| Four Minute Mile | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | September 30, 1997 | |||
| Recorded | April 1997 | |||
| Studio | CRC, Chicago | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 34:49 | |||
| Label | Doghouse | |||
| Producer | Bob Weston | |||
| The Get Up Kids chronology | ||||
| ||||
| 2001 remaster | ||||
 Alternative cover for the 2001 remaster | ||||
Four Minute Mile is the debut studio album by American rock band the Get Up Kids.
The Get Up Kids evolved out of the breakup of Kingpin, which consisted of high school friends guitarist Jim Suptic, bassist Rob Pope and his brother drummer Ryan Pope. After that group's demise, vocalist/guitarist Matt Pryor formed Secret Decoder Ring with Suptic, [3] before they broke up after six months. Pryor and Suptic started working with Rob Pope, who invited college friend drummer Nathan Shay [4] to form the Get Up Kids in 1994. Following this, the group self financed the 7" single "Shorty", which would sell over 2,000 copies. [3] Shay moved to St. Louis, Missouri to focus on his studies, eventually leaving the group in April 1996. Ryan Pope joined initially on a temporary basis as there was concern with having both brothers in the band, and with Suptic and Pope not getting along in the past. [4]
The group recorded two additional releases: one for Florida-based Outback Records, while the other was for Rhode Island-based Contrast Records. After recording four songs, the group sent copies of them to rock-centic labels listed in the publication The Musician's Guide To Touring and Promotion. The songs caught the attention of Ohio-based Doghouse Records, who was interested in signing the band. They wanted to release a 7" vinyl EP as a precursor to an album. Instead of recording another release, the group paid for the Outback release and issued it through Doghouse [4] as the Woodson EP. The group subsequently signed a two-album recording contract with Doghouse. [5]
Four Minute Mile was recorded in April 1997 [4] on a budget of $4,000 [6] with Shellac bassist Bob Weston acting as producer. Instead of recording at Red House Recordings, which they had used for the previous EP, they opted to track the record at the Chicago Recording Company. [7] As Ryan Pope was still at school, the members went to a local music store to stock up on guitar strings and plectrums. They ended up running over a rock, and later found out it punctured the car's exhaust manifold, causing carbon monoxide to circulate through the car and had to travel with the windows down. [8] The members waited in the parking lot of Pope's school, before he got in the car and they drove to Chicago. [9] The recording sessions took place over the course of two and a half days [4] from a Friday night to 3am on a Sunday. [10]
When making the Woodson EP, the group tracked four songs and mixed them within one and a half days. They thought that since they were able to do four in one day, they would be able to do eleven in two and a half days for Four Minute Mile. As a result, some of the songs featured the low quality production that the EP had; Pryor later stated they should have spent more time recording it, while Suptic said it "sounds like crap". [11] The short recording time was due to recording budget [11] and also so that Pope wouldn't miss school [12] the following day. [13] Pryor said Weston acted more in the vein of an engineer than a producer: "He's kind of like, 'Do you like how it sounds?' 'OK, yeah, it's cool." [14] Weston mixed the recordings in a four-hour session. [15]
As the members had an album coming out, they came to the decision to take a year off from school to do the band full-time. [4] Suptic and Pryor worked with Joe Winkle of Boys Life at Linda Hall Library. The pair learned that Boys Life were touring and used their contacts, coupled with Pryor's copy of Maximumrocknroll 'sBook Your Own Fucking Life guide, and started working on a touring route. This led the pair to Bob Nanna of Braid, who were also booking a tour in the same timeframe following the same route, deciding to go on tour together. [16] In June 1997, the group went on a US tour with Braid and Ethel Meserve. During this tour, the Get Up Kids played a show in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania with Coalesce, who they became friends with. [4]
Four Minute Mile was released on September 30. [1] Further tour outings included an east coat and southern tour with Jejune and Mineral in September, west coast tour with No Knife in October and November, and concluded the year with a north east tour with Jimmy Eat World in December. [4] Ryan Pope had planned to go to college, until Doghouse offered to fund a European tour, [17] which took place in February and March 1998 with Braid. The following month, they embarked on a southern tour, and a west coast tour with Braid in May. Following this, the group took a break, before eventually going on a nationwide tour supporting MxPx and Home Grown in October. [4] After the conclusion of this tour, Coalesce drummer James Dewees joined as a keyboardist. [18]
A remastered version of the album was released by Doghouse Records in 2001. This was largely a way of capitalizing on the recent success of the band's second album, 1999's Something to Write Home About, which rocketed the band to international stardom. In December 2008, Doghouse re-pressed the album on vinyl. [19] Doghouse reissued the album, alongside The EP's: Red Letter Day and Woodson compilation, on cassette in 2017. [20]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [1] |
| Ox-Fanzine | Favorable [21] |
| Punknews.org | [22] |
| The New Rolling Stone Album Guide | [23] |
The album helped the band develop a national fanbase, as well as garnering a bidding war over the band from several major labels, including Geffen Records, Sub Pop Records and Mojo Records. The band ended up signing with Mojo, but was quickly disappointed with their choice when the label asked the band to re-record the song "Don't Hate Me", feeling that the label was underestimating their potential.
