No Filler Music Podcast - Rewind: Jimmy Eat World - Clarity
Episode Date: May 16, 2022Another rewind episode? What are you guys on vacation or something? Yes. Yes we are. Now considered a touchstone record of the emo genre, we take a look at Jimmy Eat World's 1999 classic Clarity, and... how the sound they were perfecting ushered us into the third wave of emo music. Before that we go all the way back to the spring of 1985 in Washington D.C. to explore the origins of emo, and discuss how difficult the genre is to define. This show is part of the Pantheon Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Welcome to No Filler.
No time has passed between the recording of our last intro and this one's intro.
I'm still staring at Quinn's face.
It's been about three, four seconds.
Yeah.
I'm down in Plano visiting family for the week.
Yeah.
If you didn't listen last week, Q was in town.
Last week was a rewind episode.
This week is another rewind episode.
But yeah, this week we decided we're going to dust.
off an old Jimmy E. World
episode that we did. We're going to
talk about clarity on this
episode, which was the record
that they put out right before
Bleed American, and they
exploded. And so,
you know, this is somewhat
you know, under the umbrella of
Alt Rock that came out
in the 90s. Actually, I feel like clarity came out
in 2000, if I'm not mistaken.
Maybe. Could have been 99. But anyway,
you know, this is when we're starting
to, to
lean toward email.
So, you know, it's going to be a little bit different.
I feel like this is where the alt rock progressed from 90s through the 2000s.
Yeah, this was like the stepping stone.
It went from like alternative shoegasy grunge to emo and then the garage rock revival.
Yeah, like the 2010s.
The pop punk stuff too.
Yeah.
Well, it's around this time like blink and some 41 and all that.
Yeah.
So this is a pretty old episode, dude.
I don't know.
Yeah.
We're not staring at a computer.
staring at each other. That's the way we've got this mic set up. So we don't have Wikipedia at
the ready this time. But, yeah. But no, this was an early episode. So apologies if it sounds like
crap. Yeah, it might sound like crap. And you know what? If this is an old enough episode,
you're going to hear a what you heard segment in the beginning. That's right. Which is interesting.
I think it is. Because back in the day, we used to do what you, we used to do what you heard's
each episode.
We just bring one song each.
So yeah, obviously we scrapped that for monthly what you heard, which I've enjoyed doing.
But anyway, you're going to hear that, which is kind of weird.
But yeah, here we go.
So this is Jimmy E. World's Clarity.
Before we view the episode up, let's take a quick break.
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When something gets larger than the scene that created it, it's pretty much dead.
When we were in high school and stuff, like in the mid-early 90s, it's like the emo was kind of synonymous with hardcore.
Another word that could mean something greatly different if you grew up in Southern California than when you grew up on Long Island.
It was like punk rock and screaming hardcore.
That's what it kind of meant to me.
and we didn't really fit in with that sound,
so it kind of puzzled me why people were pauling us that.
And welcome to No Filler,
the music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gyms
that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records.
My name is Travis.
With me, as always, is my brother Quentin,
and the voice you heard in the intro was Jim Adkins,
frontman lead singer of Jimmy E. World,
which is the band we are going to be talking about today.
And he was talking about emo music
and how he thought that they didn't really deserve that label.
And in all honesty,
I have never used that label to describe Jimmy Eat World,
which proves how much I didn't know about emo music
going into this episode.
So, Kiew, what about you?
Did you, when Bleed American came out
and Jimmy Eat World was all over the place,
did you think of them as an emo band?
Well, let's figure this out real quick.
Oh, we're going to figure it out, my friend.
Okay.
All right.
Well, so I don't think I knew the term emo when Bleed American came out.
What age, so we're not talking about Bleed American today.
No, we're not.
That was the album that they got really famous.
Yeah, that is the album that put Jimmy World on the map.
and along with bands like Dashboard Conventional,
brought Emo music into the mainstream.
But there are many different flavors of Emo music
is what I have discovered and what we're going to kind of get into.
And we're going to talk about the history of Emo
and pretty much up to clarity, which is the album that we're talking about.
But for this particular discussion right now,
I think the reason that I never considered Jimmy World and Emo band
is because when we were listening to music, getting into music really,
which is around that time, right, when Bleed American hit hit the scene.
Emo meant very particular specific sound and more so it was tied to like a certain look,
you know what I mean, and like a scene, right?
Yes.
So, and that sound, that emo sound that I'm referring to is considered the third.
wave of emo music.
There's four waves because apparently emo is making another comeback and that's the fourth
wave recently.
But bands like Fall Out Boy, Taking Back Sunday, you know, Under Oath, the Used, like those are
bands that to me were obvious emo bands.
