I Was So Unpopular In School and Now They're Giving Me This Beautiful Bicycle

I Was So Unpopular In School and Now They're Giving Me This Beautiful Bicycle is the band's first album, released in 2004.

Background and Recording
The band, together with its signature label Love Will Pay the Bills Records, was created by Lars Lindquist in 2004. It had in its ranks Lars himself, Maria Carlsson, Gustav Kronqvist, John Dunsö, Sofia Janninge and Lisa Haglind.

At first they recorded demo songs and sent them to mainstream labels, but as they never received a strongly positive response from any of them, they decided to start their own label. This album is the first result from such adventure.

Personnel
These are the people credited as band members for the album :


 * Maria Carlsson - Bass guitar (inferred )
 * John Dunsö - Acoustic guitar, and vocals (inferred )
 * Lisa Haglind - Accordion, trumpet, and synths (inferred )
 * Fia Janninge - Percussion, violin, and vocals (inferred )
 * Gustav Kronkvist - Banjo, electric guitar, and vocals (inferred )
 * Lars Lindquist - Vocals, tambourine, and wurlitzer (inferred )

Linn Westergren, Olle Jacobsen and Johan Harding were thanked for their contribution in the making of the record, though the nature of the contribution was not clear.

Release
The album was released on May 2nd, with an online announcement on their official website. It had to be bought via e-mail, and it only became available for free download a year and a half later.

Themes
The album deals with normalization, arguments, break-ups, nostalgic feelings and the sweet cheerful optimism that pervails a big chunk of Billie the Vision's works. No theme is particularly prevalent, although sad songs make up for 6 out of 11 songs.

The World of Pablo
Main article: The World of Pablo - First Album

In the story of The World of Pablo, Lilly, one of the most important characters in the story, is introduced. In this album's lyrics the name "Pablo" is never mentioned, though; he remains unidentified throughout the CD. The songs about arguments translate into the story as the fights Lilly and Pablo have, with Summercat and Ask For More telling the story of their break-up, which ends the storyline for this album.

Track list

 * 1) Summercat
 * 2) Good and Bad
 * 3) Nobel Square
 * 4) Ask For More
 * 5) Do You Remember
 * 6) Stay Awake
 * 7) City
 * 8) Apologize
 * 9) No One Knows You
 * 10) Jackass
 * 11) Want to Cannot Help

Reception and Reviews
The band started to appear on radio shows such as "P3 demo" and "Werme Lens" as early as May with their singles Summercat (Single) and Good and Bad, released as singles. They also made their national TV debut in Sweden at the "Go'kvall" show - weeks later, the producers gave them very positive feedback, saying they had never received such approving reactions from the viewers in the entire history of the show.

Jon O'Brien said the album is "a combination of cutesy indie, traditional folk and rather unique lyrical content", adding that the band sounds like other Swedish bands such as I'm from Barcelona and The Concretes.

The album got other "great reviews in the press". Panorama gave it a 5 out of 6 grade. Dygnet Runt and ArbetarBladet both rated it 4 out of 5, and bt.se noted that songs like Ask For More and Apologize "go straight to the heart". It also got nominated to the Manifest Awards.

More people reviewed the album as popularity grew for the band. IndieSpinZone wrote that "this is THE best album ever recorded in the history of popular music", urging readers to buy the album for it was "the album Dylan should have made but couldn't because his brain is bigger than his heart. (and he can't sing either)". Jyoti Mishra, the one man behind the British musical act White Town, wrote that the band had a "pure pop sense that (currently) only Scandinavian bands have", and also "the crucial combination of poppy music with very, very good lyrics". He completed by saying he "couldn’t imagine any contemporary British band coming up with anything as simple, passionate or heartfelt as ‘Noble Square.’".