American Football - American Football (25th Anniversary Edition) -2X LP

American Football cut its first—and, for a long time, only—LP in four days, as the spring of 1999 slid into summer. Steve Holmes, Steve Lamos, and Mike Kinsella were college kids who knew that as soon as their album of spacious and tenderly sad songs was done they likely would be, too. Aside from a few shows, they would break up at the end of the school year and perhaps go on to other bands, jobs, and lives. And for a long while, of course, that is exactly what happened: American Football’s sole album was a twinkling and circuitous entry in the annals of Midwest emo, remarkable for its musical tenderness and lyrical ellipses but largely unremarked upon, too.

But what happened over the next two decades is an inspiring saga of wonderful work slowly finding its audience. American Football went from cult classic to emo linchpin, its reputation and sales accreting like sand piling up in some endless hourglass. The little white house on its cover, a physical manifestation of the Anywhere, U.S.A. melancholy of its songs, became a musical landmark. Reunions, reissues, and two new albums followed, American Football finally climbing atop its own steady growth curve and staring out to the massive and enchanted crowd it had created, to the scene it had helped foster. Made at the end of the last century, American Football, or LP1, unequivocally stands as one of this century’s most influential rock records.  

1 Never Meant (Remastered 2024) (4:28)
2 The Summer Ends (Remastered 2024) (4:44)
3 Honestly? (Remastered 2024) (6:06)
4 For Sure (Remastered 2024) (3:16)
5 You Know I Should Be Leaving Soon (Remastered 2024) (3:41)
6 But the Regrets Are Killing Me (Remastered 2024) (3:53)
7 I'll See You When We're Both Not So Emotional (Remastered 2024) (3:43)
8 Stay Home (Remastered 2024) (8:11)
9 The One With The Wurlitzer (Remastered 2024) (2:45)