Diary (Sunny Day Real Estate album)

Last updated
Diary
Sunny Day Real Estate - Diary.jpg
Studio album by
ReleasedMay 10, 1994 (1994-05-10)
RecordedNovember 1993
Studio Idful, Chicago, Illinois
Genre
Length52:47
Label Sub Pop
Producer Brad Wood
Sunny Day Real Estate chronology
Diary
(1994)
Sunny Day Real Estate
(1995)
Singles from Diary
  1. "Seven"
    Released: 1994
  2. "In Circles"
    Released: 1994
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [1]
The A.V. Club A [2]
Drowned in Sound 8/10 [4]
Pitchfork 8.7/10 [5]
PopMatters 9/10 [6]
Q Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [7]
Record Collector Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [8]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svgStar empty.svg [9]

Diary is the debut studio album by American rock band Sunny Day Real Estate, released on May 10, 1994. The album is considered by many to be a defining emo album of the second wave, [1] and key in the development of its subgenre, Midwest emo. It has also been called the missing link between post-hardcore and the nascent emo genre. [10]

Contents

Diary was remastered and reissued in 2009, with bonus tracks "8" and "9" from their 1993 7-inch Thief, Steal Me a Peach and newly written liner notes. [11]

Overview

The songlist started with six tracks written by Thief, Steal Me a Peach, a project started when bassist Nate Mendel went on tour with his other project Christ on a Crutch, and drummer William Goldsmith invited his friend Jeremy Enigk to jam with him and guitarist and then singer Dan Hoerner. The first songs afterwards had titles regarding their order in composing - "Seven", "8" and "9", though only the first appeared on Diary. The band had a tradition of numbering songs for title long before Jeremy's arrival. The songs "47" and "48" were actually the two first songs written since his arrival before resetting the song's numbers. The album was notably released on the exact same day that Weezer's self-titled album (blue album) was released; May 10, 1994.

The album was released on CD, vinyl and cassette. The vinyl has been released in three limited edition pressings, all of which are out of print. The first was a multi-colored splatter vinyl, released on Glitterhouse Records in Germany. The second was a black vinyl pressing on Sub Pop. A repress followed on green vinyl (and possibly a second black pressing), but the label for this second pressing states "Edition II" under the Sub Pop logo. All three vinyl pressings are missing 3 songs that are present on the CD, possibly due to the time constraints of vinyl, as the album clocks in at 53 minutes. The missing songs are "Round", "48" and "Grendel". The 2009 double LP re-issue contains all 11 songs from the original album, and two bonus tracks.

The artwork of the album was almost entirely done by Chris Thompson. However, the "butterfly" drawing on the album's booklet was created by Nate Mendel's father. The album cover features figures similar to those of popular children's toy Little People.

Legacy

The album was different from those released by popular Seattle grunge bands at the time. Its melodic but urgent sound has had a clear mark on future emo groups. [12] Despite being the only album by the band to never chart, it has since become the seventh best-selling album released on Sub Pop, having sold more than 231,000 copies. [13] Rolling Stone writes, "Diary captures the vague inner-turmoil of Enigk's lyrics and propels those turbulent emotions to the heavens." [14]

Diary was ranked amongst the best emo albums of all time in the Italian music magazine XL.[ citation needed ] It has appeared on various best-of emo album lists by Junkee , [15] Kerrang! , [16] LA Weekly , [17] NME , [18] and Rolling Stone , [19] as well as by journalists Leslie Simon and Trevor Kelley in their book Everybody Hurts: An Essential Guide to Emo Culture (2007). [20] The album was ranked at number 155 on Spin 's "The 300 Best Albums of the Past 30 Years (1985–2014)" list. [21] Ian Cohen from Pitchfork writes, "it's the terse yet tender delivery of the lyrics from Jeremy Enigk that ultimately drew people in." [5] "In Circles" and "Seven" appeared on a best-of emo songs list by Vulture . [22]

"Seven" was featured in Guitar Hero 5 , and it was also released on the Rock Band Network on July 5, 2010. [23]

In 2020, Vulture ranked "Seven" and "In Circles" as the 5th and 11th greatest emo songs of all time, respectively. [24]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Jeremy Enigk and Dan Hoerner

No.TitleLength
1."Seven"4:45
2."In Circles"4:58
3."Song About an Angel"6:14
4."Round"4:10
5."47"4:34
6."The Blankets Were the Stairs"5:27
7."Pheurton Skeurto"2:33
8."Shadows"4:46
9."48"4:46
10."Grendel"4:53
11."Sometimes"5:43
Total length:52:52
Reissue bonus tracks
No.TitleLength
12."8"5:15
13."9"6:03
Total length:64:10

Personnel

Sunny Day Real Estate
Additional personnel

Related Research Articles

Emo is a rock music genre characterized by emotional, often confessional lyrics. It emerged as a style of hardcore punk and post-hardcore from the mid–1980s Washington, D.C. hardcore scene, where it was known as emotional hardcore or emocore. The bands Rites of Spring and Embrace, among others, pioneered the genre. In the early-to-mid 1990s, emo was adopted and reinvented by alternative rock, indie rock, punk rock, and pop-punk bands, including Sunny Day Real Estate, Jawbreaker, Cap'n Jazz, and Jimmy Eat World. By the mid-1990s, Braid, the Promise Ring, and the Get Up Kids emerged from Midwest emo, and several independent record labels began to specialize in the genre. Meanwhile, screamo, a more aggressive style of emo using screamed vocals, also emerged, pioneered by the San Diego bands Heroin and Antioch Arrow. Screamo achieved mainstream success in the 2000s with bands like Hawthorne Heights, Silverstein, Story of the Year, Thursday, the Used, and Underoath.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nate Mendel</span> American bassist