That's third wave.
That's third wave emo.
Okay.
Jimmy World is second wave emo.
Okay.
Damn.
But so before we get into the history.
Q, I'm going to do a little exercise here because this is relevant.
I'm going to name some bands and you're going to tell me if you would consider them an emo band.
Okay.
Okay.
Fall Out Boy.
Absolutely.
Under oath.
Yeah.
Amberlin.
Amberlin?
No.
I wouldn't have thought of them as emo.
Weezer.
No.
No.
Newfound glory.
Newfound glory?
No, not emo.
Punk.
Isley.
Remember them?
Yeah, remember them?
Isley is not emo.
Panic at the disco.
Uh,
on the fence for that one.
I got news for you, buddy.
All of these bands.
Have the emo label applied to them.
And here's, that's the whole point.
So, the term emo has pretty much
been hijacked by third wave emo and like that's that's what people think of when they think of
emo music the you know fallout boy the sound of fall out boy and then screamo being like under oath right
yes i was going to say for me growing up you know in the time that we did emo is synonymous with
screamo for me that's what i always historically you know growing up getting into music that at the time that
we did, I always thought of emo bands as the more hardcore screamo bands.
So, and here's what's interesting about it. First wave emo, which is, we'll get into a little
bit later, had a lot of screaming in it. Interesting. So the funny thing is, third wave emo brought
back some of first wave emo. Huh. But, so let's get, we'll get to that later. So, yeah, let's get into
our what you heard. It's my brother. Okay, yes. So let's get into our what you heard. And for those
of you who do not know. This is our weekly segment where we both bring a band to the table that we've
kind of been listening to lately, just to give kind of another flavor before we dive into the
album of the week. So Q, what you heard, what you've been listening to lately. Let's hear it.
I listened to Clarity all the way through for the first time this past week, just preparing for the
show and I immediately dove back into those bands that I was listening to in like 2002, 2003.
And you remember Watashiwa?
They're also on the list of emo bands.
Did you think that they were emo?
Absolutely not.
Well, they are.
But this is a band that was on tooth and nail records, which was a record label that had
a huge impact on me as far as the artists that they signed.
Yes.
And for me in my high school years.
Let's name them off, dude.
Let's name off those bands.
Amberlin.
Amberlin?
Yeah.
May.
Yeah.
Emery.
Yeah.
And slow coming day.
So here's the thank you.
Tooth and nail is an emo record label, dude.
So every artist on that label is emo.
And that's another thing.
It seems obvious now when I,
think back on it, but...
It really...
That's what I was about to say, dude.
Like, at the time, I didn't put all of...
I didn't group all of those bands under that same genre, you know?
Anyways, this album, The Love of Life.
This is the album that I got into.
So this is With Love from Me to You on Watashi Waugh's 2003 album, The Love of Life.
So that's Whatashi Waugh.
Yeah, and I remember that song now that I hear it again.
So the funny thing about this is, it's like, well, what else would we call it back then other than emo music, right?
Because when you hear it now, it's like, well, yeah, you know, that's really the only genre to put it in.
So emo's short for emotional?
What a great segue, my friend.
So I've essentially spent the last week digging into emo music, the history.
of emo music going and listening to like what's considered the first emo band and whatnot.
So we're just going to go right into it and we're going to kind of skip over my quote
unquote what you heard.
But basically it's it's what we're about to play, which is we're going to take a trip back
to Washington, D.C. in 1985.
that is the widely agreed upon origin of Emo music is the DC hardcore punk scene in the 80s.
So.
Damn.
Dude, I would never in a million years would I have thought that Emo started in the 80s.
Never in a million.
Well, here's why, dude.
Emo stemmed from hardcore punk.
So basically, like, if you think punk rock in the 80s, right, you've got like,
like the mohawks and, you know, the leather studded vests, right?
And like, you know, the sex pistols and like minor threat.
The misfits.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So that was the hardcore punk scene.
And like, you know, what are those?
No effects and all them.
So anyway, that scene was called hardcore, right?
Hardcore punk.
there was this offshoot of of hardcore punk bands in Washington, D.C. in particular, that formed and were sort of grouped together and considered part of this movement, if you will, called the Revolution Summer, I think.
Yeah, that's what it was called. It was called the Revolution Summer. And that was the Summer of 85 in D.C.
and that was this social movement that these bands were lumped into that sort of they tried to kind of push back on the mainstream media's like portrayal of punk right okay like the you know the imagery that you think pretty much what I just described right and uh you know their concerts their live performances they would basically mosh pit the moshing original
in this movement because instead of like...
