A Little Trip Down Memory Lane

These were the days.

I miss 2004. My nostalgia has been building all year, as seemingly half of the bands I listened to in high school—Jimmy Eat World, Say Anything, Mae, Relient K, and the list goes on—announce tour dates celebrating the tenth anniversary of particularly spectacular albums. Every time another one of these shows goes on sale, I find myself both marveling at how fast the time has passed, and feeling like I should go curl up in bed because I am obviously an ancient old woman at this point.

Two days ago, I purchased tickets for Motion City Soundtrack’s anniversary tour for Commit This to Memory. I distinctly remember listening to that album in my eleventh grade history class. (Dear God, has it been almost ten years since high school already? These tour dates might be sending me into an existential crisis.)

Anyway, my point is that after I bought the MCS tickets, I swung over to Wikipedia to see what other bands put out albums in 2004—and wow, what a fabulous year for my iTunes library it was. These days, I can go for months between albums that I’m truly excited about. But back then, there was apparently new music to be thrilled about every couple of weeks.

Naturally, I had to make a playlist to really complement the reminiscing process. (I allowed a few favorites from early 2005 to sneak in too, because we’re practically there at this point.) The funny thing is, my taste in music has barely changed in the last decade. Sure, there are a few songs on this list that are just a little too emo for my “mature” (read: old and crippled) tastes now. But mostly, these are bands became my favorite when I was an angsty teen, and have stayed with me throughout my life.

So whether or not all these bands decide to do special tours for these records, I’m going to celebrate them on my own. Here’s the playlist, in case you want to get a feel for what how rockin' I was in high school:


PS: They were only on Now 16 in 2004! Ah, it was a simpler time.