5 Seconds Of Summer have the unfortunate privilege of being one of the very few groups I loved as a child that I still love now.

I wouldn’t say I stan them nowadays, in the same way I wouldn’t say I stan anything. I likely wouldn’t jump to go see them live (unless it was cheap…which it wouldn’t be. Alas!). But I do listen to their music regularly.

Their first album, the self-titled “5 Seconds Of Summer” was released in 2014, so I was 12. I remember being obsessed with it when it came out, to the point where I went to see them live. They were my first concert! Me and my friend couldn’t afford great tickets by virtue of being, well, 12, so we were sitting at the very back of the arena. Before the show, they were playing random songs over the speakers, and that was my very first introduction to Green Day. Basket Case and American Idiot have remained in my music library to this day (shocking, I know, but I’d never heard of them before this). To this day, I love the original 5sos album. Every single song is still in my library, I listen to it at least once every couple weeks, and regularly belt the silly little harmonies of Don’t Stop in the shower.

An aside – I cannot believe 5sos themselves have said they don’t like Don’t Stop. Don’t Stoppers rise. That song is so good. Anyway.

My favourite songs aside from Don’t Stop are Voodoo Doll, 18, and Mrs All American. I used to sing 18 so very often, and really mean those lyrics – if only I knew what turning 18 would actually entail. There’s a video of them performing an acoustic version of Voodoo Doll that I would watch on repeat and sing along to, to the point where I’d forget the actual lyrics because I was so used to Luke switching them around by accident. I wanted to learn how to play the drums because of Ashton in that video, to which my family bought me an electric guitar because they thought drums would be too loud…not quite the same thing but I do still love and play the guitar often. I also cannot for the life of me find this, it may have been deleted, but they did a livestream once where they performed a lot of the songs off this album over the course of maybe an hour and chatted in-between, and I remember having the time of my life listening to it live.

Their first album is just pure joy, the most classic teenage fuckery and a little bit of misery wrapped up into a very well-produced bow. It’s naïve, it’s charming, it’s something full of experiences that I looked forward to understanding as I grew, and slowly outgrew without even realising that many of these things had come and gone. I listen to it now with fondness, thinking back on that little boy who wanted nothing more than to know what walking back from the bar with a pretty woman felt like, what being in love felt like, how it would feel to turn 18 and be on top of the world. It took a while, but you got pretty much everything you wanted, little guy. Your jaw would drop if you could see me now.

Another aside – I will be so honest, I am a man with blonde hair and two lip rings. And I can only blame Luke for this. I wanted him so bad I just sort of…turned into him when I was about 18? I have not changed this up. The look works for me though. Thanks Luke. You’re a real one.

Their second album, “Sounds Good Feels Good”, was released a year later in 2015. Honestly? I don’t really reach for it, and I didn’t really listen to many of the songs at the time. I’d still play their first, but by this point I was quite firmly entrenched in K-pop hell again, and had no time for Luke Hemmings when EXO’s Lay was right there singing Call Me Baby. Sorry, Luke. I do like a few songs from it, especially as an adult now – She’s Kinda Hot and Permanent Vacation especially. Wish I could go on one of those.

But then, oh then, they released “Youngblood” in 2018. And, well, again, I didn’t listen to it at first. In fact, from what I remember, it took me a year or so to get around to it – about 2019, when I was 17. And I was obsessed. I still loved their first album, I still didn’t really care about their second. But this third album felt like everything I had wanted. It felt grown-up compared to the pre-teen 5sos self-titled album I was used to. To this day, I love this album, and I think it’s a great show of growth from both the boys and me – young-adulthood in an album, with all the messiness, heartbreak, anger, and other complicated feelings somehow wrapped up in a neat little (once more) well-produced bow. I had the pleasure of travelling to Japan in 2023 about a month after breaking up with my partner of the time, and you know damn well I posted a picture of some art in a museum with “Woke Up In Japan” in the background. Ghost Of You is so beautiful, and I think Monster Among Men would easily make it into my top 30 songs of all time…which may not seem like a big deal, but trust me, it sure is.

The final album I want to talk about is CALM, released in 2020. I love this album so very much. I was just about to turn 18 when it came out, but I don’t think I listened to it until after I was 18 and had moved out. Red Desert still gives me chills – it’s such an incredible departure from anything they’d ever done before in the best way possible. My grandad, who is a staunch classic rock enjoyer, and wouldn’t be caught dead listening to their first 2 albums, loves Teeth and we listen to it almost every time we’re driving somewhere. Wildflower calls back on their cheeky sex references from their first album with more adult voices attached and I love it. High is just a wonderful, wonderful song.

These three albums personify three different life stages for me – my pre-teen years, my actual teen years, and my current adult life. I still listen to all three on the regular, and I’m so glad that I do. While I’m not the stan that I was in my early years, and in fact don’t think I could tell you a single thing about any of the boys by now, I will forever be grateful that I started listening to them.

I also have to give them credit – I’ve been talking about my growth a lot, but I should also say that across all of their albums (including the ones I haven’t mentioned here) they’ve grown significantly. Each album is a snapshot into what they’ve been through, what they’re doing at any given time, their mindset and thoughts and feelings. The sound itself is different in each one – it matures in the same way their voices, faces, and emotions do, and I think that is so beautiful and so rare to have it captured in such a clear way.

I love 5sos, and I really hope that whatever they release next will follow this pattern.

Also, can we take a moment to appreciate this wallpaper background. What a fucking throwback.