| Dream Your Life Away | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Vance Joy |
| Cover: | Vance Joy - Dream Your Life Away.png |
| Released: | 5 September 2014 |
| Recorded: | 2012–2013 |
| Genre: | |
| Length: | 49:00 |
| Label: | Liberation Music |
| Producer: |
|
| Prev Title: | God Loves You When You're Dancing |
| Prev Year: | 2013 |
| Next Title: | Nation of Two |
| Next Year: | 2018 |
Dream Your Life Away is the debut studio album by Australian singer-songwriter Vance Joy. It was released in Australia on 5 September 2014 via Liberation Music. The album was released on 9 September 2014 in the US via Atlantic Records and worldwide via Warner Music. The album has peaked to number 1 on the Australian Albums Chart. A "Deluxe Edition" was released on 4 September 2015, consisting of two new tracks and five live tracks.[1]
As of January 2018, the album has worldwide sales over 2,000,000.[2]
During a performance in Boston, Vance Joy explained that the song "My Kind of Man" included advice his uncle once gave him when he was young.[3] But he later learned from his father that the quoted advice was actually from a Lynyrd Skynyrd song. Vance Joy noted that though the lyrics changed, the message stayed the same: "Find something you love and understand."
The album also includes the singles "From Afar" and "Riptide", previously released on Joy's debut EP God Loves You When You're Dancing.
Timothy Monger from AllMusic noted that the album is "built around the centerpiece of "Riptide" and that it "offers up a dozen or so additional songs in that familiar mold of romantic, introspective, acoustic folk-pop". He felt that the album "focuses on gently picked lovelorn pleas and somewhat uninspired romantic phrasing" and commented that it "seems a bit too middle of the road to really distinguish him from the crowded pack of similar young bards." Clash writer Jack Scourfield praised the album's "heartfelt honesty" that can "spread the youthful nostalgia adeptly across any generational gaps." He also noted that the album "does become prone to dragging during some of its less well-defined, slower numbers." Jaymz Clements for Rolling Stone Australia gave Dream Your Life Away a positive review, stating that the album effectively "[shows] there's more to Vance Joy than "Riptide"", noting that the album is "confident, self-assured and classically Australian, with an appeal that's universal."
On 13 September 2014 the album entered the Australian Albums Chart at number one. It is the eleventh album to reach number one for an Australian act in 2014 and the first time ever that the Liberation label have landed back-to-back number ones after Jimmy Barnes's album reached number one the previous week.[4] In the United States, the album peaked at number 17 on the US Billboard 200 chart and number two on the Top Alternative Albums chart. The album was eventually certified two-times Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for combined sales and album-equivalent units of over two million units in the United States.
All tracks are written by Vance Joy.
| Hungarian Physical Albums (MAHASZ)[5] | 40 |
|---|
| Position | ||
| Australian Albums (ARIA)[6] | 44 | |
|---|---|---|
| US Top Alternative Albums (Billboard)[7] | 45 | |
| US Folk Albums (Billboard)[8] | 15 | |
| US Top Rock Albums (Billboard)[9] | 74 | |
| Chart (2015) | Position | |
| Australian Albums (ARIA)[10] | 16 | |
| Swedish Albums (Sverigetopplistan)[11] | 86 | |
| US Billboard 200[12] | 66 | |
| US Top Rock Albums (Billboard)[13] | 17 | |
| Chart (2016) | Position | |
| Australian Albums (ARIA)[14] | 70 | |
| Chart (2017) | Position | |
| Australian Albums (ARIA)[15] | 64 | |
| Chart (2018) | Position | |
| Australian Albums (ARIA)[16] | 56 |
| Position | ||
| Australian Albums (ARIA)[17] | 73 |
|---|
| Release date | Format | Label | Catalog | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australia[18] | 5 September 2014 | Liberation | LMCD0247 | |
| New Zealand[19] | ||||
| Various[20] [21] | 9 September 2014 | 7567867185 | ||
| Australia[22] | 24 September 2014 | LP | Liberation | A5451701 |
| Australia[23] | 4 September 2015 | LMCD0314 | ||
| Australia[24] | 14 September 2018 | Limited edition LP | LRLP0005 |