Bleed American was issued *checks notes, curses the passage of time* 24 years ago smack in the middle of summer, and I will always associate its sound with summer, and - given the release date - being young. Bleed American was part of the soundtrack of my college year in the United States. It has llit up that summer of 2001, and probably a couple of summers after this, and it's time it livelies up the summer of 2025.
So, what makes Bleed American an album that immeditaly makes you - oh, at least two and a half decades younger? For one thing, everything about the record is big: its hooks, its feelings, its attitude. In many ways, the more direct approach of Bleed American leads to its approximation of what it is to be young and uncertain and in love and out of love and not sure where you are going next. Everything in its direct attacks on the senses - the power chords, the irresistible hooks, the emotive singing - works into emulating the sort of heightened senses experience that engulfs you when you are a teenager or a young adult: Everything is - or at least feels - bigger and more dramatic in those moments, every setback, romantic or otherwise is the end of the world, every success seems to be the beginning of a road into the golden future. Being older and just a little bit wiser, we all know those things to not be true. It's easy to chuckle at our own dramatics of youth now that we see them for what they are, but the roots of nostalgia lie therein, for every generation.
Nostalgia for simpler times back when we were young really started to become a thing in the early-to-mid 70s when things around people became more and more complex: Endless Summer, American Graffiti, most of Bob Seger's career from Night Moves onwards... It works, because we all remember how some of these moments that seemed momentuous urned out not to be that, but we remember how they made us feel. And some of the music of that time brings back these feelings as well. Jimmy Eat World's Bleed American always does this for me. It also happens to be a killer set of songs and hooks, somewhere right between college rock and power pop.
Bleed American could not escape its time, and the shadow of 9/11 loomed large over everything, including seemingly innocuous titles. Bleed American was briefly withdrawn from stores to be re-issued with the album title as simply Jimmy Eat World (making it their second such album after their 1994 debut) and the title song being renamed "Salt Sweat Suger". The title song and opener is by far the hardest-edged song on the album, a flashback to when they would play songs at thrash metal speed. It also establishes the alum's modus operandi: After Clarity (which I rejiggered a bit to improve it) saw their growth in more elaborate structures, for Bleed American they return to a greater simplicity, while keeping the compositional strides they've made since their noisier beginnings.
"The Middle" became the biggest song of the album, and you immeditaley get why: it has one of the biggest hook on the record, and the lyrics who encourage all looked-down on youth that things will get better hits right into the heart of their prospective listeners. How many teenage girl bedrooms or sorority dorm rooms have been lit up by the irresistible chorus "It just takes some time / little girl, you're in the middle of the ride / everything, everything will be just fine / everything, everything will be alright, alright"? Some moments that seemed to be calculated were pure accidents: All The 'Whoa's' in second single "Sweetness", which sound like they were designed to have a stadium crowd singing along, were placeholders when Jim Adkins developed the song and were supposed to be replaced later, but since no one in Jimmy Eat World could come up with something that worked, they stayed in place.
The hooks here ae so abundant, that basically everything here besides the slower, moodier "Cautioners" and epic melancholic closer "My Sundown" could have been a single. Which means that Bleed American plays a lot like a gretest hits compilation, three minute blast of energy after three minute blast of energy, with the occasional ballad thrown in for good measure. Speaking of: The biggest ballad is the stately "Hear You Me", with Adkins' pleas of "May Angels Lead You In", written as a tribute to a couple that had recently died in a car crash and had gained a reputation for letting burgeoning rock groups crash at their place when they were in town ("you gave us a place to go"). Even when Jimmy Eat World were going for the feels, it wasn't mindless sappiness.
Since Bleed American became a Platinum-certified bestseller and the three singles plus a couple of album tracks became rock radio staples, it's easy to forget that its inception wasn't as simple as a lot of non-researched 'and then they built on the strengths of Clarity' articles would suggest. The commercial failure of Clarity led them to be dropped by Capitol, soon afterwards they also quit their management. All four members rejoined the mainstream work force in odd jobs like car dealer, but a succcessful tour in Europe and the compilation Singles (which was the main source of my Earlybird Special compilation) brought in enough money to start sessions for the follow-up. When money statred to run out towards the end of the work, producer Mark Trombino proposed to finish working for free with the band repaying him later. As a promotional tool, the band uploaded some demos from the sessions on Napster (hello, early 2000s) for their fans, which in turn attracted interest from record labels due to its commercial appeal. Finally, six record labels went into a bidding war (including Capitol Records who had just dropped them!) before the band signed with Dreamworks and delivered the commercial juggernaut the lables were expecting.
Not everyone liked the streamlining of Jimmy Eat World's music. They were the victims of an all-time vicious pan by the snobmasters at Pitchfork, but time has shown that Pitchfork ended up on the wrong side of history on this one. Most critics raved, and the album's reputation only has grown larger in the intervening, uh, almost-quarter-of-a-century. It has now shown up on several 'best of the decade/the century/of all time' lists that are exercises in futility, but the proof is in the music itself. If this music leaves you cold, you might already be dead. So, taste the summer of youth, turn down the car (or, failing that, apartment) windows and play this as loud as you can...and then sing it back Who-ho-ooo-ooo-oooo!
