“A Sunday” – Jimmy Eat World
(Words/music: Jimmy Eat World, available on Clarity, Capitol Records 1999)

Tonight, Jimmy Eat World, a band I haven’t thought about in a few years, proved two separate things to me.  The first is that they understand how technology, specifically the internet, has created new opportunities for bands.  As a culmination of their “Clarity X 10” tour celebrating the tenth anniversary of their breakthrough album, the band streamed a performance of the six most requested songs from Clarity.  During their performance, Twitter messages with the “#claritylive” tag cycled beneath the video (the band also encouraged fans to tag their tweets the night of each concert as well).  Next to the video performance was a huge button enticing the nearly 2000 viewers (according to the UStream.tv window) to purchase a live recording of Clarity from the anniversary tour.  Advertising for an album is nothing new (see: every band’s MySpace page), but two things jump out about the Clarity live recording; first, it’s exclusively a digital download offered in a variety of formats including MP3, Apple Lossless, FLAC, and WAV.  It’s interesting that the band would offer their fans so many different options (including 4 different lossless formats), but even more remarkable is that the band is (apparently) charging just $9 for any format.  The feedback from the tweets was overwhelmingly positive, and a few shared the same thought I had – more bands should do this.  It’s refreshing to see a band take active steps to engage their fans and offer different ways to interact with them and experience their music.  I also would not be surprised to see Jimmy Eat World sell a lot of copies of their live download simply by maintaining a noticeable, active profile online.

In addition to impressing with their tech savvy, I was pleasantly surprised to hear how sharp Jimmy Eat World sounded playing these songs.  I spent a lot of time listening to Clarity largely because it didn’t sound the same as a lot of the pop punk I was getting into at the time.  These songs were more complex in their instrumentation, structure, and lyrical themes, and it was the kind of thing that I listened to on many cold afternoons while walking around Providence.  Specifically, the part of “A Sunday” where it drops down to just the organ brings me right back to those days.  Listening to the songs during tonight’s Clarity performance (“A Sunday” was not one of the six songs but the Clarity X 10 version is on their MySpace page right now), I’m struck with how adventurous the band sounds.  While many of their later albums (at least the ones that made blips on my radar) streamlined their sound, Clarity was a snapshot of a band willing to take risks as songwriters, and ten years later the band still rewards their fans accordingly.

More on Jimmy Eat World: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm