The Loop : New Found Glory - S/T

New Found Glory - S/T (2000)

I've spent this entire month going through nearly 50 albums scratched down on sheets of paper that I've carried in my purse. I went in no particular order and as we are at the end of October, I'm down to a handful of my high school/early college records. I've scrolled past New Found Glory's self-titled record several times, rationalizing with myself that I need to save it for a special occasion. Since I wasn't able to post all last week and we're nearing the end of this period, I think it's time to bust out the big guns.

Full credit goes out to my brother for introducing me to this record. I still remember taking his copy, grabbing my disc-man and taking my dog for a walk around the vicinity of 60th Street and Greenway until the record was over. Several of the songs would find their way into my mixtapes and I even took the album booklet and taped it to the inside of my locker (before they took our lockers away . . . nice work, AZ) I investigated all things New Found Glory and participated in various message boards, etc. I remember playing "Sincerely Me" over the phone for a friend because I loved the song so much and thought they would too (this before the days of pointing to someone's MySpace) And the final fan girl move? Writing the lyrics to "Hit or Miss" in white-out pen on my binder.

I had no issue in being this cliche. Now that I'm old and jaded and hang out daily with other old and jaded industry folk, I find myself apologizing for liking certain bands. I've even bypassed revisiting some of this records at work for fear of being made fun of by my colleagues. I'll use New Found Glory as a benchmark for other cutesy pop punk bands and their overzealous fans but you know what? That's because they were at the forefront of all this and they did set the tone for several years of pop punk bands. It's hard to believe that some of these bands now will talk about New Found Glory the way that some bands talk about the Pixies, but you cannot deny their cultural influence with this flawless compilation of pop-rock.

When I thought about "10 Years of Unapologetic Albums", this was #1 (even over some of the ska bands) Laugh all you want, but I'd be hard pressed to find another time in my life where I was MORE passionate about one band or one album. I would rather have the butterflies of revisiting this record and screaming at the top of my lungs at their shows for this one band than 10 bands I only like haphazardly. There should never be anything haphazard about music, or anything to apologize for.

I love this record.

While I think this may have been the Nothing Gold Can Stay version of this song, it has Corey Feldman in it and that's pretty awesome.