Hang on a second, hang on.
You're telling me that that moshing wasn't a thing
before this revolution summer?
Moshing was a thing,
but you would get a fist in the face in the mosh pit.
Gotcha.
Before this, because, so like part of this Revolution summer movement, if you will,
was mosh pitting became more about.
just, hey, let's shove each other around, you know.
So maybe he was trying to have a better image for punk.
Yeah.
For like the punk scene.
Yeah.
So, you know, there is a handful of bands that were considered part of that movement.
Two of them are widely considered like the origin of the term emo started with these two groups.
So the first one, and I've got a clip here, this band is called Rites of Spring.
So part of the, along with this movement, really the only difference when you look at these bands compared to the other hardcore punk bands was their approach to lyrics.
So their lyrics became more reflective and more expressive as far as like inward emotion or whatever.
And that's why when you listen to this, it's going to sound like a punk band because that's what it is.
But the term emo was used to describe the lyrics more so than anything else in the 80s.
let's play the rights of spring clip first uh this song is called theme and i'm gonna i'll read the lyrics
afterwards if you can't tell what they are but so so when did this song come out 1985 okay wow all right
cool let's hear it okay so the lyrics and if i started crying would you start crying and it goes on
to say and hope is just another rope to hang myself with to tie me down something real comes around
So hardcore punk fans would be at the venue listening to these guys
and they would, you know, kind of make fun of the lyrics and stuff
because it was kind of corny, you know what I mean?
Showing their emotions on their sleeve, right?
Compared to other punk bands from that era, you know what I mean?
I feel like the lyrics of punk rock band, it was all about rebellion, right?
Like rebellion against the system, society, the social norms and,
I know a lot of punk bands were very political as well in the 80s.
Yeah, so these groups started like turning it in on themselves when they wrote the lyrics, right?
Yeah, yeah.
So that's, okay, so let's now let's transition to this next band.
Also, let me back up by saying there is this really good list on, there's this Rolling Stones article that covers the, it's their ranking of the 40 best emo albums of all time.
Okay.
So I want to keep referring to that, just to give you context.
They put this album, the Rights of Spring album, as number two on their list, number two.
Okay.
So that's a pretty big deal.
This next group, they're called Embrace.
And this song is called Dance of Days.
This is number 24 on the list of 40 greatest emo albums, according to Rolling Stone.
But this group in particular,
is extremely important to the emo music history because this is when emo, the term emo was coined
to describe this band. So there was this magazine, this punk rock magazine, I think it was actually
a skateboard magazine called Thrasher. And there was an article or a review of this album in
1986. And the author coined the term emo core to describe the music. And he said,
It goes by the name of emo core or emotional core.
Bands like Embrace, Rites of Spring, and Beefeeder, among others,
are taking the severe intensity of an emotional projection and adding it totally into their respective live sets.
Crowds are said to be left in tears from the intensity.
So, he was using it more to describe the live act, you know what I mean?
But that's because these singers would get so into it in the live performance.
performance when they were singing these really personal, like, reflective lyrics that they would
literally sometimes like come like to tears while they're up there. Not like sobbing, you know what I
mean, but just like the emotional intensity of the moment. So the term emo core was was coined. And then
that just over time was just shortened to emo. Got it. So let's hear their, let's let's hear
the song. Again, it's called dance of days. And when did this come?
out.
1986.
Oh, dude.
I mean, you could start to see the, you know, you can start to hear a little bit of what
happens later on in email music, you know what I mean?
Like you can start to hear it a little bit.
But again, it's-
A lot.
And dude, that's blowing my mind right now that that, that came out in 86 that these,
they were done, you know, because it's, that's not punk.
You know, it's not punk.
But it's definitely, but it's definitely got punk, like a punk underpinning or whatever.
But yeah, like you're saying, like you can see those, you can see this.
gradual change.
Yeah, and another key
aspect of emo music
compared to punk or
or, you know, hardcore rock
is that the
guitar and the music in general
has more of an emphasis on
melody, like melodic,
almost to the point of like math rock sometimes, which is what,
you know, we covered that
with the Foles episode that we did.
But again, it's more about
the lyrics back in the 80s, that's how the term was coined and all that.
And, you know, when you read these lyrics, we all struggle for our dreams to be realized.
They end up objects of our own despise.
Why?
The dance of days.
So again, it's like, it's almost like, you know, and this is, this is kind of funny because
like another cliche of emo, the emo scene kids, you know what I mean?
Is that they would like write or type on their live journals.
You remember live journal back then?
Yes, I had one for a while, did.
You did? Did you really?
Yeah.
