Experience has made the irritatingly upbeat ones easier to shrug off; the depressingly frank ones less scary.
Mr. Kassin switched between gentle tunes and upbeat ones laced with Afropop guitars, carnival beats and siren sounds.
Most of the songs trudge along, methodical and steadfast, and even the upbeat ones are all grown up, like "Good Ol' Boredom," which proclaims relief that life now is "not that exciting after all we've been through".
They played for more than an hour, dark songs interspersed with more upbeat ones.
They have a solid interplay through the mostly moody tracks, but the few upbeat ones like "Lovin' Life" don't feel as authentic.
In general, I think, how upbeat one feels about a debilitating bout of curable illness relies a lot on the advantage or disadvantage of the state of your life before diagnosis.
I'm usually the upbeat one, but even I had to admit that Seward looked depressing.
But his over-all message was an upbeat one, and, from that perspective, the Nobel award was well-timed.
It was a rough first day for him, but an upbeat one for his teammates, who seemed ready for a trip to the College World Series.
