JIMMY EAT WORLD’S Success Was MORE DIFFICULT Than You Think!
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 Published On Sep 16, 2024

The rise of Jimmy Eat World thanks to the album Bleed American and the hit singles The Middle, Bleed American and Sweetness

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Adkins admitted to spin “[Vice president of A&R] Luke Wood was a big reason why we went with DreamWorks,”. “They were a big label and wanted their quarterly gains like all big companies, but it felt like the best place for development. Just the history of the people who were there and where they came from, like Mo Austin, Lenny Waronker, Michael Austin – these were legends in the industry. Whatever we thought was going to happen with the record, DreamWorks felt like a place that could help us.”
While many labels didn’t embrace technology like the internet, Dreamworks made Bleed American available to listen to for free online five days before it’ scheduled release which was set for July 24, 2001. . The album's sound represented a departure from their more experimental work, instead focusing on simple, melodic rock songs. The band was in the press around this time due to the fact that they played blink 182 guitarist and vocalist Tom Delonge’s wedding reception. Bleed American got got the lead review in rolling stone. Writer. Ian Cohen remarked to where are your boys tonight “one of the main talking points was that they played tom delonge’s wedding. Like that’s their peg. Okay. this was before the middle was big. This was the first thing that made me aware jimmy eat world could be a big deal.”
The first single, the title track also known as salt sweat sugar was released in june of 2001, with it peaking at number 18 on the alternative airplay chart.
But then the unexpected happened. Two months after the album’s release, the events of 9/11 occured and the title Bleed American could have easily been deemed as insensitive or controversial. In fact with the events of 9/11 the single bleed american died immeidately. You guys might remember that useless company Clear Channel who circulated the now-infamous memo to program directors with a list of lyrically questionable songs. The band worried about creating some issues, reissued the album with a name change so the record was self titled and the title track became salt sweat sugar. Salt sweat sugar was inspired by Adkins panic attacks he started having while on tour for clarity.
Adkins told o spin
“It was almost immediately that we changed it. Just that threat of someone being offended,” s. “I’ve never known anyone who actually thought the song or album title was offensive. We worked so hard on this thing, but we decided, in the wake of the craziness and tragedy, we didn’t want to have something block people from objectively connecting with it.”
The group turned their attention to the second single having to choose between the middle, if you don’t don’t or sweetness. At the insistence of their co-manager gary gersch who loved the lyrics, they went with the middle.
The song took inspirationfrom a female fan with Adkins telling NME he received an email from a fan who complaint she didn’t fit in with the punk crowd at school because she wasn’t punk enough for them.He explained: "The tenet of the punk ideal - or, you know, the alternative, outside-the-mainstream, kind of ideal - is that you think yourself being more accepting ... I guess that tune was kind of a reaction to that, like you don't want to be friends with them anyway." The song could also be a message of reassurance to themselves when they were left out in the cold without a recording contract.
Issued in October of 2001 the middle gave jimmy eat world the biggest hit of their career, peaking at number 5 on the hot 100 chart, number 1 on the alternative airplay chart and it even went to number 2 in Canada.
The success of The Middle took the band by surprise with Adkins telling Spin “At the time we wrote it I didn’t think ‘The Middle’ was all that valuable because it was so simple and came together really quickly,” “We put it on the record but we never expected for it to have the connection with people that it has. I think there is definitely a fallacy as an artist where something you struggle with is of more value than one that is easy and just falls in your lap. ‘The Middle’ fell into our laps.” The group’s producer Trombino was insistent on keeping the song, so while th

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