Why Did We Ever Love The Promise Ring?

jharv | December 18, 2007 5:45 am
A: Because they were (sometimes) great. Time and their own later wack long-players have left a quasi-shameful residue around them, but I am unashamed. (Get me started on Cap’n Jazz and it’s like my grandfather rambling about wartime hijinx after a few Milwaukee’s Best.) My sister and I still reminisce fondly over our ’90s emo peak, a Promise Ring/Jets To Brazil/Burning Airlines show we bore witness to in Philly in ’98. I even owned a Promise Ring t-shirt! (It had little bunnies on it! Lemmy Kilmister should come to my house and beat me with his wart for that fact alone.) This is “Why Did We Ever Meet?” off 1997’s Nothing Feels Good, a great pop leap that still required a few more years (and a heaping helping of ProTools tweakery/eyeliner) before taking its rightful place in the modern rock radio firmament alongside “leftover Brit-pop ballads” and “dudes still on Eddie Vedder’s jock.” (And here you all thought I wasn’t serious about the “12 Days Of 90s Emo.”)

The Promise Ring – “Why Did We Ever Meet?” [YouTube]