Composition
What band is comparable to Some Nights?
Some Nights
The album and the band's music has received several comparisons to Queen. "Rolling Stones"'s Jody Rosen, called the album a mix of "close harmony chorales, showy key changes, a dash of Queen here, a dollop of Les Miz there". In an interview with "Fuse", producer Jeff Bhasker also stated that the album's lead single "We Are Young" "had a Queen/Freddie Mercury vibe to it". Marcus Glimer of "The A.V. Club" wrote that the album featured "more synthetic elements and drum machines" than their debut album "Aim and Ignite" and compared the beat to "All Alone" to a hip-hop track. NPR columnist Daoud Tyler-Ameen commented that the album might be the start of a new phase of music, in which musicians would infuse the "sounds and rhythms once associated with hip-hop" with their pop music. The album's lyrics have been called "plaintive", for dealing with themes of loneliness, self-worth, introspection, paranoia and existentialism, contrasting with the album's "anthemic" music. Tyler-Ameen considered the album "remarkable for its sheer optimism", despite the sad and mournful lyrics, Rosen wrote that "Ruess' knack for the anthemic is matched by Gen-Y humor – emo self-deprecation that leavens the bombast". while Marcus Gilmer praised Ruess' "prose-style lyrics", similar to his work in his previous band, The Format. Ruess later commented on the importance of lyrics to him, saying that he took "great pride", after he finished writing them. He also considered most lyrics written by current musicians to be "dumbed down", partially causing "rock music's current woes".