Forget and Not Slow Down Flower Who I Am Hates Who I've Been Part of It Really tough to narrow it down, I could easily have chosen 15-20 more that mean a lot to me. What a band.
So here's the tally so far, as expected there's a wide range of songs. It shows how many great songs they have and how hard it is to narrow it down to 4. I think when we did the bracket voting 8ish years ago When I Go Down was voted the top RK song. Chap Stick 4 Empty House 4 Forget and Not Slow Down 4 I So Hate Consequences 4 Collapsible Lung 2 Deathbed 2 Overthinking 2 Pressing On 2 Sahara 2 Therapy 2 Which To Bury; Us Or The Hatchet? 2 Who I Am Hates Who I've Been 2 I Don’t Need a Soul 2 The One I’m Waiting For 2 Apathetic Way To Be 1 Be My Escape 1 Bite My Tongue 1 Crayons Can Melt on Us for All I Care 1 Curl Up and Die 1 Don't Blink 1 Flower 1 Heartache 1 High of 75 1 Jefferson Aero Plane 1 Man 1 Part of It 1 Sadie Hawkins Dance 1 Savannah 1 There was no thief 1 When I Go Down 1
So based on the above we are going with Chap Stick I So Hate Consequences Forget and Not Slow Down Empty House I feel that embodies the different “eras” of Relient K pretty well to be honest
Savannah If You Believe Me Collapsible Lung Therapy Still love a lot of the other records but FANSD is one of my favorite records of all time, hah
Marilyn Manson Ate My Girlfriend x4. kidding, relient k was my entry way into pop punk. I have largely not payed attention since forget, but a few months ago I listened to anatomy and two lefts and couldn’t believe how well those albums hold up. If they had the right backing and they were in the right time they could have been a blink adjacent band similar to sum 41 or New Found Glory. Truly a great run. Mmhmm is obviously huge but they could have had a lot more attention prior and still made the jump in sound.
They were on a major label, Capitol Records, in the mid 2000s which released Ocean Avenue the year before, and they were on Leno and maybe Conan, so they did have plenty of support. They have 3 gold albums which is an impressive feat.
They also were going to sign (or did sign and back out of?) a deal with Abercrombie and Fitch around the time Anatomy or Two Lefts came out. I know there was "controversy" around it but it was a big deal for a band their size at the time. I agree they did great, especially considering the growth they made after that first album. Howard Benson doing Five Score was a big accomplishment, although I'd argue MLT is the prefect producer/unofficial member of the band.
Today I discovered that Who I Am Hates Who I’ve Been charted higher on the Hot 100 than Be My Escape did.
wasn’t mmhmm the captial album and the two prior on the Toby Mac label? They had an incredible run from Christian bookstore band to mtv, my point was if they had gotten the bump earlier how big could have those records been / what kind of direct support on tours with the yellow card type bands could they have gotten on. I’ll never forget watching be my escape on trl and being blown away my favorite band at the time made it to that level.
The first four albums (S/T through Mmhmm) were all out on Gotee. After Mmhmm came out it was up-streamed to Capitol. I own two copies, one with Gotee imprint and one with Gotee/Capitol. It was cool to see a band I had followed since their debut make it big like that. I see what you are saying about getting bigger sooner but you also hear of bands that it didn't work out for any number of reasons (Mae - Singularity, The Juliana Theory - Love) I'm glad Mmhmm and Five Score were big label albums that did well but also soooo thankful we got FANSD
I must have forgotten it was upstreamed. Cool you have both copies. I'm not Christian but I remember going to a religious book and music store in Scotland to see if they had any RK and was delighted to buy Two Lefts in person.