Jimmy Eat World Band • Page 503

Rick apparently said there was a distribution issue with some platforms (Amazon and Apple for sure) and they were working on it.

 

I’m reading Sellout and the way Jimmy Eat World got signed to a major is just crazy. Such a different path than others. Literally a song on a split launched their career.

 

Those were the days. Newish sound, new era

 

I love how pivotal “Digits” was for their career

 

Tonight “Pain” gets dissected!

 

I like how he gave up trying with Tom lol

 

Well, we didn’t get Futures on Apple Music but we did get this:

 

Man this taking me back to watching this show earlier this year and just absolutely losing it when the music swelled at the end of Table For Glasses.

 

No disrespect to the album versions of the Clarity tunes, but their tones and vocals are so much better in 2021 that the Phoenix Session elevates the material by a mile. Truly incredible.

 

This is incredible

 

even the "boop-a-doop-a-doop, ba-doop-ba-do-doop" is cooler and improved on 12.23.95

 

Anxiously waiting for Futures to drop still on Apple Music but what a treat this is, particularly after reading Sellout this week

 

Indulge me with a wall of writing, would you?

I was 16, going on 17 years old, when this awesome “Salt, Sweat, Sugar” song was taking control of Baltimore/DC’s own WHFS 99.1.

As a Weezer obsessive whose tastes were growing by leaps and bounds due to services like Napster and Audiogalaxy, there was something in the tones of this Arizona based band which spoke to me. That Christmas, I got my copy of Bleed American (gifted to me by my grandmother, who I’ve no doubt was guided by the hand of my mother and my Christmas list that year) and promptly wore a hole in it.

WIth my friends and I around driving age, this meant that many of our nights out were spent record shopping, whether in the bins at Best Buy, local houses of musical worship like The Sound Garden, or high-priced outlets like The Wall, Sam Goody or FYE.

I quickly started to amass the rest of the Jimmy Eat World collection. Their first album, Static Prevails? Got it. The b-side and 7” compilation Singles (which really needs to make it to streaming), I had it.

But one album seemed impossible to find. 1999’s Clarity.

As a 17 year old in Baltimore in 2002, I didn’t have a lot of options to find this heralded release. It was a bit harder to download an album as a whole, and if it was as good as the internet told me about, I needed to hear it in its entirety. I didn’t have a bankcard yet, so online ordering was a crapshoot. I just had to keep hitting the same stores, hoping for something to finally appear in the J-section.

Cut to April 2002.

Some Saturday, I’m all in my feelings. I was supposed to go see The Scorpion King with some friends the evening before, instead, I spent the night bearing my feelings to a girl who didn’t feel the same. My friends were furious I ditched them. My heart was broken. It’s incredibly silly now, but at the time, this was everything.

My mom, awesome as always, tries to get me to buck up, “Why don’t we go get some lunch, pop into Best Buy.” Shock of shocks, a combination of a burger and tech purchases work as well now as they did then.

Never the less, I’m walking through the CD section, and what’s in the J section?

Jimmy Eat World. Bleed American. Have that. Singles. Have that. Clarity…

Clarity.

CLARITY.

And that’s how Clarity became the album I listened to non-stop as I wrapped up my senior year of high school.

From the soft opening tones of “Table for Glasses” to the pop perfection of “Lucky Denver Mint” to the rage of “Your New Aesthetic” (which of course inspired my high school era band) to the blistering title track to the catharsis of “Goodbye Sky Harbor”, there’s not a single track to be skipped. It was the right album in my Discman at the right time.

I still remember so vividly, standing in anticipation during my high school graduation, “For Me This Is Heaven” on repeat in my head, desperately painting these last moments into my memories.

The album has lived with me since. From CD to an iTunes rip on my iPod to being on both my Spotify and Apple Music libraries. It always transported me to this specific time and place.

It’s amazing what time can do.

Over 20 years after the release of the album, and nearly 20 years after I finally got to hear it, Clarity is once again in my ears.

The band has never sounded stronger. The vocals, the musicianship, all of it is at a level they could only wish to have at the time of recording. They were kids playing big time band. Now they’re adults who lived it. The songs have never sounded better. Little tweaks here and there, some world weariness and depth which never existed now casts itself upon these songs which I’ve heard hundreds, if not thousands of times.

Age and weight have been brought to Clarity, much how age and weight brought clarity to my own life.

From 17 to 37, this album has stayed with me, and with Clarity: Phoenix Sessions, it’s back with me again.

 

So much of their rise seems so unlikely and bordering on sheer luck. One of my favorite chapters in there along with ATDI

 

Clarity is the greatest album ever made

 

A little personal story time: I’ve had a rough trot the last couple weeks being in the hospital having a bone marrow transplant for leukaemia ala Andrew McMahon. Anyway the doctors stuffed up my medication dosing and landed me in the ICU for a week on dialysis with failing kidneys and no way to amuse myself but my iPhone and AirPods and two fingers not connected to a machine, so Ive spent a week fully conscious stuck in bed unable to really move with nothing to do but listen to Sellout on Audible and revisit all the associated albums, of course the JEW chapter has been my favourite to date. I’m finally back on the ward able to move and do things again and have been listening to this session all day in fits of tears, it’s such a special album to me and so much more now. Music has literally saved me from giving up so many times this week. God I love this band so much.

 

WHFS 4ever

 

first time listening to this and goddamn they absolutely freaked "Believe in What You Want"

 

MR. TOM LINTON

 

took the night off work to listen to this and Futures and I have no regrets whatsoever. just drinking a beer thinking about how much I fucking love this band. life is good

 

Yup. I mean, I really enjoyed the live footage of Clarity, but this live audio version beats the actual album recording for me lol. It’s like I just got a whole new JEW album.

Also, Futures still isn’t on Apple Music?

 

the bridge on phoenix believe in what you want....felt like crying don't txt

 

That's how I feel about the chorus on A Sunday where the band drops out. This original album is flawless and yet they do this session and somehow make it even better. How is that possible?!

 

bunch of people breaking this news to them in their twitter replies and they replied to a few of them that apple music is currently on the case sorting it out

 

Lol Kanye can drop bullshit on Apple Music whenever he wants, but Jimmy getting froze