Something To Write Home About was one of my first introductions to emo and pop punk as a middle schooler. At that time they were just another band in the lineup that comprised my burgeoning love for music– emo and pop punk in particular were just beginning to take off, and I was jumping on that train big time. The Ataris Blue Skies, Broken Hearts album was one of my formative pop punk albums, I cherished the harder emo stuff of Taking Back Sunday and Brand New, and NOFX’s So Long & Thanks For All The Shoes was my gateway to skate punk. The Get Up Kids were in the mix (I loved “Holiday” and “I’ll Catch You” which conveniently bookend this album), and these songs were a fixture on mixed tape CD’s I’d trade with my friends, but I never fell deeply in love with The Get Up Kids like I did with other bands in that era of my life.
Twenty years later it’s sort of funny how much the feelings still come back as I spin this album, and it’s also surprising how well Something To Write Home About holds up. The songwriting on this album is quite honestly pretty great for an era that’s known for saccharine sweet hooks and simple four-chord progressions. There’s a level of maturity here that is profoundly timeless in a way that some of these other albums simply don’t have. I think it’s fitting that twenty years later this album is considered a classic in the emo/pop punk genre by music critics and people who get paid to analyze that sort of thing, and The Get Up Kids are recognized as one of the forebears of the second wave emo movement that coincided with my middle school and high school years. Without Something To Write Home About bands like Taking Back Sunday, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, Dashboard Confessional, New Found Glory, and Blink-182 (all of whom at one point listed this album as a huge influence) don’t exist. And that’s a big list of some massive bands.
A great historical sidenote to close us out– The Get Up Kids released Something To Write Home About on the then fledgling Vagrant Records. Label owners Rich Egan and Jon Cohen actually took out a $50,000 loan from Cohen’s parents to finance the recording of this album (that they paid for by mortgaging the family house), which was basically a massive roll of the dice. And it paid off, as the album was a huge success and led to Vagrant becoming one of the most accomplished independent record labels in the industry during the 2000’s.
Standout Songs: “Holiday”, “I’ll Catch You”, “I’m a Loner Dottie, a Rebel”, “The Company Dime”
