This review is part of a series looking back at significant albums on their anniversaries. Through the benefit of hindsight we will be viewing the album not just as it was released, but how it stands the test of time, as well as its place in the band’s discography and the genre in general.
Victory Records – 26 March 2002
Debut from the New American Classic Badasses
When Long Island’s Taking Back Sunday dropped their debut full-length, Tell All Your Friends in 2002, the exit sign and overpass on the album cover seemed inconsequential. Looking back twenty years now though, that album seems so much more telling. Plenty of bands before them had blended the melodies of pop-punk with the passion of hardcore, but TBS didn’t follow the path well traveled. Sure, Shaun Cooper, Adam Lazzara, John Nolan, Mark O’Connell and Eddie Reyes may took an on-ramp to a highway paved by the likes of The Promise Ring, The Get Up Kids, Silent Majority and The Movielife (of which Reyes was a founding member) but they promptly made their own exit (152?), creating a roadmap for the scene that has endured for twenty years. A roadmap highlighted by being at the forefront of embracing the emo tag and all the stereotypes it encompassed.
Immediately, from the opening salvo “So sick so sick of being tired/and oh so tired of being sick,” was something of a subtle ass-kicking as Adam Lazarra and John Nolan’s vocal told the story in hushed and overlapping bars signifying the introspective rage that makes Tell All Your Friends an absolute classic. The true legacy of TBS and their debut is the tension in the art and the art in their tension. The scholarly and well-read lyricism create some of the most tattooed, Myspace-status ready lyrics in all of music history, something “literate and stylish” if you will. And while “Cute Without the E (Cut From The Team)” is probably the greatest named track of the century, the naivete and melodrama of the young band could be a bit too clever for itself. That’s possibly why the tracklist reads like a concept album of a lovelorn and mediocre high school athlete.
The most striking thing immediately evident off Tell All Your Friends is the way a collar-and-elbow tie-up ensues on nearly every track between the passionate howl of Nolan and the anguished shouts of Lazarra. Between the two, the listener can be certain they will address and admit their flaws, lyrically, in both a vulnerable and vindictive way. Not only has no other band successfully engaged in the back and forth vocals quite like TBS (sorry Underoath), no band has written a more perfect soundtrack to a carpool song-along where two parts can be taken and nobody has the weaker role.
In pro-wrestling terminology, TBS has undergone countless heel and face turns over the years, so much so, I’d say they really are the scene equivalent of The Undertaker. Taking Back Sunday will not always be the champion of the scene at any given time, but they will never not have a headliner status, and a streak of influence that will be hard to topple. They may have fallen out of the public eye for brief runs, but when they inevitably return, they are undoubtedly a top of card force. The scene has never been more “Brothers of Destruction” than the early feud between Brand New and Taking Back Sunday, before the bands reconciled, teamed up and tore roofs down together. Hell, they’ve even been buried alive when Nolan left shortly after the release of Tell All Your Friends, joined the Corporate Ministry in 2005 when signing with Warner Bros. Then, last winter, as Straylight Run and TBS toured concurrently, we had a Summerslam 94, Undertaker vs Undertaker style matchup, except that match was a shitty match made in hell, and the TBS/SR run was a beautifully cathartic match made in heaven.
Taking Back Sunday has done so much to change the landscape of the scene over the last twenty years, and it all stems from this, their greatest album. Before TBS, it wasn’t common that a band would confront their own issues and insecurities, but the LI quintet didn’t shy away from confronting their own mental health issues, their struggles with faith, the in-fighting or their own responsibilities in failed relationships. Turns out their mics are, maybe, for more than singing or swinging.
Bad Dad (occasionally called Ed) has been on the periphery of the punk and punk-adjacent scene for over twenty years. While many contributors to this site have musical experience and talent, Ed’s musical claim to fame comes from his time in arguably the most punk rock Blockbuster Video district in NJ where he worked alongside members of Blanks 77, Best Hit TV and Brian Fallon. He is more than just an awful father to his 2 daughters, he is also a dreadful husband, a subpar writer, a terrible dresser and has a severe deficiency in all things talent… but hey, at least he’s self-aware, amirite?
Check out the pathetic attempts at photography on his insta at https://www.instagram.com/bad_dad_photography/
