Commit This to Memory

Tea pairing: Green tea with honey, lemon, and sugar

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From the snowy grips of Minnesota in the late 1990s arose the emo/pop punk group Motion City Soundtrack, fronted by film and music junkie Justin Pierre.

With rather depressing tunes detailing break ups, substance abuse, and suicide, MCS cemented their place in the Midwest emo scene alongside heavy hitters Cap n’ Jazz, American Football, and Alkaline Trio.

Right from the start on their second album, Commit This to Memory, listeners are graced with Pierre’s deeply introspective lyrics with the lines “And as I gently sip this drink/I think about my future/And of all the places I could learn to fall in love.”

The struggles Pierre presents he has with love and relationships are a recurring theme in each song that almost makes the album feel as one concise thought, filled with plenty of powerful emo hooks.

When it comes to MCS’ sound, it is quite distinct due to the presence of the Moog synthesizer, which is featured on each song but predominantly in “Everything is Alright”. A delightfully poppy slice of emo-punk, Pierre goes into detail with his troubles involving his anxiety.

The track is a definite highlight on an album with plenty of excellent emo anthems, and is one of the groups most notable songs.

A personal favorite of mine would be the through-and-through punk track “WhenYou’re Around”. An angry and guitar driven track, “When You’re Around” is one of the heavier sounding tracks on the album.

With such a strong pop sound, Justin Pierre said he “definitely wouldn’t consider us a pop punk band” and noted the band's songs are “dirty, fast, happy, emotional rock songs.” Pierre’s classifications of the band sound like those of Weezer, and influence of MCS. However, a strong argument can be made that MCS is far more pop punk, and rock sounding, than Weezer nowadays.

Even though Commit This to Memory is a poppier slice of pop punk, the lyrics within their sound still show a truly emo, and depressing, side. Such a side can be found on “L.G. FUAD” or “Let’s Get Fucked Up and Die” which contains the very obvious imagery of getting incredibly high or drunk (fucked up) and, well, dying.

The message is painfully clear and in it lies the reason why MCS could never break into the mainstream; they are just really damn dark and depressing. No amount of synths and poppy hooks can hide such dark lyrics. But, it also allowed them to attract a rather large underground following in their native Midwest and across the country.

Following the album’s release, MCS embarked on the legendary Vans Warped Tour alongside pop punkers Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco and “toured incessantly”, according to Pierre, to support the album. In Chicago the group played to a crowd of over 9,000 people, one of their largest audiences.

Commit This to Memory is a fully realized and concise album filled with early 2000s punky angst that was conjured up by a band of struggling twentysomethings and was directed by Blink-182 bassist and pop punk hero Mark Hoppus into a blissful whirlwind of emo pop. MCS may have had their touring plans crushed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but you can get bummed out (slightly) by listening to this stellar album instead.