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Jimmy Eat World
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Jimmy Eat World is an American rock band from Mesa, Arizona, formed in 1993. Singer and guitarist Jim Adkins and drummer Zach Lind had been friends since kindergarten. Together with guitarist Tom Linton and bassist Mitchel Porter, later replaced by Rick Burch, they began with a punk sound. The name comes from a child's drawing in which Linton's younger brother sees his brother putting the world in his mouth, with the caption Jimmy eat world.
Music and breakthrough
The band released a demo in 1993 and in 1994 the EP One, Two, Three, Four and the debut album Jimmy Eat World. Under the influence of groups such as Sunny Day Real Estate the tempos became slower and the songs more varied. In 1995 the band signed to Capitol Records. Commercial success came with Bleed American (2001), from which four singles reached the top twenty of the Alternative Songs chart, with The Middle at number 1. The 2004 album Futures yielded the number 1 Pain, and Chase This Light (2007) became their highest-charting album. In 2019 the tenth album, Surviving, appeared.
Influence
The music combines guitars, melodic choruses and emotional lyrics, in a style later called emo and power pop. Jimmy Eat World is regarded as one of the bands that shaped the guitar sound of the early 2000s. The Middle has an encouraging message about self-confidence that appealed to many young listeners.
Listening
The Middle · Jimmy Eat World, 2001Apple Music ↗
Discography
Studio albums
- 1994Jimmy Eat World
- 1996Static Prevails
- 1999Clarity
- 2001Bleed American
- 2004Futures
- 2007Chase This Light
- 2010Invented
- 2013Damage
- 2016Integrity Blues
- 2019Surviving
Mentioned in other articles
- Emo Genre
Around 2000 emo became big, with Jimmy Eat World, Dashboard Confessional and My Chemical Romance, and with a youth culture of its own of black hair, skinny trousers and eyeliner.