In a 2017 retrospective celebrating the album's 20th anniversary, Vice Media called Four Minute Mile "a snapshot of a young band with their career ahead of them," that "[t]he earnest candor of the lyrics coupled with the innovations in bridging punk and emo make this album a staple in emo's history," and calling it a "near-masterpiece." [24] In 2017, Rolling Stone named it one of the best emo albums of all time. [12]
The Get Up Kids' 1997 debut album Four Minute Mile combined the driving, hooky indie-punk of Superchunk and the more tangled sounds of Midwest emo and helped create the blueprint for early/mid 2000s emo-pop in the process.
— Andrew Sacher, BrooklynVegan
Four Minute Mile is considered a benchmark album of the emo genre, [17] influencing the likes of Saves the Day, the Early November, Midtown and Fall Out Boy. [25] Frank Turner has expressed admiration for the album. [26] In a 2005 interview with Alternative Press , Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy remarked that the album had a major influence on the band as a whole. "The first time I heard [The Get Up Kids] was around Four Minute Mile. I was in high school. There was an honesty and sincerity [to the album]. It seemed more about the fact that this music was "emotional," than an actual sound than labeled them". In the same interview, he remarked that "Fall Out Boy would not be a band if it were not for The Get Up Kids".
In 2020, BrooklynVegan included Four Minute Mile on its list of the best punk albums of 1997, alongside Blink 182's Dude Ranch , and Nimrod by Green Day, writing that "The Get Up Kids' 1997 debut album Four Minute Mile combined the driving, hooky indie-punk of Superchunk and the more tangled sounds of Midwest emo and helped create the blueprint for early/mid 2000s emo-pop in the process." They compared it favorably to the band's later defining work Something to Write Home About; "STWHA is nearly perfect but Four Minute Mile is charmingly flawed, and sometimes you're craving something rawer and punkier than the more polished-up and ballad-inclusive Something To Write Home About." [27]
LA Weekly included Four Minute Mile as one of the 20 greatest emo albums of all time. [28]
All tracks are written by The Get Up Kids
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Coming Clean" | 2:07 |
| 2. | "Don't Hate Me" | 2:54 |
| 3. | "Fall Semester" | 3:21 |
| 4. | "Stay Gold, Ponyboy" | 2:55 |
| 5. | "Lowercase West Thomas" | 1:59 |
| 6. | "Washington Square Park" | 3:08 |
| 7. | "Last Place You Look" | 2:31 |
| 8. | "Better Half" | 3:25 |
| 9. | "No Love" | 3:05 |
| 10. | "Shorty" | 3:22 |
| 11. | "Michelle with One "L"" | 6:02 |
| Total length: | 34:49 | |
Band
| Additional musicians
Production
Design
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Emo is a 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.
Something to Write Home About is the second studio album by American rock band the Get Up Kids, released on September 28, 1999, through Vagrant Records and the band's own label Heroes & Villains Records. Following the promotional tours for their debut album Four Minute Mile (1997), the band were in discussion with Mojo Records. During this period, James Dewees joined as the band's keyboardist. As negotiations with the label eventually stalled, they eventually went with Vagrant Records. They recorded their next album at Mad Hatter Studios in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, California, co-producing it with Chad Blinman and Alex Brahl. Described as an emo and pop-punk album, Something to Write Home About expands on the harder edge of its predecessor, with frontman Matt Pryor citing the works of the Foo Fighters, Jimmy Eat World and Wilco as influences.
The Get Up Kids are an American rock band from Kansas City. Formed in 1995, the band was a major act in the mid-1990s Midwest emo scene, otherwise known as the "second wave" of emo music. Their second album Something to Write Home About remains their most widely acclaimed album, and is considered to be one of the quintessential albums of the second-wave emo movement. They are considered forefathers of the emo genre, and have been widely credited as being an influence, both by contemporaries Saves the Day and later bands such as Fall Out Boy, Taking Back Sunday and the Wonder Years.
