Bleed American

Rating: 9/10 Best songs: Bleed American, The middle, Your house, Sweetness, Hear you me, If you don’t don’t, Get it faster, The authority song

I'll try to keep this brief but it will probably be difficult. "Futures" would be on my desert island disc list, but this is a fucking incredible album in its own right. Band gets kicked off label, and manages to write one of the best emo records of all time, with bonus crossover appeal. I'm, personally, a little tired of "The Middle", but I still enjoy it, and that rollercoaster of a guitar solo, my word. Pure exuberance. The first three tracks (title track "Bleed American", "A Praise Chorus", and "The Middle") might be one of, if not the, best one-two-three in the genre. "Sweetness" has an intense urgency, "Cautioners" a slow-burn gallop, and a song like "The Authority Song" manages to be a wonderful pastiche and an insanely catchy song. Six stars. Ten stars. If you do not fuck with this album, either as a true-blue emo classic or just a phenomenal pop record, dude, how? Favorite tracks: Everything. All of it.

Really hard not giving this a 5. Lots of memories with this album: college years. Relistening after all these years does bring back some college memories, but Bleed American just doesn't hold up as much as I thought it would. Easily a 4, but really thought I was going to give this a 5.

This CD remains stuck in someone’s 1999 Pontiac Grand Prix in a player installed at a Circuit City with the cool LED faceplate missing. Aliens will find it one day to be immersed in the album that surrounds a pop punk millennial anthem. They’ll love it

Solidly inoffensive with positively enjoyable flourishes

I vaguely know of these guys, never heard them though. Name is a bit of a turnoff tbh. Ok, initial thoughts are that it rocks decent enough. I recognise The Middle, heard it a lot... somewhere? Rest of the album stacks up as well. Good find, not fantastic but still an easy 4/5.

Man, "The Middle" is a perfect god-damned song

It’s impossible to overstate just how dominant a pop culture force ‘The Middle’ was when this dropped – it’s one of the first songs I remember hearing on the radio as I was driven to elementary school. I do feel for the band because the sheer power of the one song was always going to be difficult to top, as it completely outshone the rest of the album (case in point, this was my first full listen ever). Though definitely a product of its time, this LP still brings some ideas to the table that feel fresh even today, and whoever mixed this did a damn good job and as it’s still light and punchy. The lowest points are the draggy, sappy ballads (plural!) that were required by law for any album released at the time, and though they do kill the overall flow of the LP it still moves along with a good deal of genuine energy and verve. Not the most cohesive artistic statement ever, but a worthwhile blast from the past that made its mark.

Straight ahead modern rock, nothing wrong with that, and certainly well executed. A little too slickly constructed for my taste, and under the gloss not a huge amount of substance, lyrically or musically.

Good indie power rock, strong riffs, but not too heavy and singing is also not obviously heavy rock style. I liked Sweetness.

It's hard not to like this. Catchy, melodic and full of energy, musically smarter than I expected it to be. A little weak on the back half, but overall a fun listen. Fave Songs: The Middle, A Praise Chorus, Bleed American, Sweetness, My Sundown

This album is like a hotdog. At first it seems like a good idea, but in the end it was ok and nothing more.

As a millennial I'm contractually obligated to love The Middle. I've never heard the rest of this album. It sounds weirdly like Adult Alternative Christian Rock.

This one was missed on the original list. Make it right in the next edition Dimery, make it right.

This is an absolute gem of a record. Each song is delivered with such a burst of energy that it's hard not to break out my air-guitar. For me this album hits that absolute sweet spot of incredibly catchy songs, great riffs, vocals that blend in perfectly and a slick but not overly produced sound. And literally not a single filler track. Over the years I've tried several of their other records but none live up to what this band put together on Bleed American. Their absolute peak of creativity as far as I am concerned.

Saw them Live once. The only song I knew back then was 'The Middle'. The performance was great, but I never came to listening a full album. So thank you for the recommendation. Very good album

YES! This is an exemplary inclusion! I frigging LOVE Jimmy Eat World and this album came out at a critical juncture of my youth. There's beautiful poetry nestled within the kick ass rock. I love it.

I got into this in 2001 as I was resisting the thought of being in my 30s. I love Jimmy Eat World’s poppy punky fun sound. The songs are great, and I very much enjoyed listening to this again. I love it!

Besides "The Middle," this was new to me, and a very enjoyable visit today! Thank you!

Note: 4th studio album. Gots lotsa catchy melodies and choruses (chori?).. didn't realize they did a John Mellencamp cover, then it turned out the Authority Song isn't a cover at all.

One of the best albums, bands from The genre at the time, think this has aged better than the others too. One of my wife’s all time favourites too, so is played frequently in our house still.

Hell yeah! An album I came to late, but loved for many years. I don't think I had heard anything outside of the big 3 singles for ages, but was glad to be reminded of the light and shade of the whole track list. A band who were more influential than many people know, and who were still as good as ever when they played trnsmt a couple of years ago.

This is about what I expected from a Jimmy eat world album. It has one of the best anthems of the 2000s then one or two other hits then the rest is pretty alright 2000s alt rock.

Pioneers of the early 2000s emo movement. This is a slab of catchy alt rock with nice melodies and harmonies. The 42 year old me likes it a lot more than the 19 year old me did. Rating: 4 Playlist track: The Middle Date listened: 02/12/24

This albums is so good to my younger self and when I listen to it now it’s really amazing how well it still holds up as a good alternative album. The classics are still fun, simple, and energetic songs that are easy to go along with and rock out. This album probably used to be overplayed but as time has gone on I feel gets looked over for being so good in the early 00s. 8.1/10

A tough one to figure out where it goes, but I'll round up based on 3 strong songs... The Middle is fabulous craft, while Get It Faster and Sweetness are also really great alt rock tracks. The album doesn't have any trash, but most of the rest of the album delivers in the same vein but ends up being a bti forgettable. Enjoyed the suggestion.

Great choice! Crazy how there are NO Emo/Emo-Pop albums on the original list. Just an entire subgenre (one of the most popular ones of all time) completely ignored because Robert Dimery said that "he doesn't like this kind of music". Weak. The children love it and the children crave more of it. I am the children. This shit rocks. 4/5.

An enjoyable relisten

Wow. I thought this was going to be crap, but now I'm regretting writing it off 20+ years ago. Surprisingly moving, but also capable of being fun, snot nosed pop punk. This was a cut above a lot of the bands that broke in the early oughts.

Yeah I didn’t really give Jimmy Eat World enough credit back in the day. They were the band that bridged the gap between that gate kept ‘emo’ sound and the various pop-punk-adjacent bands from the mid-‘00s branded as emo. Their more mature and slightly darker tone put them closer to the former but their urgent drive and knack for catchy choruses meant they were misleadingly marketed as the latter, despite never really fitting solidly into either category. As a fan of your Panic! at the Discos and All Time Lows and the like growing up, a lot of which I no longer listen to, I just never really got into Jimmy Eat World and dismissed them as being quite bland outside of the absolute smash of a track The Middle. I appreciate them a lot more now, as while they were far less theatrical than their Warped Tour contemporaries, the songwriting holds up. The slower moments on this album I never really connected with are actually very emotional and well considered, and provide a nice contrast to the more energetic singles like The Middle and the title track, which opens the album in beautifully sardonic fashion

Very fun album, which is weird because I hated Green Day, and this doesn't seem all that different. Mysteries for the ages

Going in I'm thinking maybe I've heard of these guys, I'm not sure. But then of course I know The Middle and Sweetness, both of which are so good and pretty darn foundational and thus this album should have been on the main list. Worthy share. I enjoyed the whole thing and am happy to have been exposed to more Jimmy Eat World. The A Praise Chorus's call out to "crimson and clover" is a nice reminder of how music exists as part of an ongoing continuum and a reminder why this project has been (mostly) a joy.

Singles all good, the rest of album not for me

Alternative rock, emo pop, pop-punk, power pop. Ni fu ni fa.

I bleed American red

It's fine! I didn't hate it or love it but it was an okay listen. It fits with that kind of album that was prolific on the original list where they are competent but nothign super mind blowing. My personal rating: 3/5 My rating relative to the list: 3.5/5 Should this have been included on the original list? Indifferent.

Solid.

They are good musicians, good performers, however their most popular songs are not to my particular taste, they have potential with that style that draws from the classic combined with the modern.

Stock American sound

Have a natural aversion to the emo-rock of this period. Every song sounds the same to me.