But yeah, so, you know, these are very reflective lyrics, like somebody's writing in a journal, you know, or whatever.
So that's kind of the origin of it.
So now, let's jump into the 90s.
So this is considered first wave emo, right?
Second wave emo is considered to have started in the Midwest.
And that is where this next band, and you'll see a definite shift because you've got to
think like this is you know this 10 years later 10 years it's 86 97 so this this came out
97 so yeah just about okay 10 years later and this has kind of another gone on to receive sort of
iconic status for for emo music this was number three on rock and number three on rolling
stones list of 40 greatest emo albums but what you're going to hear now is the definite shift more
toward like melodic guitar and uh you know kind of more of that like upbeat punk rock sound but with
you know almost no uh no hint of hardcore whatsoever like that's like the screaming and all that
that's that's out of the picture at this point so this band is called the promise ring uh they were
formed in Milwaukee Wisconsin and again you're going to hear a shift more toward melodic music and
This is when you're going to start to hear the trademark like whiny voice, you know,
that anybody associates with emo.
Yes.
Second wave emo is kind of where that started.
So this is called Why Did We Ever Meet?
It's interesting to hear that, dude, knowing that it came out in 97,
because it does have a lot of punk in it, you know.
Yeah, but it's...
But it is different.
It is different.
Exactly.
It's the, when you listen to the punk from the 80s,
like it's the shift more toward that kind of more playful punk, I guess.
More playful.
See, so I immediately thought of Green Day when I was listening to this.
More so the guitar riffs and the drumming.
Yeah, well, I mean, it had this.
Even some of the way that he was singing,
but then it does kind of steer in another direction away from those more classic punk rock bands
from the 90s.
Yeah, I mean, this is the,
that's the punk sound
that you and I first
heard as far as like punk,
you know what I mean?
Like Blink, Blink-R-R-A-2
was our, like,
intro to punk, you know what I mean?
Which is what, late 90s even
for, for them.
Yeah.
But like Green Day, you know,
Green Day's album,
Duky came out in 94.
Yeah, and that's got your,
that's your classic 90s punk.
Yeah, right.
And that was playful,
but then listening to this,
song from Promise Ring.
Like there is a difference with it.
It is.
Yeah, like you said, it's more playful.
What are the lyrics?
Do you have those pulled up?
I've got one little snippet here.
Under that threat of sky, we lied together.
Why care about the weather?
It only ends in darkness.
So, I mean,
dude, like out of context, not hearing the song whatsoever.
Like, that's a pretty depressing lyric.
Like, it's basically he's like saying, like,
why do we even give a shit about this nice,
weather, dude.
Everything into darkness.
Yeah.
So like, but then you listen to the song.
It's got a very upbeat, you know,
ba,
ba,
you know what I mean?
Like it's,
yeah.
That part,
that part in particular is where it steers away from this,
from the typical punk of the 90s.
But again,
like in this,
in this particular context,
the reason that this is emo is because of the lyrics,
dude.
That's why.
So like,
anyway,
like to give some more context,
like two years,
later in 99, Newfound Glory's album came out, their first album. Nothing gold can stay.
Right? So, and remind me again, Newfound Glory is on that list of emo bands.
Yeah, Newfound Glory is an emo. Okay. I mean, that's the thing that, emo is just a, you know,
a term that gets applied in addition to other labels that are put on these bands, because obviously
Newfound Glory is a punk band, you know what I mean? It's a punk, pop punk is what I would put
them under now, like in retrospect, you know.
Right, exactly.
So, okay.
So now, now, here's a little interesting piece of trivia here, Q.
So the name of that song was, why did we ever meet?
Does that, do those words sound familiar to you?
Why did we ever meet?
They will.
They don't.
Once I, okay.
Here is why they do sound familiar to you.
Do you remember the song?
Do you remember the, the Jimmy World song?
A praise chorus on Bleed American?
Yes.
So the lead singer of the Promise Ring, his name is Davy von Boland.
And Jimmy World and Promise Ring toured together in the 90s.
Okay.
And praise chorus, which is on Bleed American,
Davy sings backup vocals on the song, on the song's chorus,
particularly the, you know, the Crimson and Clover.
Ah, that one.
Right, over and over.
So that's Davey singing that part.
And then Jim starts singing, you know, our house in the middle of the street.
Why did we ever meet?
There you go.
So he's referencing this song while the lead singer is in the studio with him.
Wow.
And then, you remember the next part of the song?
He says, so come on, Davey, sing me something that I know.
Yes.
Yeah, dude.
So there you go.
It's all tied together.
Cool.
So, anyway.
