Pitchfork

[Posted Tuesday, October 14th, 2003 04:00:00 Pitchfork Central Time]

Jawbreaker's 1995 swan song (well, unless you count their posthumous live, tribute and rarities albums), Dear You, is finally getting the reissue it deserves. Dear You went out of print less than a year after hitting store shelves when Geffen Records, who were cheesed off that Jawbreaker was disbanding and breaking their record contract, pulled copies from stores in a "fine-we'll-take-our-toys-and-go-home" snit of spite. As a result, for the past eight years the album has been scarcer than hot girls at a college radio DJ party, with vinyl copies going for upwards of fifty bucks on eBay.

Adorned in ski mask and camo, Jawbreaker drummer and Blackball Records proprietor Adam Pfaler commandeered the album from Geffen's Fortress of Crapitude and will re-release it in February 2004 on the Blackball imprint. The new Dear You will feature all the tracks from the original, plus five bonus tracks from the Dear You sessions, including "Boxcar" (which originally appeared on Jawbreaker fan fave 24 Hour Revenge Therapy) and the previously unreleased "Shirt," mixed by J. Robbins (fun fact: when Robbins was forming Jawbox, he actually wanted to name it Jawbreaker, but happened to come across the Whack and Blite EP that week and went with Jawbox instead).

In the interest of rampant fanciness, the reissue will also include a 24-page booklet with new artwork and lyrics, as well as the "Fireman" video. But will that adorable donkey, or the iconic Morton's Salt girl, put in appearances? Time will tell. I have a tracklist, although I can't, with total confidence, vouch for the running order:

01 Save Your Generation
02 I Love You So Much It's Killing Us Both
03 Fireman
04 Accident Prone
05 Chemistry
06 Oyster
07 Million
08 Lurker II: Dark Son of Night
09 Jet Black
10 Bad Scene, Everyone's Fault
11 Sluttering (May 4th)
12 Basilica
13 Unlisted Track
14 Into You Like a Train
15 Sister
16 Friendly Fire
17 Boxcar
18 Shirt

Jawbreaker formed in California in the late '80s, and soon adopted San Francisco's Mission District as their spiritual home. A bridge between straight punk and literate, arty indie rock (bear in mind this punk band's members held B.A.'s in History, Philosophy and English Lit), they released several highly influential albums of melodic, chugging art-punk laden with ringing harmonics and arrayed in innovative structures, before disbanding in 1996.

Singer/guitarist Blake Schwarzenbach went on to form Jets to Brazil, whose debut, Orange Rhyming Dictionary, spanned the gap between Jawbreaker and Jets' current, more mature and stately direction. Those who would write Jawbreaker off by as just another emo or pop-punk band are missing the layers, the focused and unique style, the purposeful variation that characterizes both Dear You and the baroque, gloomy mansion of Bivouac.

Then again, Pitchfork's original scathing review of Dear You, by some out-of-touch cad named Ryan Schreiber, called the album "more played out, pop-punk you've heard before" and slapped it, rather forcefully, with a 2.1. I wonder whatever happened to that guy.