Jimmy Eat World Band • Page 534

The title track on Sam's Town still grates on me for some reason. Otherwise, good record.

 

Lol I already took the L like 20 posts back

 

I think Sam's Town is a little bit overrated. I do think it was unfairly maligned upon initial release, but the interim time period has seen a critical over-correction where it has been vaulted to some sort of mythic masterpiece almost on par with how Brandon was describing it in the press around the time it came out. It's a damn good album, and it was a really great, creative way for them to follow up their first album and everything that went along with that, but I don't think it's as good as a lot of people make it out to be nowadays. It has some really bad songs on it.

All of that being said, I do think that if you look at all of the songs they recorded in those sessions, they did record an album that would have been an all-time masterpiece, but that's not what they released with Sam's Town. In my opinion, The Killers are actually pretty consistent in putting out albums that are packed with amazing songs but also always contain at least a few clunkers, and sometimes even some really bad songs.

Pressure Machine is probably the closest The Killers have come to putting out an album that is consistently great beginning to end, or Desired Effect if we're counting Brandon solo.

 

Did not mean to turn this into a Killers comparison thread! Just been appreciating JEW’s pop songcraft more and more recently and wishing their sound still brought in sales and radio play beyond The Middle!

 

integrity blues is so great and i don't understand why undermining people's appreciation of that album is like a thing that happens every few months here

 

get over yourself imo

 

i know i'm fully insane for loving later taking back sunday but a legit case can be made for the last few jimmy eat world records, they're on a hot streak :)

 

Between this and your Bayside album closer post, I am recommending a one-week ban.

 

Is this how

 

We’re posting

 

Now?

 

hell i could make a case for invented as their best record. i won't, but i could

one of the few site-specific derangements that seems commensurate with how consistent the band actually is

 

Hahaha, fair enough, I understand

 

It truly is a strange phenomenon

 

Truth be told, I don’t have it in me to listen to Integrity Blues much anymore. I love that album dearly, but it came out during a very dark time in my life where my drinking habits were getting very concerning and I subsequently got sober a few months after that album’s release. Oftentimes, I’m taken right back to that time period in my life whenever I listen to that album. It’s an important album to me though and I will always recognize it as such. Truly found a lot of comfort in it back in 2016/2017.

 

It could not have come out in a better season. I used to walk around the University District with my headphones on, listening to that album and kicking through piles of dead leaves on the sidewalk.

 

That is The Wonder Years: Sister Cities for me. Not for drinking because I am straight edge but for other very dark reasons.

 

In general, I think the “this band/artist was good early in their career and none of their recent work measures up” narrative is way overblown in music criticism/discourse, and often doesn’t take into account the biases we all have based on what we heard first, how old we were, etc. I say this while acknowledging that my top four JEW records are the run from ‘99 to ‘07, but I also try to take the others for what they are and not for what my own nostalgic baggage wishes they would be. I don’t think it’s crazy at all for someone to hold Integrity Blues or Invented or Surviving up with their best stuff. Those albums are good!

 

We interrupt this regularly scheduled Jimmy Eat World discussion session to bring you this audio recording of Prince covering and sort of re-lyricing The Middle.

 

Wasn’t Bleed American recorded while they had no label? AOTY confirmed for 2022 then.

 

yeah it was, Capitol dropped them after Clarity, which, lol

 

Yea. I thought I remembered correctly. It blew my mind knowing that, not only did they flirt with bankruptcy from betting on themselves with up-front costs recording that album, but Trombino produced it for free, confident it would be a success and he’d get reimbursed later. Hell of a bet.

 

Whoa. That’s wild

 

So YOU’RE one of these people who fucks up my leaf pile I construct in the fall/winter????? Smh

 

Hahaha no, just natural piles! If they've been raked, I don't mess with them.