Rowan5215
Staff

Reviews 199
Soundoffs 91
News Articles 60
Band Edits + Tags 8
Album Edits 83

Album Ratings 2679
Objectivity 69%

Last Active 01-01-70 12:00 am
Joined 01-01-70

Review Comments 47,598

 Lists
11.09.22 Every Episode of Atlanta Ranked11.03.22 Andor
10.26.22 lost my job list is digs11.07.21 A Decade of Rowan ♦
10.06.21 spookytober watchlist time05.31.21 top 20 twilight sad
02.23.21 top 30 beach boys12.27.20 Rowan2020 ♦
10.21.20 Mike Flanagan Ranked07.06.20 Top 20 Deftones
04.04.20 top 20 elliott smith02.18.20 Clone Wars 7 hypethread
02.12.20 top 20 enter shikari ♦01.18.20 Songs of the Decade ♦
12.29.19 Movies of the Decade ♦12.20.19 Rowan2019 ♦
12.02.19 TV of the Decade [UPDATED FOR DADDY ESM ♦10.18.19 Top 20 Jimmy Eat World ♦
More »

Top 20 Jimmy Eat World

Obviously in celebration of Surviving although I didn't count any songs from that because it's way too soon. goddamn this band is consistent
1Jimmy Eat World
Invented

Invented
A raw, wounded pocket symphony. Seven minutes of absolute perfection with Jimmy's best build-and-release – it's not even a surprise when the song explodes because all that tension, anger, love and vitriol had been simmering just beneath the surface of Adkins' wounded vocal. Genuinely, one of my favourite songs of all time. "having trouble with the right words, would you help me with your eyes?"
2Jimmy Eat World
Clarity

For Me This is Heaven
Adkins took a running leap above his own efforts with the vocals and lyrics on Clarity, but ironically the album's best moment just lets the instruments do the talking. Intertwining piano, acoustic guitar and heavenly harmonies combine to make the most sublime 40 seconds of music – the only choice is to play it over again when the time you have now, ends.
3Jimmy Eat World
Futures

23
A delicate magnum opus where the shimmering guitars feel just out of reach but the lyrics crash home with the force of a bullet train. Tough love never sounded so good as when it comes from Jim Adkins' vocal cords and “23” is the song that sits you down and makes you swallow some bitter fucking pills. “you'll sit alone forever, if you wait for the right time...”
4Jimmy Eat World
Chase This Light

Dizzy
Adkins' finest vocal performance powers this furious, desperate beast of a song. I like Chase This Light a lot, but the album kinda feels like small fry once this song comes along and scorches the goddamn earth. “you said you'd never have regrets – jesus is there someone yet who got that wish? Did you get yours, babe?”
5Jimmy Eat World
Bleed American

Cautioners
A surreal little universe of its own, “Cautioners” is utterly at odds even with Bleed American's other two ballads, which are clean and simple where “Cautioners” is elusive and never quite in centre frame. The chorus of course suggests heartbreak, another Jim Adkins painting of a crumbling relationship, but the guitars which sound like twinkling, breathy church bells and that tense electric strum underneath suggest something more complex, even a sense of relief. “I'm making my peace, and making it with distance...”
6Jimmy Eat World
Clarity

Just Watch the Fireworks
The last gasp of Static Prevails-era Jimmy sees Adkins stretch his affable rasp of a voice almost to breaking point. An incredible second half dances that electric vocal over some stately strings and guitars, but for me the classic is in the first half, where promises of a place where “you can be anything, and I think that scares you” soundtrack an expertly written delicate dance between a band perfectly in tune with one another.
7Jimmy Eat World
Stay on My Side Tonight

Closer
Linton and co. basically ignore the gentle sadness of Adkins' lyric and use "Closer"'s b-side status as an excuse to rock the fuck out. The breakdown of nearly two straight minutes of swirling static, juddering feedback and pile-driving drums cement this as a force to be reckoned with, but the stunning chorus melody confirm it as a lost gem. “touch and taste, fade with space, I'll never be... who you need”
8Jimmy Eat World
Invented

Littlething
Just a perfect little lesson in balance, playing that ethereally gorgeous piano against an earthy, lumbering bassline that keeps the song anchored. As on this whole album, Adkins paints an incredibly vivid picture within understated and simple lines with his strongest ever character writing. “so I walked 'til I just couldn't, and too late I understood / it was always half invented, but the other half was good”
9Jimmy Eat World
Futures

Polaris
A cousin to “Littlething” in some ways, but befitting its' album cover “Polaris” gets miles out of that late-night, bleary-eyed insomniac atmosphere, only to build to one of the greatest bridges ever in the pop-punk genre like it's nothing. “are you happy where you're standing still? do you really want the sugar pill?”
10Jimmy Eat World
Clarity

