I never really stuck with these guys after, but damn did Ocean Avenue hit hard. I remember my first listen in the car ride home from the record store and being blown away by the huge step up in production value.
Dang I feel old. I first heard of Yellowcard from hearing Sure Shot on MP3.com back in the day. The hype for Ocean Avenue was massive. I definitely downloaded it from mIRC within 30 minutes of it leaking. Definitely holds up and the production on that album sounds so good.
Every so often I’m reminded about the absolute monster year for music that was 2003. No single year can even come close to matching 2003 for impact on my musical tastes. Especially that summer. It was just classic after classic.
This album is still my favourite YC release. I've moved away from pop punk slowly over the last few years, and some of the records of that 'golden generation' have aged quite poorly. Not Ocean Avenue though. The songwriting still sounds as fresh as ever, the hooks haven't faded one bit and the lyricism and vocals still cut through and resonate so well. Up there as one of my favourite albums of all time.
Ocean Avenue was the reason I took up the drums actually, just listening to LP fly around the kit... made me want to do it too.
The resounding feeling I get with Ocean Avenue and Paper Walls, now that both are over a decade old, is that the albums stand the test of time better than a *large* majority of albums in the genre. This band was really, really good.
Ocean Ave to Southern Air all hold up perfectly (Lift a Sail and Self Titled are too early to say but I can’t see how they won’t).
To give context on how insane 2003 actually was, here are the other classics I realized were also released that year: Blink-182 - blink-182 Brand New - Deja Entendu Less Than Jake - Anthem Streetlight Manifesto - Everything Goes Numb Dashboard Confessional - A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar Lagwagon - Blaze AFI - Sing the Sorrow The Ataris - So Long, Astoria Rancid - Indestructible Fall Out Boy - Take This To Your Grave Death Cab For Cutie - Translanticism The Postal Service - Give Up Thrice - The Artist in the Ambulance The Early November - The Room’s Too Cold Motion City Soundtrack - I Am the Movie Linkin Park - Meteora The White Stripes - Elephant John Mayer - Heavier Things 50 Cent - Get Rich or Die Tryin Outkast - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below The Bouncing Souls - Anchors Aweigh Senses Fail - From the Depths of Dreams Explosions in the Sky - The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place Cursive - The Ugly Organ The Lawrence Arms - The Greatest Story Ever Told Immortal Technique - Revolutionary Volume 2 Muse - Absolution Every Time I Die - Hot Damn! Rise Against - Revolutions Per Minute Saosin - Translating the Name Coheed & Cambria - In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 Thursday - War All the Time The Fall of Troy - The Fall of Troy Suburban Legends - Rump Shaker Zebrahead - MFZB The Forces of Evil - Friend or FOE? Alkaline Trio - Good Mourning Dropkick Murphys - Blackout Mae - Destination: Beautiful The Movielife - Forty Hour Train Back to Penn The Distillers - Coral Fang The National - Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers Copeland - Beneath Medicine Tree Silverstein - When Broken Is Easily Fixed Billy Talent - Billy Talent Something Corporate - North Story of the Year - Page Avenue
It’s just nuts! May 6th was Take this to your grave and the next week was Good Mourning. I mean, come on! Hot Damn and You Come Before You were released on the same day! So were In Keeping Secrets and Transatlanticism. Also, Deloused in a Comatorium came out that year too.
"Ocean Avenue" (the song) is still widely included on party playlists at bars/parties amongst the typical edm/hip-hop/top 40 you'd expect to be played
Don't forget: Saves The Day - In Reverie NOFX - War on Errorism Spitalfield - Remember Right Now Blood Brothers - Burn Piano Island Against Me! - Eternal Cowboy Further Seems Forever - How to Start a Fire Armor for Sleep - Dream to Make Believe Strike Anywhere - Exit English Funeral for a Friend - Casually Dressed Radiohead- Hail to the Thief The Shins - Chutes to Narrow I give up. There's too many.
2002-2005 is a pretty big era. I think 2005 is arguably the most important year though. FUCT blowing up changed everything. As I wrote about here: Back to 2005 (Re-Ranking the Best of Lists) Encore: Best of 2005 (Re-Ranking) (#162) But those previous years were big too, I have an idea for how to go back to talking about them when the current article series finishes in 4 weeks.
Pretty much confirms that the band members were the ones who wanted the lawsuit and not the label then like some people optimistically thought, huh? If the band were the ones who chose to drop it anyways
Don't know how much this helps their reputation at this point, but I'm glad this happened. As I've said here before, I thought they had a case, but ultimately the lawsuit was silly from my perspective and just seemed really callous after Juice WRLD's death