25th anniversary review: The Get Up Kids – “Something To Write Home About”

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.

Vagrant Records – 21 Sept 1999

Here’s what I think this record can represent, even if they can’t take a compliment

When I look back at records celebrating their milestone anniversaries, I often find myself thinking about the year they released, how the album impacted that specific time of my life.  Then there’s albums like The Get Up Kids‘ Something To Write Home About. It came out in September of 1999, but this record reminds me of a few years later.  Yes, I bought it quite close to its release date, but the sound is so ahead of that time, it sounds like an album from 2001, 2002. 

Small difference in the grand scheme, I admit but musically, the jump was huge and really quite ahead of its time.  Seriously, who the hell used a synth in 99?!  Released back when emo was still a dirty word, The Get Up Kids managed to change the musical landscape. I certainly never would’ve guessed at the time that this would become one of our youngest daughter’s favorite records, but now I can always count on “Valentine” showing up when its her turn to pick the dinner music.

The sophomore album showcased an intense musical and lyrical growth making it a seminal record in the second wave and, for my money at least, the most influential album of the third wave of the emo, in spite of, and possibly thanks to the band’s disavowal of the scene’s 3-lettered, four-letter word. Something To Write Home About bridged a gap between the early-emo influencers such as Rites of Spring or Embrace and the later evolution of emo into the more poppy sound it is currently associated with.  Playing the role of evolutionary link, TGUK cultivated a scene not-quite-ready to take over airwaves and too far removed from its more hardcore roots. The album has proved itself perfect with each passing year and each newly-influenced act.

I don’t care what your thoughts are on the rest of the album, there is no denying that double pick slide to open up Something To Write Home About is goddamned iconic and unmatched.  Then there’s the track “I’m A Loner Dottie, A Rebel.” You might hate the song, you’d be wrong, of course, but even if you do despise the track, you’ve got to give credit where it’s due. If not for TGUK quoting PeeWee’s Big Adventure, we wouldn’t have the laughably long and absurdly obtuse titles that defined the early millennium’s scene. Matt Pryor walked so Pete Wentz could run-on sentence.

And let’s not downplay the Vagrant story on this one.  If not for the massive financial gamble label founders Rich Egan and Jon Cohen took on this record, and the huge credibility (and financial) return received, its safe to say they aren’t putting out some of the albums that stand tall in their catalogue.  Imagine if some of these brilliant records were put out by different labels with different end goals in mind.  Would Stay What You Are be half as enjoyable if it had the extra Drive-Thru sheen? Could Fat Mike have turned From Here To Infirmary into a very different record on Fat?  While maybe not out long enough to influence the sounds on those records, The Get Up Kids deserve some recognition for putting Vagrant on the map the way they did.

Something To Write Home About is always on a top-whatever number list of classic emo records, and I’ll always make the argument that it belongs in the top 3, minimum. The band’s growth between the ambitious debut album Four Minute Mile (1997) to Something To Write Home About (1999) was immense, impressive and whatever other superlative you want to tag onto it. Begrudgingly or not, the band matured into legends and in doing so, created the road map to the Midwest sound. 

It was relatable, it was personal and it was a fucking blast.  The band played off one another so impeccably; the internal and external tensions throughout each of the 12 tracks, a push and pull creating palpable anxiety and restlessness that carried over into the instrumentation. Something To Write Home About is not simply an important cog in the Midwest-emo machine, it is one of the keystones upon which the whole community is built (even if they did not want to be part of the community at the time).  

Countless albums stand tall against their contemporaries but the luster fades as the years pass, but STWHA hasn’t lost any of its shimmer, in fact it seems to get more beautiful with each torch its passed and will forever continue to paint the emo landscape in a swirl of hues that refuse to fade.