So, so obviously, um, this band, Promise Ring was, was an influence on, on the boys and Jimmy, huh?
Well, they were writing, well, here's the thing, though.
They were, I mean, they were writing music at the same time.
It's not, okay.
Promise Ring didn't come before Jimmy E. World.
Okay.
So I guess it's time to, let's jump into Jimmy World then, huh?
Yeah.
So, okay.
Now we're going to finally get to Jimmy.
So before we talk about clarity, which is the album that we're talking about today,
I wanted to play a snippet from their previous album, which was called Static Prevails, just to kind of give you a contrast between, like, how their sound changed.
Because when you listen to Jimmy World, when you listen specifically to Static Prevails and then Clarity and then Bleed American, like basically they take Emo Wave 2 and completely transition into and usher us into Wave 3.
And you can hear it.
You can totally hear it between these three albums.
So let's listen to this song.
It's called 17.
And it was off of their album Static Prevails,
which came out, I believe, in 96.
This came out a year before the Promise Wing album came out.
But anyway, this is called 17.
You know what that reminded me of, dude?
What?
Tony Hawk Pro Skater.
Yeah.
So is that the same?
singer, dude? No. So here's a deal. Okay. Here's the deal. Prior to clarity, Tom Linton, which is
rhythm guitar, and lead guitar, was the primary singer. Now, Jim Adkins would sing also, like,
he would do lead, he would sing lead on some of the songs, but it was mainly-
So wait, was that him that we could hear in the background? Yeah, probably. Okay, yeah. Yeah, I thought
I picked up on, on his voice somewhere in there. I just wasn't sure if he was just singing a little bit
differently than he usually does.
Yeah.
You know, than what I'm used to.
The funny thing is when you listen to the tracks on Static Prevails where he is singing
the lead, you can tell it's him, but he still, you can tell he hadn't really, like,
mastered his, his singing voice, I guess, because he fully, like, hit it with clarity.
Like, he found his voice and, like, in all that jazz.
That's probably why he pretty much took on lead vote.
from then on out. But Tom Linton sing lead on the majority of the tracks on Static Prevails,
and he has a very different voice. Does he stick around? Oh yeah, yeah. He's there the entire,
the entire run of the band, but he just goes to background vocals. There is a track on clarity
where he sings lead vocals. It's called Blister. And you can tell, I mean, you can, like I said,
they have two very different voices.
So his,
his voice lends itself more to like traditional punk sounds.
You know what I mean?
Right. That's what I was thinking.
So, and that's all important, right?
Because when they shift to June...
You know what?
Listening to that song too,
it's not just the voice.
It's the guitar strumming patterns.
It's the drumbeat.
It's all punk, you know?
I guess that's really that's where it all stems from.
But that's the thing.
Emo music has almost,
always had like a punk like bass layer to it you know what I mean well and like you said
emo is just one descriptor you know yeah right exactly emo and punk
scream because if you think about it there's screamo in there's screamo there's
hardcore emo there's and here's the thing there's there's emo pop
emo pop music is third wave emo okay and that's what Jimmy World pretty much
Jimmy World and Dashboard Confessional, like transition from second to third wave by writing emo pop music.
Got it.
All right.
So let's transition now.
Let's talk about clarity.
This is their third album, Jimmy World.
They were signed to Capitol Records prior to Static Reveils.
So Static Reveils was their first record on a major label.
Clarity is like when they kind of kind of like what we're talking about with Spoon, where they kind of went all in.
on it, you know?
Uh-huh.
Because, hey, you know, they kind of had already written all the songs for Static
prevails and were being, like, corded by different labels, and then they made the, the record.
And that was in 96.
So that's three years later they came out with clarity.
So it was kind of their first, like, release under Capital, if you think about it that
way, because they've been signed.
They had all that previous material.
Now they're working on new material for a new album on the,
major record label.
And like you can definitely hear like a change in quality of like the recording and like so
it was better produced and all that stuff.
Their singles off of this album are Lucky Denverment, which is the song that you heard in the
intro of this episode.
And Blister, which is the song that Tom Linton sings on.
But there is a huge change compared to all the stuff that we heard previously to a more poppy sound
and that's where the email pop label gets thrown in there.
But they still retain a lot of the,
I don't want to say hardcore,
but like, you know,
the thing that makes Jimmy World so great
is that they go from like,
they still have a little bit of like the first wave
in some of their songwriting.
But they also like,
they transition well from one,
from one song to the next.
And the two songs that I'm playing off this album
kind of prove that.
So the first one is called
Your New Aesthetic.
