Boys and Girls in America is the third studio album by the Hold Steady, released on October 3, 2006, by Vagrant Records. On August 18, 2006, first single "Chips Ahoy!" was released as a free download from music site Pitchfork Media. The second single, "Stuck Between Stations" began to appear on campus radio playlists in November 2006. Backing vocals for the track "Chillout Tent" are provided by Soul Asylum's Dave Pirner and the Reputation's Elizabeth Elmore. Dana Kletter (ex-Blackgirls, Dear Enemy, and Hole's Live Through This) contributed backing vocals to "Chips Ahoy!", "You Can Make Him Like You", and "First Night". The album title is a line taken from the opening lines of the song "Stuck Between Stations" ("There are nights when I think that Sal Paradise was right/Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together"), which in turn refers to a quote from American novelist and poet Jack Kerouac's 1957 novel On the Road and its narrator, Sal Paradise. The title is repeated in the lyrics in "First Night." Boys and Girls in America has sold 94,000 albums as of April 2010.

Critical reception

The album received a metascore of 85 out of 100 on Metacritic, making it tied with four other albums for the 12th best-reviewed album of 2006. Magnet and The Onion's AV Club named it the best album of 2006. Pitchfork rated Boys and Girls in America 9.4 out of 10, and named it the fifth-best album of the year. They later ranked it as the 64th best album of the decade. Yahoo! Music ranked the album #9 on their list of the top 25 albums of 2006. The song "Stuck Between Stations" was ranked #12 on Pitchfork's list of the top 100 songs of 2006 and #63 on the best of 2000's list. "Chillout Tent" was ranked #33 in Rolling Stone's list of 100 best songs of 2006. The song "Massive Nights" was always used at the Beginning of Colin Murray's Radio 1 Show, after the words, "New music, Alternative Classics, Drums" due to the drum roll introduction to the song.

Other versions

The song "Girls Like Status" was featured on the album Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters Colon the Soundtrack.

Track listing

All songs written by Craig Finn, Tad Kubler and Franz Nicolay; except where noted.

Bonus tracks on Japanese edition

Bonus tracks on Australian edition

Bonus tracks on U.S. iTunes edition

Personnel

Adapted from the album liner notes.

The Hold Steady

Additional musicians

Technical