The New Amsterdams is an American band featuring Matthew Pryor of The Get Up Kids. In a certain sense, they represented the acoustic counter-project to The Get up Kids. In contrast to The Get Up Kids, this project features acoustic guitars, the accordion, wind instruments, strings, and mature elements of American folklore. Among the members were also numerous musicians and contributors of The Get Up Kids and other friendly bands.
Braid is an American emo band from Champaign, Illinois, formed in 1993.
On a Wire is the third studio album by American rock band the Get Up Kids on Vagrant Records. Released three years after their breakout sophomore album Something to Write Home About, On a Wire was a massive departure from the band's established sound, eschewing the brighter pop-punk that helped define emo as a genre in favor of a darker, more adult sound inspired by 70's rock bands like Led Zeppelin.
Guilt Show is the fourth studio album by American rock band The Get Up Kids. It was released on Vagrant Records on March 2, 2004.
James Matthew Dewees is an American musician best known for his work with The Get Up Kids, Reggie and the Full Effect and My Chemical Romance. He has also been involved in other musical projects including New Found Glory, Coalesce, Leathermouth, and Death Spells.
Matthew Pryor is an American musician who lives in Lawrence, Kansas. He is best known as a founding member and the lead vocalist of The Get Up Kids, one of the most influential acts of the second-wave emo music scene.
Robert Pope is an American musician, best known as the bassist for Spoon and The Get Up Kids.
Ryan Pope is an American musician who lives in Lawrence, Kansas.
Jim Suptic is an American musician and entrepreneur, best known for being the guitarist for the rock band The Get Up Kids.
"A Newfound Interest in Massachusetts" is the second single from Kansas City, Missouri band The Get Up Kids. The single, also commonly referred to as The Loveteller EP by fans, was released in 1997 on Contrast Records. The final pressing of the album was printed on orange vinyl in a limited run of 200. Each of this set was packaged in a handmade sleeve with the band's name spray-painted on, and an actual photo glued to the cover by label owner Al Barkley.
"Ten Minutes" is a song by the Get Up Kids. The single was released as part of the Sub Pop Records Singles Club. 1300 pressings were black, with only 100 pressings of the single on clear vinyl. A re-recorded version of it appears on their album Something to Write Home About. On July 2, 2005 The Get Up Kids performed for the last time before their hiatus at the Uptown Theater in Kansas City, MO. "Ten Minutes" was the last song they played.
"Shorty" is a song by American rock band The Get Up Kids. The single was self-funded, and was a major catalyst for the band's early success, gaining the attention of several record labels including the band's future label Doghouse Records.
"Post Marked Stamps No. 4" is a split EP between Kansas City, Missouri band The Get Up Kids and Chicago, Illinois group Braid. The album is the fourth in the "Post Marked Stamps" series, a set of nine split EPs between various bands put out by Tree Records in 1997. There were 2 different pressings of the album; One distributed in the United States, and another sold in Europe during the band's joint European tour. Each song was recorded separately, with "I'm a Loner Dottie, a Rebel" recorded at Red House Studios in Eudora, Kansas, and "Forever Got Shorter" recorded at Private Studios in Urbana, Illinois. The set included a sealed envelope that contained three postcards; One postcard for each song, including recording information and lyrics, and a third featuring poetry by Vigue Martin.
The discography of The Get Up Kids, an American rock band that formed in 1995, consists of six studio albums, five singles, one live album and seven extended plays.
Simple Science is an EP by American rock band The Get Up Kids. The first official release from the band since re-forming after breaking up in 2005, and the first studio recording since 2004's Guilt Show, the EP was released April 13, 2010 on vinyl and April 27, 2010 on compact disc.
There Are Rules is the fifth studio album by American rock band The Get Up Kids, the band's first studio album release since 2004's Guilt Show. After their initial reunion, the band decided to challenge themselves to write and record an album in only two weeks without using any digital technology. Ultimately, due to conflicting schedules, they dropped the two-week deadline and recorded over several months in 2009 and 2010. Much of the album was recorded in the same sessions as their first post-reunion release, Simple Science, the song "Keith Case" being featured on both.
Kicker is an EP by American rock band The Get Up Kids. It was the first release from the band in seven years, and their first release on a record label other than Vagrant Records in 19 years. It was hailed as a return to form after the band's more experimental self-released reunion album There Are Rules (2011).
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