Every Jimmy Eat World Album: Ranked From Worst To Best

8. Jimmy Eat World (1994)

As an outright album, Jimmy Eat World's no-frills debut isn't great. But it's also a fascinating artifact from an evolutionary standpoint. At the very least, its rough-and-tumble punk energy shows that they, like all great bands, have mastered the art of metamorphosis.

The album is out of print, and has been for quite some time, meaning the only way to get your hands on this one is to head down to your local record shop. (Or you can search for it on YouTube, if you're one of those people.) It also means that the band isn't particularly interested in rehashing the growing pains featured on this album.

And while those pains are very, very real, they're also coated with a sincerity that makes the whole experience go down much easier than it probably should.

This is a straight-ahead punk album in the vein of Social Distortion or NOFX, but the occasional mellow moments sprinkled throughout - the rambling bass on "Patches" and the spacey breakdown on "Usery" - hint at a part of J.E.W.'s genetic code that would be further revealed on each subsequent release.

There are a couple of great songs here ("Scientific", the aforementioned "Patches"), but this self-titled album is only for the completists.