90s Jams #52: Jimmy Eat World "Lucky Denver Mint" (1999)

My initial perception of "emo" was explained to me as The Promise Ring. And that's it... I had one band to describe an entire genre. Needless to say, I didn't get it right off the bat. Dashboard Confessional was whiny, annoying and boring, and when I found out that was considered "emo," that made sense to me. So then when I first heard great bands like The Anniversary, The Get Up Kids and Jimmy Eat World, I didn't understand that they were also supposed to fit into the emo thing. A bunch more bands all showed up at once, most of whom sounded like a combination of Weezer, Foo Fighters and Blink 182. I still don't understand what made these bands anything other than straight up alt-rock, other than their fans needing a niche to belong.

Labels aside, the era did produce some outstanding music, Jimmy Eat World's Clarity being one of the best examples. "Lucky Denver Mint" specifically is pretty much driven by 3 core elements: The drums, the vocal harmonies, and its simplicity. It's also overall a very well produced album, and had their not been so many hugely overlooked rock singles in the late 90's, this one could have been much bigger.