Draft:December (Neck Deep song)

December is a song by Welsh rock band Neck Deep The song was featured on Neck Deep's sophomore album, Life's Not out to Get You. The song is among one of the bands most popular, with the song amassing 100 billion streams on Spotify and reaching a gold certification in the U.S. both in 2023.

Despite not originally being a single, the song would go onto one of Neck Deep's biggest hits.

Background
After the release of Neck Deep's debut album, Wishful Thinking, the pop-punk collective gained a cult-following amongst fans. Lead vocalist Ben Barlow would drop out of University, and members would become fully committed to the band. In late 2014, Neck Deep would start work on their next studio album, with help from producers and writers Andrew Wade, Jeremy McKinnon, and Tom Denney. Ben Barlow revealed that he wanted their second album to be bigger than Wishful Thinking, and almost to how he would've wanted the latter album to sound.

Release & Reception
Life's Not out to Get You was released on August 14, 2015. The album received outstanding reviews from critics. December would serve as the album's slow and acoustic song. The song was received well by critics, with some praising Neck Deep for learning how to "slow down" the album and bring a slow acoustic melody into this album.

Alternatively, on the Target Exclusive edition of Life's Not Out to Get You, a full band version is featured. This version of the song includes all the band members, and strips away the acoustic element featured on the standard edition of the album. However, unlike the acoustic version of December, the full band version is not featured on any music platforms.

Meaning
The song is about vocalist Ben Barlow's ex-girlfriend. According to Barlow,

December (again)
December was re-recorded twice. The acoustic version was recorded again with Dashboard Confessional frontman Chris Carrabba. The song was again re-recorded with Blink-182 bassist and vocalist Mark Hoppus.

Background and release
After Neck Deep released Life's Not out to Get You, the band would re-record December for two more versions. The first being a re-recording of the acoustic version of December, this time with singer of Dashboard Confessional, Chris Carrabba singing the bridge of the song. Then, the band would release another version of December, titled: December (again). This version would be recorded with bassist and co-lead vocalist of blink-182, Mark Hoppus. Hoppus would produce this version, stripping away the acoustic nature of the original, in favor for a more pop-punk sounding track, a lot like the full band version, although there is quite the difference in the mix of the two versions. Both tracks would be released simultaneously as singles on July 18, 2016.