This is Trek.
track number three, you're going to hear kind of that punk heavy sound, but with Jim Atkins
on lead vocals. And anyway, let's just play and then we'll talk about it.
We're lowering the standards in a process selective, but formulas to win. But it takes more
than one person
So everyone jump on
I'll miss you when you're just like them
Okay
So great song
Right song
Can I just say real quick dude
Because it's eating me inside
He obviously borrowed
A little drumbeat from
Dave Gorolla there
That is straight up to mind
Who didn't?
Who didn't?
That is the
That is the my hero drumbeat, man.
Dude, you're right.
But that's the thing, dude, this is the 90s, you know.
It's the 90s and that's a badass drumbeat, man.
Yeah, yeah.
I would do it if it fit well in whatever song I was trying to add drums to.
Yeah, I think you're right, dude.
But, yeah.
Absolutely.
That's a great song.
It's a great song.
Yeah, so Jim Atkins on vocals, again.
And like you can totally hear, this is them sort of like,
perfecting the formula, right, that goes on to become the Bleed American album.
Because this song sounds a lot like Bleed American, the song, right?
As far as like, like, I really like that kind of transition into the chorus where it's like that sort of like off key like guitar like string bending type thing.
That's my favorite part.
Yeah.
That might be my favorite part of the song.
Yeah, it's great, man.
but you wouldn't necessarily consider this emo
what we think of when we think of emo
dude I was going to say the exact opposite man
like listening to this now it's so obviously emo
well I mean
yes now knowing the full like history
and context of emo yeah
but I mean as far as third wave emo
when we think of taking back Sunday
or like dashboard confessional
right you know or what Toshia
while that band he played earlier.
Like you wouldn't fit them into this.
But as I said earlier,
like they sort of like transition us
into third wave.
And that's where this next song is going to come in.
And you're going to hear it completely.
And you're also going to hear huge similarities
to the kind of stuff they continue to write
for Bleed American.
So anyway, this next song is probably one of my favorite
tracks on the album. It's called 10.
And
what I've always appreciated
about them as the vocal harmonies that they do.
And this song has a great example of that with the chorus and whatnot.
Anyway, again, this is called Tin.
It's, who cares what track it is, right?
No one cares.
I know, we keep saying, like, who cares?
Let's stop doing that.
Yeah.
I don't know why.
Who cares?
Track number eight, if you're curious, but yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Let's hear it.
Okay, so, right?
I mean, it sounds nothing like the first track we played.
It sounds nothing like the track from Static Prevails whatsoever.
No, not at all.
Or does it sound anything like any of those other bands that I played earlier?
But like this is like the transition into the more softer, like sort of melodic, you know,
where it's less about the punk.
There's not even a hint of punk rock at all in that.
song, right?
No, not at all.
And like I was saying earlier, it sounds a lot like the vibe and the feeling that you get from
some of the songs on Bleed American, like, like, Here You Me, you remember that song?
Oh, yeah.
It sounds almost exactly like that.
So like I said, they are like perfecting that formula, you know, that pretty much brought
emo into mainstream.
How many years between clarity and Bleed American?
There was three years between static prevails and clarity
And then two years between
Clarity and Bleed American
And that's the thing too
Anytime we talk about
Length of Time between albums
We're talking about length of time between release dates
You know like
Who knows how far back they were writing songs for Bleet American
It could have been even even in the same time
They wrote
They wrote sweetness around the same time
Because there's a
Really
Expanded edition of Clarity
where there's a demo of sweetness attached to it.
Wow, dude, I think that might be my favorite Jimmy World song.
Well, what's funny, dude, is, okay, you remember back in the day, Nirvana, or not
Nirvana, Napster, Limewire, all those, right?
Yes.
The first version of sweetness that I heard was this version.
I just didn't realize it.
Wow, you know what, dude, it's, I'm probably in the same boat.
I just don't remember.
Yeah, I downloaded sweetness off of LimeWire or Napster, and it was this version.
It wasn't the Bleed America.
American version. So I remember when I heard the sweetness single that came out, it sounded way
different. And I actually, I actually like the, the demo version better. So I'll have to put that in
the show notes. But anyway, so I have another clip from the song, because there's sort of a change.
There's like a, there's a, there's a bridge. And, you know, we like to play bridges around
here. We love bridges. Yeah, because it gives you another, another part of the song that you're
can hear on the verse chorus.
But anyway,
let's hear that and we'll keep talking about.
Safety scares them.
I can't bring myself to say, yeah, the chain.
Really pretty harmonies.
Yeah, I just love that chorus, man.
It's just so great.
But yeah, there's another thing that I really love about the song.
It happens in the chorus.
But basically, after they sing their line,
the drum and the guitar do this like,
I don't know how to really,
mimic it here, but like the drum, the snare drums hit twice.
Ding, ding.
That's kind of sound dumb if you play it back.
That didn't sound like a snare drum at all.
Well, that was the guitar strumming along with the snare drum hit.
Okay.
But anyway, like I said earlier, it's a huge transition from the previous two waves of
Emo music, right?
Yeah.
But it sort of ties in the more, well, I mean, there's a lot of bands that we didn't,
Well, okay. Let me just fucking bring this up.
Our sidetrack next week is going to be this band called American Football.
They are also considered an early emo band.
And they maybe perhaps could be considered the first emo band that stepped completely away from punk rock.
And that's probably kind of what influenced Jimmy or Jim, I should say, Jim Atkins.
because what they do so perfectly is they retain the punk rock vibes,
but they also do sort of the slow melodic stuff.
And they did both perfectly, you know what I mean?
And that's how they made it so big because they were able to come out with,
I mean, think about it, dude.
They released Bleed American,
which was this like really heavy, loud song and the middle.
Like, you know what I mean?
I love that song
I was just
That song was just playing in my head
While you were talking just now
Yeah it was
Yeah and sweetness
Like dude think about how different
Those three songs sound
You know what I mean
I was just thinking that too man
Like
Sweetness
It's like sweetness is the perfect in between
Yeah
Of Bleed American and the middle
Yeah
That's where they got such huge success dude
Yeah
Bleed American
Or the middle
specifically, that was such a big single.
And that song was
pretty big for us too, dude.
I remember playing that song together
when we were first kind of
learning our chops with our instruments,
you know, like, yeah, I remember us
playing that song together with just guitar and drums.
Yeah, I remember right.
And sweetness.
I learned the solo on that song
and I must have been fucking walking around
like I was fucking bee's knees, dude.
Yeah.
it's such an upbeat song it's it's so good yeah and the lyrics on that song are so great very uh
well lifting which is kind of funny because emo lyrics are usually not uplifting but emo music has
been like you know tied to like introverts and like people who are like have self-doubt and all that
stuff you know what i mean yeah yeah so the middle is kind of like a you know hey it just takes some
time.
Yeah, don't write yourself off yet.
It's only you're in your head.
Right.
So anyway, we'll do an album,
we'll do an episode on that album at some point because there are some killer
songs on there that we're not singles.
Yeah.
Like authority,
authority song,
cautioners.
What about your house?
Is that a single?
That's my favorite song on the album.
I love that song.
That's an excellent song or excellent song.
Hold on.
You ripped my heart right out.
According to this listing,
Bleed American, praise chorus,
the middle and sweetness were the singles.
Yeah, dude.
So yeah, your house is great.
Cautioners is kick ass.
If you don't, don't.
Oh, oh.
Yeah.
I forgot about that one, man.
Yeah.
The authority song was great, man.
Yeah.
Damn.
All right.
Yeah, so we'll do that later.
But yeah, it's important to, like, hear, like,
what preceded
Bleed American
and that's what clarity is
and clarity has gone on
to receive like critical acclaim
what's funny is they actually got dumped
from Capitol Records
after this album came out
no way
yeah because it didn't see much success
Lucky Denver Man
which was the single
was on
I think it was on
never been kissed
that film
it was like a radio
never been kissed
yeah with Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore, yeah, I was going to say.
Yeah.
So that kind of, apparently that song because of the movie had sort of a cult following tied to it.
So, but anyway, there's a lot of great songs on Clarity that I wasn't able to play.
Like, I had like three or four songs that I wanted to play on this episode.
But you'll just have to go back and listen to it.
But yeah, so we, like I said, we barely scratch the surface on the history of emo.
There's a ton of other stuff out there.
I mean, think about it, dude.
we jumped from 87 to 97 with those two bands.
There's emo music happening all in between there, you know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah.
But you can hear the evolution.
Like, I always think of music genres kind of like the evolutionary tree.
You know what I mean?
Where these branches and then they branch off, right?
Absolutely.
So like...
Yeah, man, that's music for you.
I mean, that's, yeah, obviously I'm not like some fucking like, that's not revolutionary in any...
Yeah, yeah.
like.
It is fun to look at it that way and to
yeah.
So when you find all those points that connect.
Yeah.
Because when you go to, you know, there's the punk rock branch.
That branch is often to hardcore punk.
I think that song that you,
that you played earlier from that band Embrace was a great song to hear that
where those,
where that point split into those two different genres.
Yeah.
because Rites of Spring, the song that I play from Rites of Spring,
sounded more like a traditional punk song.
