okay so this might have been an unexpected post to see on this blog. I generally do not promote major label artists like Jimmy Eat World. but I’m going to do it anyway. while I’m generally not a fan of anything this band did after getting signed to a major (musically or otherwise), I am a big fan of their two first albums – and they happen to be available for free download. thus they will be posted here. if you don’t know who Jimmy Eat World is, they were this punk band in the ’90s that did what the other bands did: played every show they could. then they went major label, and somehow still managed to salvage some “indie cred”. this way they got to keep partaking in indie splits and compilations, and gained fans in both indie and non-indie milieus. an odd situation indeed. later on the band blew up commercially with an album called Bleed American and blah blah blah, but that’s another story. this post is about their fir
st release: 1234, which along with the other album I will post shortly was released on Wooden Blue records, who put out Christie Front Drive as well. 1234 basically consists of four ferocious punk rock songs with high tempo and lots of energy. while there’s definitely a hint of that melodic pop sensibility that characterise their latter work, this is uncomplicated, straightforward punk rock. the title track sounds like a secret agent song. there’s not much else to say about this release, but that’s the best thing about it. it does the talking itself.
January 7th, 2010