Some Nights (2012)

Some Nights is the second and final studio album by the American pop rock group fun. It was released on February 21, 2012, through Fueled by Ramen. It was recorded in 2011 and produced by Jeff Bhasker. After signing to the new label, the band began to work on Some Nights for over nine months throughout 2011.

"We Are Young" was released as the lead single from the album and bolstered the band to mainstream success with the aid of television and advertising. It topped the US Billboard Hot 100 for six weeks and Alternative Songs for two weeks, with over six million digital downloads. The title track was commissioned as the second single and has reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, selling 6.8 million digital downloads as well as becoming their second No. 1 on Alternative Songs. The band later won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist, and "We Are Young" won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year. Fun received four other Grammy nominations: two for "We Are Young" and two for the album itself.

Background

Fun signed to Fueled by Ramen in late 2010. Lead vocalist Nate Ruess, who had apprehensions about joining a major label in the past, recalled the switch being "very, very easy" for the group, stating that both parties approached it as if they "knew what [they] were getting into with each other." The transition was in the works with the label for almost nine months, when the head of the label reached out to the band. Ruess was flattered that employed workers for the label would buy their own tickets to Fun shows and "talk about us with the passion you'd generally reserve for an artist you're working with." After lengthy discussions within the band, the band decided to give the label a try.

Ruess recalls that he was listening to "so much hip-hop" during the production that it became a big influence for him, specifically Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The band felt inspired and gradually began working on new songs, each carrying an obvious hip-hop influence. Consciously, the band began working in the hip-hop factor and realized they wanted a hip-hop producer. After scanning the liner notes of his other hip-hop records, Ruess noticed that Jeff Bhasker was one of the most common names. Bhasker was preoccupied at the time working with Beyoncé but Ruess was persistent in meeting with him.

Recording and production

The most common creative process in the recording of Some Nights began with Ruess. Ruess would come in with lyrics and a melody, leading Andrew Dost and guitarist Jack Antonoff to build chord structure and instrumentation from there, or "support that melody". Dost noted that in recording, despite the composer's well-defined framework, the individuals' egos "pretty much disappear" and "everybody is happy to work towards the best possible song" cohesively together. The dynamic between Bhasker and the band in the studio was mutually inspired, as Bhasker had never worked with a rock band before and Fun had never worked with a hip-hop producer. Bhasker particularly enjoyed recording guitars with guitarist Jack Antonoff as he was not used to it, and Dost felt hearing Bhasker compose beats was "mind-blowing".