Posted on: Wednesday, June 19, 2002
'Middle' propels Jimmy to the top
By Edna Gundersen
USA Today
After being dumped by Capitol Records in 1999, Jimmy Eat World scrounged together the cash to record its fourth album while worrying that the music might never find an audience. The band, which regularly makes Honolulu one of its tour stops, had no clue that its simplest tune yet would end up in the middle of everywhere.
"The Middle," from the Arizona quartet's 11-month-old "Bleed American" album on DreamWorks, is flooding airwaves after a slow climb on multiple formats. It's No. 1 for the fourth week at modern adult contemporary and No. 9 in its 33rd week on modern rock, according to "Airplay Monitor." It's No. 6 and rising on the mainstream Top 40 chart.
"It started out a joke, really," says singer/guitarist Jim Adkins, 26. "It's probably the most direct and straightforward tune we've ever done. In that sense, it's out of character, just this crazy, simple four-chord pop song. We're always walking a fine line between challenging and easily digestible music, something that's accessible but not insulting to listen to."
The record's encouraging lyrics and uplifting chorus ("Everything, everything'll be just fine") urge individualists to ignore the judgments of conformists.
"This is an anti-elitist song directed toward people who are satisfied in doing their own thing," says Adkins.
Adkins doesn't want the band to get stuck in "The Middle," especially with follow-up track, "Sweetness," percolating.
"It wouldn't bum me out to see "The Middle" go away," he says. "It's pretty rad that it got this far, but it would be nice if people got into the newer song."
Enjoying a massive pop hit, the band already is bigger than its assigned genre, an emerging blend of rock sensitivity and aggression known as emo (short for emotional).
"It's uncomfortable to be branded by a catch phrase," Adkins says. "If you asked a roomful of people what punk rock means, you'd get a roomful of different answers, depending on where you grew up."
Jimmy Eat World was formed in 1994 in Mesa, Ariz., where Adkins describes the music scene as "kind of liberating, because you can do whatever you want and no one cares, and also inhibiting, because no one cares. It's hard to rally support for something you're really proud of."