Yep.
With the exception of the lyrics.
And then embrace,
it still sounded like a punk song,
but it started to kind of throw in.
It gets a bit more playful.
Yeah, a little bit of more what you associate with emo.
And then you jump to Promise Ring and like it sounds completely different.
Yeah.
But there's a lot of stuff happening in between those two bands.
And one of which we'll do next week for our.
our side track.
These guys are called American Football.
And they are,
I think they just had one album.
But they've,
since then they've gotten back together
and released other,
more material, but they kind of have a cult following,
you know.
But their music is a lot more
melodic and slow.
So that's that side of email.
Cool. I'm excited to hear it.
And they do some really interesting things.
It's a great listen,
the album all the way through.
but we'll get into them a little bit next week for the sidetrack
so that's it man that is our like quick overview of email
like I learned a hell of a lot dude one thing I I didn't really realize
and reflecting back on it it's obvious now but like the vast majority of music
that we listen to in like middle school and into high school
falls under the email umbrella I just didn't realize it yeah
Right. It is obvious now looking back at it.
Because if emo music simply means melodic guitar mixed with emotional, like, reflective lyrics,
I mean, there's no wonder if so many bands get thrown under there.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
But when you branch off to that.
Yeah.
I definitely wouldn't have put Isley into that category.
Man, dude, that's a band.
I'm going to have to revisit.
Dude, I haven't thought about them in years.
What was their hit?
It was like
Telescope eyes or something like that?
Telescope eyes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh.
What was that other band that we were in?
The like, remember them?
Yeah, yeah.
They opened for Kings of Leon.
Did you see them open?
Yes, I was there with you, dude.
I can't remember if that was Kings of Leon or Spoon.
It was Kings of Leon 100% for sure.
I know that, dude.
It was the features.
The features.
by the like and then Kings of Leon.
Pretty sure.
Pretty sure Mitchell was at that show with us.
Oh yeah, dude.
Mitchell was at all the Kings of Leon shows with us.
Ain't that right, Mitchie?
All right.
Mitchell McNight.
Yeah, so before we get into our outro, real quick, as always,
I'm just going to make this short and sweet.
Hop onto our website, no filler podcast.com.
You can pretty much get everything.
that you want on that website.
You can stream our episodes directly from SoundCloud on there.
You can read our show notes for each individual episode where we dive into,
we've got a track list for all the songs for each episode.
We've got embedded videos with concert clips and interviews,
links to all of our source material that we pulled.
So if you want to dive a little bit,
deeper into these artists and albums.
Chances are you'll get some more information on our show notes.
And you can subscribe to us on pretty much any app, anything that you use to listen to the pods.
We should be on there.
Even Stitcher, right?
We're on Stitcher now.
Yeah, we have been added to Stitcher as well.
Very cool.
Very cool.
All right.
Cool.
So that's going to be.
be it for today.
So that's going to do it.
So that's going to do it for today.
To close out the episode,
we'd like to, you know,
pick an artist that,
in this case,
an artist that Jimmy E. World mentions
as a influence or a band that they got into.
Jim Atkins in particular,
there's an interview that I was watching
where he references Fugazi
as one of his top three favorite bands.
I've never actually gotten into them
Here's the interesting thing about Fugazi Q
We're about to go full circle
Are you ready?
I'm ready
The lead singer Fagazi
Is the lead singer of Embrace
Oh my God
What is going on here now?
Oh my God
So basically Embrace was like very short-lived
And
The lead singer
His name is Ian McKay
formed Fugazi in 1987.
He's been associated with a lot of acts that have sort of these cult followings.
He was also in Minor Threat, which was a hardcore punk band before he came and did Embrace.
Before he embraced, Embrace.
That's right.
Yeah.
So that's funny because, you know, minor threat, like, is hardcore punk with no hint of emo.
Yeah, they were pretty big.
Well, yeah, like I said, they've got, it's just one of those other kind of like cult following bands, you know what I mean?
But, yeah.
Cool.
Yeah, so he did a small stint of emo music with Embrace, and then he went back and did Fugazi, which is more like experimental, like punk, post-hardcore.
So, anyway, this song is called, I think this is like, you know, their most popular song.
So it's called Waiting Room.
It came out for their first album called 13 songs, which came out in 87, 89, sorry.
It came out in 1989.
So again, this is one of Jim Atkins' favorite bands, or at least it was when he was interviewed back in the 90s.
All right, so that'll do it.
We're going to let the song play us out here.
Again, this is No Filler Podcast.
My name is Travis.
And I'm Quentin.
See you all.
time. Bye-bye.
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