“Sweetness” by Jimmy Eat World

"Sweetness" had to wait its turn. Jimmy Eat World first wrote and recorded it during the sessions for Clarity, but Capitol Records wouldn't put it on that album, so once the band had left the label they cut it again for their fourth studio album, Bleed American, in 2001. DreamWorks sent it out as the second single in June 2002, hot on the heels of "The Middle".

It was worth the wait. Jim Adkins built it deliberately lean, a simple frame hung on call-and-response vocal hooks, and then the band piled on: his guitar and Tom Linton's stacked in layers, Rick Burch's bass and Zach Lind's drums charging hard, extra percussion clattering on top. The real hook has no words at all, just a big whoa-oh the whole room can shout. Under the sugar, the lyrics are about leaning on someone else to feel you're worth something, and the band's post-hardcore and emo influences push up through the gloss. Mark Trombino produced, engineered and mixed it with the band.

Critics praised the hook and the drive, it climbed to number two on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks, and Tim Hope's video blended the band playing live with stop-motion, rotoscoped and computer-animated trickery.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.