I Can't Believe You Don't Own This F%#kin' Record - Sunny Day Real Estate - Diary

SUNNY DAY REAL ESTATE - DIARY (1994)

It's weird to think that Weezer's Blue Album (or more technically, "Weezer") came out the same year as Sunny Day Real Estate's debut album "Diary," which was released on the famous and very 90's indie-rock music label Sub Pop, out of Seattle, WA. What's funny is that you hear the name "Weezer" spoken in the same breath as the word "emo" far more these days than Sunny Day Real Estate, though theirs is the band (along with Rites of Spring) that I think of when I think of what could possibly constitute emo.

I listened to Diary far more than was healthy back then. Certain scenester friends of mine and I agreed that although the songs tended to be somewhat same-y after a while, there was something we really loved about SDRE's sound. First off, lead singer Jeremy Enigk's voice belongs in its own very special place in heaven once he goes. His vocals had what we have now come to understand as a dreamy yet ragged Thom Yorke style quality, contributing to the 'emo' tag that the band labored under. The fevered guitars and hardcore pounding of the drums served as a effective contrast to the open wound quality of the vocals, a mode that would come to influence bands like Thursday, Killswitch Engage and Poison the Well.

Though every tune is worth a listen on Diary, my personal babies were the first two songs, "Seven" and "In Circles." I have them here for you to enjoy:



Sunny Day Real Estate - "Seven" - Diary (1994)



Sunny Day Real Estate - "In Circles" - Diary (1994)

I'm just finding out that SDRE performed "Seven" live on "The Jon Stewart Show" eons ago. This recording is poor quality, but please enjoy:



And if you're young and can't remember this band or "The Jon Stewart Show," and you're hooked, please click here to see them perform the song live on MTV's "120 Minutes," another show that you were too young to stay up to watch.