The Get Up Kids - Something To Write Home About

It’s a shame that the Get Up Kids are-at this moment-pegged with an image problem. And how ironic is it that while this image problem is in full bloom, they are now hitting the road for a series of reunion shows. Will the fanatical and those that admit the band had some pretty formidable records show up, or only the faithful? Have the faithful diminished to the point where the band is full circle, touring the same venues like they did when they first started?
The band is guilty of more than a few crimes, the first is that they helped accelerate a genre known as “emo,” which in itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, when you get around to considering who the true originators of the genre are: Rites Of Spring.
The Get Up Kids tidied up the genre that Rites created (and ultimately destroyed by calling it a day after one landmark album) but they also managed to sound like a bunch of whiners, which is crime number two.
According to those aforementioned fanatics, the album to get the GUK’s second full-length platter, Something To Write Home About. On its release, it was met with such praise that I picked it up. I remember liking “Company Dime” and “Holiday” seemed kind of catchy, but I’ll be goddamned if I’ve heard it since then and a recent spin (resulting from the news that they’re playing close to home) had me scratching my head “Why do I even have this?”
I had money to burn back then, and there must have been some review that caught my eye. Which is why now I must implore you to save your money or your internet connection and avoid this album. Don’t make the same mistakes that I did.
Something To Write Home About is a collection of twelve songs that seem to dwell on missing a girl. The irony is how connected out society was becoming at that time (1999) which only points to the possibility that nearly every one of those twelve songs is rooted in bullshit. The idea that life on the road promoted such sorrow and loneliness by only the SECOND ALBUM seriously points the need for every one of the Get Up Kids to contemplate another career choice.
Crime number three is creating tepid arrangements around such pansy-ass themes that you can actually feel a vagina beginning to grow where your balls should be immediately after listening to this. The album is littered with keyboards and acoustic guitars during those moments when someone must have mentioned “Hey, let’s throw in an acoustic guitar right here and sound like bigger pussies!”
Something To Write Home About is an album of tempered performances and of tempered creativity. It tries so hard to be important that it overlooks the fact that its themes translate into such unintentional pathos. It renders all of its emotional content useless which makes it hard to understand how anyone would even be able to connect with it.
Ten years later, The Get Up Kids will see first hand if anyone still relates to Something To Write Home About during their reunion tour.