Yankees and Celtics and Jimmy, oh my!

Posted by on Wednesday, January 9, 2013

So I must confess the inspiration but not the content of this post is sports-related. I listen to quite a bit of sports radio and this week a major talking point has been Alabama football as a new dynasty. It got me thinking about some bands/artists that I feel had created dynasties through excellent albums.

 I decided that in music three great albums in a row should constitute a dynasty. I also decided if a single individual was involved in three great albums in a row despite them being from different projects this would also constitute a dynasty. Amy helped me decide that EPs don't count in the tally so we won't go there. I'm hoping to make a series of dynasty posts and invite other contributors to post what they would consider some of their favorite dynasties as well.

 I'll start with what was possibly the first dynasty I fell in love with: Jimmy Eat World's Clarity (1999), Bleed American (2001) and Futures (2004). I honestly think the first exposure I had to Jimmy was from this trailer. I then bought the album and it was on heavy rotation for the whole summer in 2002. Sometime that fall I bought Clarity and honestly didn't love it that much until about a year later. When Futures came out in 2004, I bought it the day it came out and it didn't leave my car's CD player for months.

If I had to choose one reason I love each of these albums they would be as follows: Clarity has to be my all-time-favorite album to listen to when you're on a night drive just because you want to get out of the house. I can't explain it, you'll just have to try it sometime.

Bleed American was the first album my brother and I listened to and realized there was a musical genre outside of Blink 182 fart joke pop-punk (not that there's anything wrong with that) and super intense alternative radio grunge stuff that wasn't lame. It was the closest thing to pop I had ever listened to at that time.

I know a lot of people don't like Futures because of how polished its production is but I'm not one of those people. To this day, it has to be one of my favorite sing-along albums. The vocals still just kill me, especially the harmonies. I guess I'm just a sucker for vocal harmonies.

One last thing I would like to point out about all three of these albums (and even their next album, Chase This Light, which overall I didn't like as much) is Jimmy Eat World pwns album closers. I don't think there's a band that has been as consistent in finishing off their albums on sky-high notes. Goodbye Sky Harbor, My Sundown and 23 all close out their respective albums perfectly.


3 Comments

  1. this is a great idea. i'll have to think of some of my own.

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  2. I agree. Clarity and Futures are two of my favorite albums of all time. And this would be fun to do.

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  3. Only Weezer's first two albums are as beloved to me as Clarity is. If you did include EPs, JEW's Stay On My Side Tonight EP (2005) would be a great way to round out this dynasty. Great post, great idea.

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