November and December of 2026. You can find the full list of dates here:

NOVEMBER

Tue 24 Bristol O2 Academy

Wed 25 Glasgow O2 Academy

Thu 26 Leeds O2 Academy

Sat 28 Birmingham O2 Academy

Mon 30 Dublin 3 Olympia

DECEMBER

Wed 02 Manchester O2 Apollo

Thu 03 London Eventim Apollo

Fri 04 London Eventim Apollo

Grab tickets to the shows here!