One Year, 100 Albums: #71 Taking Back Sunday - Tell All Your Friends

The truth is, you could slit my throat. And with my one last gasping breath, I'd apologize for bleeding on your shirt

Taking Back Sunday Tell All Your Friends, 2002

If there's one album that I think of when I think of Sophomore Year of College (and, if you've been a regular reader of these things, you'll know that SYoC was a big year for me in terms of memorable albums), it's this one.

The girl that I was pursuing and then dating that year was a HUGE TBS fan and made sure this album was played at LEAST twice on any given road trip. And we belted the whole thing out at the top of our lungs. Good memory.

But when I bought the album (because you buy the album that the girl you're after is constantly talking about and obsessing over.), it was a challenge to get into. For one thing, the lyrics booklet was pretty much just a big fat lie. What they were singing was some sort of weird interpretation and abridgment of the lyrics printed in the booklet. And that was tough for me. It might have been tough regardless of the outside context, but when you're trying to learn an album as quickly and thoroughly as possible, it's pretty stressful when you realize you're going to have to do it the old fashioned way!

So maybe this album made the list because of a girl, but I continued to love this album long after we both moved on to other relationships. And I don't think it takes anything away from my appreciation of it that I got into it in that way.

The album is raw. It's definitely a debut. There's a hunger and desperation on this one that would be replaced on later albums with catchier hooks and more varied arrangements. And I know. I usually go for the albums that I would describe as "more varied". And I definitely struggled with this. I loved the next two albums they put out (Where You Want to Be and Louder Now) almost as much as this one. But I don't know if I would have loved them as much if I hadn't had Tell All Your Friends as a starting point.

Here's the video for "Cute Without the E (Cut From the Team)", perhaps the catchiest song on the album. You can see why SYoC James was easily swayed by these guys. They love Fight Club as much as he does!

Man, they were so young. And then they'd split into TBS and Straylight Run. And then last year, the original band got back together. I haven't heard the album they put out. I'm a little scared that I won't be as into it as I want to be.

Anyway.

It's only 10 songs long, so I'm only going to feature 1 song. Fortunately, it's the most "Taking Back Sunday" song of all time, so it packs a punch

Taking Back Sunday - You're So Last Summer

You can buy Tell All Your Friends at Amazon, Amazon MP3, and iTunes