1996. The Sweet - Ballroom Hitz- The Very Best ...
In certain circles, "The Middle" still overshadows the 100+ other songs Jimmy Eat World have released over the past quarter-century and counting, but they've got so many great deeper cuts that are just as good -- if not better than -- their biggest hits. From lesser-known album tracks to B-sides and rarities, from the songs that delight the diehards in the crowd to the ones that haven't even been played live in years, there are so many amazing Jimmy Eat World songs that'll probably never get airplay or music videos or end up on a greatest hits, and I've decided to celebrate their more overlooked material with a list of the 10 best Jimmy Eat World deep cuts. For the purposes of this list, the song couldn't have been released as a single, and I decided to not include anything from Clarity or Bleed American. Those albums are so cemented in the emo canon at this point that it doesn't really feel like any of those songs count as "deep cuts." I also kept it to no more than two songs per album, because I wanted to represent as wide a range as possible. Even still, some of their albums aren't represented at all on this list, but 10 is a very small number and this list filled up fast.
1996. The Sweet - Ballroom Hitz- The Very Best ...
After Jimmy Eat World's darker, heavier Futures, they returned to the big, bright guitar rock that defined Bleed American on 2007's underrated Chase This Light. The album's admittedly a little top-heavy, opening with one of the best and most open-hearted rock songs Jimmy Eat World's ever written, "Big Casino," followed immediately by the album's other two very catchy singles, "Let It Happen" and "Always Be," but you can't give up on the album even as it plateaus a bit in the middle, because it saves one of its very best songs for second to last, "Firefight." It's not just the best deep cut on Chase This Light; it's the second best song on the album after "Big Casino," and one of Jimmy Eat World's most instantly-satisfying songs ever. "Firefight" finds Jimmy Eat World going all in on big anthemic hooks and stadium-sized quiet-loud dynamics, but in that pensive way that only Jimmy Eat World can do.
In a way, the entire Integrity Blues album feels like one of Jimmy Eat World's best deep cuts. It didn't have any big hits like the ones the band had in the early/mid 2000s, and it came well after the general public's interest in Jimmy Eat World had dwindled. It's an album for the diehards, and those who heard it are lucky; it's one of the band's very best albums, on par with the music they were putting out at the height of their success despite its relative obscurity. As far as its great deep cuts go, it was hard to pick one for this list -- do I go with the slow-burning, Clarity-esque "It Matters"? The sludge metal-infused "Pass the Baby"? So many songs could've made it, but I ended up going with a song that's way too overlooked for how instantly-satisfying it is, "Through." Even if you're only a casual Jimmy Eat World listener who appreciates "The Middle" and "Sweetness" in passing, "Through" could win you over. It's that kind of song; a fat-trimmed, super-catchy dose of emo power pop that could've ruled the airwaves in an alternate timeline.
Static Prevails is Jimmy Eat World as a raw, scrappy emo band, but it had hints of the more majestic music that they'd make later on, and the strongest of those hints was "Claire." It's slower and prettier than Static Prevails' two singles (the great "Rockstar" and "Call It In The Air"), and you can almost hear Jim Adkins realizing in real time how sweet his voice can sound. He still raises his voice to a shouty rasp here and there, but for the most part, "Claire" sounds like the earliest example of what Jimmy Eat World would achieve artistically with Clarity. Much of Static Prevails epitomizes mid '90s emo, but "Claire" sounds ahead of its time. It's a song that even today sounds shockingly fresh compared to just about every other song on the album.
It can't be a total coincidence that "Disintegration" shares its title with the most immersive Cure album, right? Even more so than "23," the opening track on Futures' followup EP Stay On My Side Tonight was a lengthy, eerie, atmospheric slow-burn that took at least a few cues from The Cure's 1989 masterpiece. It's a side of Jimmy Eat World that isn't shown enough, and it's never been better than on "Disintegration." Like "23," the guitars are somber and deceptively simple. The pounding, thunderous drums are the loudest thing in the mix, and they function more as a core melody than as a rhythm section. Jim's delivery is more haunting than ever; words slowly seep out of his mouth, gradually building to the shouted gang vocal refrain in the song's second half. For a comparison within the emo world, it felt like Jimmy Eat World's answer to Sunny Day Real Estate's How It Feels To Be Something On, an art rock sensory overload that mesmerizes on a far deeper level than your average emo song. "Disintegration" is not just one of Jimmy Eat World's best deep cuts, but one of their best songs, period, and it's a type of song that I've always wished they'd written more of. But being such an outlier in Jimmy Eat World's discography only makes it feel even more overwhelming. 041b061a72