Yellowcard Band • Page 196

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.

 

I feel like OA is pretty much a flawless album. There’s not a bad song on it.

 

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).

 

Wow 17 years… gonna have to spin my vinyl tonight in celebration

 

Remember when Miles Apart was the theme song for one of the Road Rules seasons?

 

Probably one of the best pop-punk albums ever, honestly

 

Time to spin this then!

 

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

 

Absolutely monster year. Matchbook Romance came out that year too.

 

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

 

I count 14 of those that I STILL listen to with some regularity so I would say it was a strong year.

 

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.

 

Wow, is 2003 the most important year for this site?

 

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.

 

This was the year for me.

 

shit and Rufio MCMLXXXV

 

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