I would agree with that other reviewer that this album is bland and soft like a hotdog. And not a very tasty one at that, especially at the end. Or, like that other user puts it: "...under the gloss, not a huge amount of substance, lyrically or musically." Pitchfork's Ryan Schreiber once explained all this a little differently, in a review so mean and ripe with sarcasm it is honestly hilarious to read: "You want to cruise around the housing development with the windows down, doing donuts in the cul-de-sac with your newly obtained permit, blasting music so empty and sincere even you could have written it." Boom. That review is admittedly also a little ironical at Schreiber's expense in retrospect, since the guy later sold out to the some of the worst soulless capitalistic forces out there (that happened a mere decade after, when he took that big fat bag of money from Condé Nast in exchange for the music website he had founded). Yet, in spite of all that, Schreiber's sarcasm still stands today. Even more so than in 2001, actually: "[Jimmy Eat World] are the best friends you can imagine. They know what you're going through, and they care. They care like a million hearts wrapped up inside a teddy bear holding a bouquet of understanding in one hand and an undying torch of reassurance in the other. They keep the flame of rock alive while giving you advice about the most important thing in your world: yourself." Not that there ain't two or three tracks to salvage in *Bleed American*: hit single "The Middle" has quite original ways to create addictive guitar and vocal hooks, which shows that its popularity at the time was probably deserved. "Your House" is also a pretty nice acoustic guitar-driven song. And if the gloss and shtick on the vocal parts of "Sweetness" are annoying from the get-go, you can't deny the strength of that track's massive rock instrumentation and production (see also "Get It Faster", to a lesser degree). But those vocals, for chrissake. Those goddamn vocals... The layers of saccharine inflexions and hackneyed tricks on most of the songs are up to such a ludicrous level that it's impossible for me not to take them derisively. Here's everything that emo-rock *shouldn't be* to stand the test of time. Good emo is a somewhat rare beast, but it *does* exist, and some of its most stellar proponents are certainly not neutered like this band is -- they *really* bare their soul and hearts, they scream their lungs out... In other words, they make you feel *urgency*, and not a watered-down simulacrum of it. There's a reason Jimmy Eat World is most often filed next to Sum 41 or Blink 182 (and toured with them, apparently). Because as they pandered to the lowest common denominator, those acts lost sight on the very concepts of authenticity and credibility. If the title "Bleed American" is supposed to be understood ironically, everything in this record suggests it should be taken in earnest instead. Another sure sign of artistic misfire here. Stylistic preferences and "authenticity" aside, judging this thing on its own merits is also terribly inconclusive. The instrumentation and compositions are so awfully *flat* on the second side of this LP, whether for so-called "ballads" where absolutely nothing happens on a musical level, or for the second-rate "rockers" that don't benefit from the exact same production values as for the singles on the first side -- and therefore elicited nothing but a yawn from me. So yeah, this thing aged like milk. As someone whose birth places him at the tail end of "Generation X", I have sometimes found younger folks than I am making fun of my favorite music styles and acts -- which is in the order of things: you need to put a spear through the golden calf of days yonder to assert your own take on culture. Yet now, it looks like millennials are put through the same test, and given how deeply inconsequential this supposed "masterpiece" truly is, it looks like the joke's on them today. Popular music from the naughts can still sound good in 2025. But seriously, guys, you need to separate the wheat from the chaff. Who looks a bit daft now, huh? I could have given a 1.5 - 2/5 marks to this thing. Yet because I pushed the "like" button on a few 4/5 well-phrased reviews -- since I begrudgingly enjoyed the manner in which the nostalgia factor experienced by some of my millennial brothers and sisters was expressed in those takes -- I feel like I need to set my own karmic balance right and counter my first benevolent posture. I really tried to open my mind here. Yet, one catchy hit and one decent acoustic song don't make a good album. Do you *really* think someone who's not in the target demographics aimed at by this record (whether now or then) would think: "yeah, it's a masterpiece". Think again. 1/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums. 6/10 for more general purposes (5 for musical competency and production values + 1 for the artistry). Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 4 Albums from the users list I *might* include in mine later on: 7 Albums from the users list I won't include in mine: 9 (including this one)

Were these guys the OG Rock Pop boy band? They sound like a mash-up of 5 seconds of Summer and Manic Street Preachers. Insipid generic sound with bland meaningless lyrics. Oh dear....