Alex Lahey: B-Grade University makes a case for the second take
Five songs become ten tracks in Alex Lahey's versions-heavy reunion album. The question is whether the second pass improves the grade.
BY JOLT Staff · JUL 17 2026 · 2 min readB-Grade University (Reunion Edition) is a record about versions. Released through Dead Oceans, it runs ten tracks and revisits five songs, giving 'Let's Go Out' three lives, 'You Don't Think You Like People Like Me' three lives, and 'Wes Anderson' two. Tegan and Sara appear on one version, triple j preserves another, and two songs are placed in a bathroom and a bedroom. Across the ten, the songs keep changing, and no take is the final word.
The first pass runs short and impatient. 'Ivy League' closes in 2:28, 'Let's Go Out' in 3:10, 'L-L-L-Leave Me Alone' in 3:25. The alternates take more room: the Bathroom 'Wes Anderson' stretches to 4:44, the Tegan and Sara version runs 4:11, the triple j take runs 4:04. Longer doesn't mean better here, but it does mean the songs are being given space to settle.
The best versions use that space well. 'Wes Anderson (Bathroom Version)' has a setting, a place where a song goes to be smaller. 'Let's Go Out (Bedroom Version)' promises the song at night, unplugged and unbothered. The Tegan and Sara feature is the strongest structural idea: a song called 'You Don't Think You Like People Like Me' gains a second voice, and the complaint turns into a conversation. Those three are the versions the reunion needed.
The flaw is volume. Tracks six through nine are all returns: the Tegan and Sara version, another 'Let's Go Out,' the Bathroom 'Wes Anderson,' and the Bedroom 'Let's Go Out.' On a thirty-seven-minute record, that is a logjam. Three versions of 'Let's Go Out' is a surplus, and the sequencing leaves the back half feeling like a storage room. The record argues that versions matter; it does not always prove that every version needed saving.
The reunion concept asks whether a B-grade song can graduate on a second pass. Sometimes it does: the Tegan and Sara pairing and the Bathroom version make the case. By the end, though, the record has repeated itself enough to feel less like a reunion than detention. Good idea, over-enrolled.