Table for Glasses
Where Jimmy Eat World learned the power of silence and negative space as a dynamic, a lesson they're still applying 20 years later. Also one of the all-time great openers, thanks to nothing more than a terrific vocal melody and impressionistic lyric about a girl with a dusty dress. “lead my skeptic sight / to the table and the light”
11Jimmy Eat World
Stay on My Side Tonight

Disintegration
It was pretty bold to name this after the greatest album of all time, but Jimmy weren't bluffing when they invited comparisons to the Cure's opus with “Disintegration”'s desolate, wintry bleakness - unlike anything else they've done before or since. “this poison comes instruction-free / do what you want, but I'm drinking”
12Jimmy Eat World
Invented

Movielike
Talking of utterly bleak, “Movielike” couldn't be more different from “Disintegration” in arrangement but the complete lack of hope and optimism in their lyrics makes them strange companions. I can think of few cases of cognitive dissonance as sweet as "Movielike"'s handclaps and folk guitar strums soundtracking a line like “waiting to see a sign? then you've seen the best already”
13Jimmy Eat World
Integrity Blues

Integrity Blues
Already lovely as an Adkins acoustic piece, but thank god or whoever decided to take a chance with this song in its album arrangement. The shifting, haunted string treatment it was given completely avoids schmaltz and instead tilts close towards a waking dream, a stream-of-consciousness spinout when nobody's there. Pinpointing the tempo or melodic resolution proves difficult, but then you realise that's the entire point – perfect marriage of form and content when Adkins forlornly wails “lord I'm wondering, if what you're telling me... is I've got work to do”
14Jimmy Eat World
Clarity

Goodbye Sky Harbor
The original risk which made every experiment, style switch and bold departure in Jimmy's discography up to the present day possible. Zone out to the loop part of this song and you might never find your way back to earth, but it's the transition between emo rock banger and looped-out electronic jam which marks GSH as one of the band's best: “you are smaller, gettin' smaller but I still see you...”
15Jimmy Eat World
Futures

Kill
“Kill” is almost very very silly, from the attention-grabbing Elliott Smith-drop to the deeply 2000s pop backing vocals in the chorus. Adkins sells all this silliness with one of his finest ever performances, lyrically and vocally, and you won't ever find the song cheesy once you've heard him spit out the lyrics on the bridge: “I loved you, and I should've said it, but tell me just what has it ever meant?”
16Jimmy Eat World
Invented

Heart is Hard to Find
Invented is my favourite for a few reasons, and some of the more prominent among these are a) nostalgia, b) contrarianism and c) it starts with an alt-country, pop-handclapped bit of ridiculousness that's deeply, absolutely perfect. Some of the best opening lyrics to any album lead off a song that might bring me more pure joy, and have more plays in my phone than any other: “I can't compete with the clear eyes of strangers / I'm more and more replaced by my friends each night”
17Jimmy Eat World
Bleed American

A Praise Chorus
No avoiding that this is a pretty downbeat list, but that side isn't all Jimmy Eat World are, and I don't know if their reckless power pop energy was ever better encapsulated than this one song. The verses are still some lessons in tough love, but they're couched in such a terrific groove and heart-baring chorus that you don't ever pause for long enough to let them sink in – and my god if that bridge isn't the most perfect dedication music has ever made to music. “Crimson and Clover, over and over”
18Jimmy Eat World
Clarity

A Sunday
The original sadboi jam which showed the darker side behind this band's sometimes infectious upbeatness. “what you wish for won't come true - live with that” is pretty stark, but the tasteful blend of twinkly emo, electronic shimmers and third-act explosion completes this drastically underrated song's arc.
19Jimmy Eat World
Jimmy Eat World [EP]

Roller Queen
A breathtaking forgotten gem. Another 7-minute cut but unlike its multi-part, elaborately composed contemporaries, “Roller Queen” unfolds along one twinkling riff with serene patience, sketching a subtle mood piece not miles away from split-mates Mineral or, in future comparisons, Weezer's “The Angel and the One”. Adkins disappears around the halfway mark leaving guitar and static to prevail; the only surprising moment and my favourite is a little bridge where the lone guitar is run through heavy effects, sounding like a decaying loop of the melody that will take up the rest of the runtime – Jimmy Eat World's own private disintegration tape.
20Jimmy Eat World
Integrity Blues

You With Me
All of Jimmy Eat World's discography in five minutes and change and never feels laboured. The opening of spacey guitar and hazy ooohs is all Clarity, the propulsive verses are a conflicted relationship struggle straight out of Futures and Invented, the effervescent chorus could be cut right off Bleed American and Chase This Light. Show this song to a non-believer, and if they're not immediately converted, sever all ties.
21Jimmy Eat World
Singles

honourables: Anderson Mesa, When I Want, Shame, Pol Roger, Drugs or Me, Evidence, Appreciation, Sweetness, Cut
Show/Add Comments (44)

STAFF & CONTRIBUTORS // CONTACT US

Bands: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Site Copyright 2005-2023 Sputnikmusic.com
All Album Reviews Displayed With Permission of Authors | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy