Tell All Your Friends

Tell All Your Friends
Studio album by Taking Back Sunday
Released	March 25, 2002
Recorded	December 2001, Jersey City, New Jersey, United States
Genre	Emo,[1] post-punk[2]
Length	33:46
Label	Victory
Producer	Sal Villanueva
Taking Back Sunday chronology
Tell All Your Friends (2002) Where You Want to Be (2004)

Tell All Your Friends is the debut album of American rock band Taking Back Sunday, released in 2002 through Victory Records.

Music and lyrics

This album is named after the lyrics in "Cute Without the 'E' (Cut from the Team)".

The fourth track, "There's No 'I' in Team", was written in response to Brand New's song "Seventy Times 7" and contains some of the same lyrics: "Is that what you call tact? You're as subtle as a brick in the small of my back; so let's end this call and end this conversation". It also shares lyrics with the song "Mix Tape" by Brand New, both containing the phrase "I've got a twenty dollar bill, that says..." Each song articulates an opposing viewpoint regarding an amorous dispute between members of the two bands at the time. This was a minor episode in the artists' lives and they have since put it behind them; the bands and their members are now on good terms.

Release

Tell All Your Friends was released on March 25, 2002^[3] through Victory. It spawned the four music videos "Timberwolves At New Jersey", "Great Romances of the 20th Century", "Cute Without the 'E' (Cut from the Team)", which had a Fight Club-inspired video, and "You're So Last Summer", which featured the American rapper Flavor Flav in its music video.

In a 2011 article featured in Alternative Press, bassist Shaun Cooper stated that the band was unhappy with "some of the choices that had been made without us", explaining how the introductions to the songs "Great Romances of the 20th Century" and "The Blue Channel" were changed from how they were initially intended by studio technicians without the band's input. The introductions to these songs as originally intended can be heard on The Tell All Your Friends Demo.^[4]

This album was performed live in its entirety at Bamboozle 2011 on April 30, 2011.^[5] On October 4, 2012, the band embarked on a 10 year anniversary tour with supporting act Bayside, along with Man Overboard, Transit, The Menzingers, Mansions, and Gabriel The Marine, where the album in its entirety was played.^[6]

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AbsolutePunk	92%[7]
Allmusic	[8]
Alternative Press	[9]
BBC Music	(favorable)[2]
Punknews.org	[10]
Rolling Stone	[1]
Sputnikmusic	[11]

Tell All Your Friends has received critical praise by music critics and also by fans. Absolutepunk gave the album a score of 92% approval and said, "Tell All Your Friends grabs the listener’s attention from the start. It manages to convey feelings that are completely genuine, not contrived, rehearsed or formulaic, without being over-the-top or sappy. The style in which Lazzara and Nolan deliver the vocals on this album, often in a rapid-fire, back-and-forth way, as if they were carrying on a dialogue, allows you to really attach to and get a sense of the raw emotion behind the songs. This organic emotion is what drives the album; although most of this comes across in the vocals and lyrics of the album, the music matches the album’s tone perfectly."^[12] Alternative Press gave the album a score of 5 stars out of 5 and said, "It's tough to find flaw with Tell All Your Friends, critically speaking. Sonically, there's just the right mix of well-honed production and controlled chaos, ensuring that the music which is as bold, melodic and richly layered as anything else you'll hear in the genre always impresses with its tonal immensity. There's an epic grandeur to "You Know How I Do" or "You're So Last Summer" that pulls you in for the ride, before a word is ever sung. Reyes and vocalist/guitarist John Nolan are just as effective laying down choppy, single-note lines like on the verses for "Cute Without The 'E' (Cut From The Team)" as they are grinding out pummeling breakdowns like in "There's No I In Team". The rhythm section never fails to keep pace, with drummer Mark O'Connell and bassist Shaun Cooper driving along the songs with a wide array of feels and tempos that interlock beautifully within a fairly constrained space."^[13] In a 2011 interview with CMJ, both Adam Lazzara and John Nolan chose the album's final track, "Head Club", as their least favorite Taking Back Sunday song.^[14]

Although this album charted at number 183 on the Billboard 200. In later years it has been a commercial and critical success for Taking Back Sunday eventually leading to the band's later success in their career. Tell All Your Friends would earn a gold certificate by the RIAA in 2005 indicating more than 500,000+ copies sold. The album was included in Rock Sound's 101 Modern Classics list at number 13.^[15] NME listed the album as one of "20 Emo Albums That Have Resolutely Stood The Test Of Time".^[16]

Track listing

1. "You Know How I Do" – 3:21
2. "Bike Scene" – 3:35
3. "Cute Without the 'E' (Cut from the Team)" – 3:31
4. "There's No 'I' in Team" – 3:48
5. "Great Romances of the 20th Century" – 3:35
6. "Ghost Man on Third" – 3:59
7. "Timberwolves at New Jersey" – 3:23
8. "The Blue Channel" – 2:30
9. "You're So Last Summer" – 2:59
10. "Head Club" – 3:01

Bonus tracks

Personnel

Taking Back Sunday

• Adam Lazzara – lead vocals, guitars
• John Nolan – vocals, guitars, keyboards, piano
• Eddie Reyes – guitars
• Mark O'Connell – drums, percussion
• Shaun Cooper – bass

Additional musicians

• Michelle Nolan – backup vocals on tracks 2 and 6
• Neil Rubenstein - backup vocals on tracks 4, 7, and 10
• Matt McDannell - backup vocals on track 10
• Sal Villaneuva - additional guitar

References

Citations

Sources

External links

• Tell All Your Friends (reissue) at YouTube (streamed copy where licensed)