Disco de The Get Up Kids: “Four Minute Mile”

The Get Up Kids' debut effort, Four Minute Mile, is a CD with all the right elements. It's a great, emotionally energizing CD with good ballads as well. It's not as polished as Something to Write Home About, but it's still borderline great. If you heard StWHA first, you might be a little surprised, but you won't be dissapointed. And if you've never heard the Get Up Kids before, imagine Green Day mixed with the Goo Goo Dolls with touches of Third Eye Blind and of course, Weezer, but with better lyrics. It's awesome.

I was turned on to The Get Up Kids the summer before my senior year of high school, 1998 to be precise. Now, I'm not too crazy about this remastered version but it's all you can find these days. This is a more abrasive GUK sound and not at all like the past two albums. The sound of every high school break up is the basis of this album. At least it's what I imagined a high school break up sounding like. I avoided relationships in high school as they are generally quite silly. But this album is berry berry fine. And I've met some damn cute girls who rock out to this. There you go guys. You have an in.

This is a very solid album and worth the money if you are into pop-punk or emo. However, there are some problems with the album. I won't get into a lengthy discussion about it, but the songs fall shy of their full potential.

For example on "Don't Hate Me" (Probably my favorite song on the album). The opening is missing something. You get the feeling that if they just added a little more time or an extra guitar part they could have made the opening sound much better. Then at the end of the song it would have been awesome for them to rip back into another chorus (and the first time you listen to the song you are so expecting them to), but they just fade out the song with this light surreal guitar fade. They do odd things like that a bunch of times on a variety of songs. Leaves you scratching your head...

Don't get me wrong, it is a good album, a good band, and they have good songs. But they are so close to greatness so many times on this album and they just miss. It just makes me wonder why they decide to write some of the songs the way they did. Were the rushed to get it done? Sometimes it seems so.

this cd took some time to impress. the first song is a classic example of one of my problems with it... the vocals are sometimes rather soft and tend to fade off into the background. the second song illustrates my second complaint... some of the lyrics are cliched and leave you wondering how to feel. the second track is a self involved psuedo apology of a love song. very confusing. however, song 3 was impressive and by 7 and 8 i was hooked to this cd. don't let the beginning fool you it gets better as it goes on. not a must buy, but a you-should-probably-buy-this-because-its-damn-good.

The album is really worth the buy. It is great lyricly and musicly, and I think a lot of people (espically rock/emo/punk people) would like it if they gave it a chance.

My personal favortie songs are "Don't Hate Me", "No Love" and "Stay Gold, Ponyboy" (which, by the way, if you're having trouble understanding the meaning of the song I suggest that you read the book "The Outsiders", because that is what the song is based off of)

Anyway, the raw sound of "Four Minute Mile" really fits in with the songs on the album.

If you are into bands like "Saves the Day", "Taking Back Sunday", or "Weezer", I think you would like The Get Up Kids, but if you are more into pop-punk (like Good Charollte or Simple Plan) I suggest that you work your way into The Get Up Kids . . .try listening to "Saves the Day"'s album "Through Being Cool" and move on from there . . .please drop bands like Good Charollte and Simple Plan, you'll be doing yourself a favor.

If you are into bands like "The Pixies", "Pavement", "Modest Mouse", or "Radiohead", it's hard to say if you will enjoy The Get Up Kids or not, buy I suggest you give them a few good listens, but maybe start with "Eroda", because they do a pretty good Pixies cover of "Alec Effiel"

Anyway, overall, this is a great album, and it is worth listening to, enjoy!