Nathan ‍Gregor ‍Mendel is an American musician best known as the bass guitarist for the rock band Foo Fighters, as well as a former member of Sunny Day Real Estate. He has also worked with musical acts The Jealous Sound and The Fire Theft. He has released one solo album, If I Kill This Thing We're All Going to Eat for a Week, under the name Lieutenant. Aside from the Foo Fighters' lead vocalist and founder Dave Grohl, he is the second longest serving member of the band, and is the only member to have appeared on all of the band's studio albums as a full band, since The Colour and the Shape.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Goldsmith</span> American musician (born 1972)

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Sunny Day Real Estate is an American emo band from Seattle, Washington, formed in 1992. The band currently consists of founding members Jeremy Enigk, Dan Hoerner (guitar) and William Goldsmith (drums), alongside Greg Suran (guitar), who originally played with the band between 2000 and 2001, and Chris Jordan (bass), who joined the band in 2022. Founding bass guitarist Nate Mendel was a member of the band during three of its four incarnations.

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The Fire Theft was an American rock band from Seattle, Washington. They were formed in 2001 by vocalist/guitarist Jeremy Enigk, bassist Nate Mendel, and drummer William Goldsmith, all of whom were previously members of Sunny Day Real Estate. Mendel also plays bass for Foo Fighters, and Goldsmith drummed for Foo Fighters between 1995 and 1997. This lineup of The Fire Theft was three-fourths of the original personnel of Sunny Day Real Estate, with guitarist Dan Hoerner not rejoining his former bandmates.

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References

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 4 Huey, Steve. "Diary – Sunny Day Real Estate". AllMusic . Retrieved April 5, 2016.
  2. 1 2 Ryan, Kyle (September 22, 2009). "Sunny Day Real Estate: Diary / LP2". The A.V. Club . Retrieved April 5, 2016.
  3. Grubbs, Eric (October 2, 2009). "Sunny Day Real Estate Reunites At Just The Right Time". Dallas Observer .
  4. Metcalfe, Will (October 15, 2009). "Album Review: Sunny Day Real Estate – Diary and LP2 (reissues)". Drowned in Sound . Archived from the original on April 24, 2016. Retrieved April 5, 2016.
  5. 1 2 Cohen, Ian (September 3, 2009). "Sunny Day Real Estate: Diary / LP2". Pitchfork . Retrieved April 5, 2016.
  6. Jayasuriya, Mehan (September 14, 2009). "In Circles: Sunny Day Real Estate Reconsidered". PopMatters . Retrieved April 5, 2016.
  7. "Sunny Day Real Estate: Diary". Q . No. 99. December 1994. p. 147.
  8. "Sunny Day Real Estate: Diary". Record Collector . 2009. pp. 108–09. [U]nique ... with its bare-boned, visceral raw heart honesty ...
  9. Randall, Mac (2004). "Sunny Day Real Estate". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. p.  793. ISBN   0-7432-0169-8.
  10. - Monday (2010-05-25). "Sub Pop at 20: life after grunge - The National". Thenational.ae. Archived from the original on 2013-10-22. Retrieved 2012-02-13.
  11. "Sub Pop Records : Sunny Day Real Estate : Diary" (2009 ed.). Subpop.com. 2009-09-15. Archived from the original on 2012-02-17. Retrieved 2012-02-13.
  12. Moss, Corey (2006-10-16). "Emo Stars Worship Them, So Should Sunny Day Real Estate Reunite? - Music, Celebrity, Artist News". MTV. Retrieved 2012-02-13.
  13. "Sub Pop Turns 20, Sends Zach Braff An FTD Bouquet | Music News, Reviews, and Gossip on". Idolator.com. 2008-01-29. Retrieved 2012-02-13.
  14. Galil L., Bayer J., Burgess A., Spanos B., Exposito S., & Montgomery, J. 40 Greatest Emo Albums of All Time. (2016, March 1). Rolling Stone. Retrieved November 29, 2016.
  15. Davino, Bianca (February 18, 2020). "From 'Three Cheers' To 'Bleed American': The 10 Most Important Emo Albums". Junkee. Retrieved August 17, 2020.
  16. Freitas, Ryan de (May 12, 2020). "The 20 Best Pre-2000s Emo Albums". Kerrang!. Archived from the original on May 26, 2020. Retrieved July 5, 2020.
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  18. "20 Emo Albums That Have Resolutely Stood The Test Of Time". NME. January 14, 2015. Retrieved July 29, 2015.
  19. Galil, Leor (March 1, 2016). "40 Greatest Emo Albums of All Time". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on January 12, 2019. Retrieved August 17, 2020.
  20. Simon; Kelley 2007, p. 168
  21. Martins, Chris (May 11, 2015). "The 300 Best Albums of the Past 30 Years (1985–2014)". Spin. p. 3. Retrieved August 6, 2015.
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Sources