Uh oh! You just opened Instagram and noticed all your friends are all in the same place and having a blast without you. Were you accidentally excluded due to your wallflower-like social demeanor or have you been being a dick in ways you haven’t realized? Either way, you’re going to be up thinking about this tonight, so why not try to force an epiphany with the only Seattle ’90s band that successfully captured the feeling of being swallowed alive by solitude (Harvey Danger came close), Sunny Day Real Estate! (Go listen to the playlist)
20. In Circles
Let’s get it out of the way. Second Wave Emo’s anthem about repetitive behavior. Nobody ever actually felt like they were living the same day on repeat until this song came out, and this probably isn’t the first time your friends went out without you! Try making a video of a dog chasing its own tail set to this song and send it to your friends that are out now to test the waters and see if you can get an impromptu invite cause it’s only getting sadder from here.
19. The Shark’s Own Private Fuck
Allegedly, this song is about Nate Mendel dipping from the band to join the Foo Fighters and then having a platform to say that AIDS patients are faking. Weird that you don’t hear about AIDS denial much anymore, I wonder why. Just asking, but you haven’t been telling your friends that you think AIDS patients are faking it right?
18. Grendel
This song starts with a lot of echoey distorted mumbling. Are you mumbling like in this song? Speak up! Life’s not a mid-record deep-cut emo track named after a classic English literature character. Make sure your friends hear you say how much you’d like to go axe throwing when you see them again but try to not sound mad about it.
17. Killed By An Angel
How nice! The rest of the band let Jeremy have the first track to go crazy with all the bible stuff he’s into and the result isn’t bad! Maybe the melding of Arena Rock and Emo isn’t perfect, but try being a little supportive if a friend mentions a project they’re working on even if it sounds bad, maybe you’re being a little too critical and people are tired of it.
16. Pillars
This is a good one to think about if anyone’s been trying to reach out but you haven’t noticed. Maybe if you did you’d be playing Time Crisis at the barcade and not starting to listen to a 25-year-old record you blasted when you didn’t get invited to parties in high school.
15. Rodeo Jones
Just like how the band was pretty much already broken up when they recorded “LP2” and peppered in some “Diary” B-sides like this to fill out the tracklist, your friends could just be done with you! On the brighter side though William Goldsmith absolutely is going full throttle on here.
14. Friday
A really quick but gut-punching meditation on losing love and watching the one that left thrive. If you’ve been harping on a lost flame for a while, maybe it’s time to ease up when going out for drinks after work. Chances are your friends are sick about hearing you still harp on a relationship that ended during Obama’s first term.
13. Lipton Witch
The most recent song that SDRE put out on a Record Store split with Circa Survive in 2014. A song heavy on the riffs that’s about keeping violent secrets in the distance in order to maintain power. Is that what your so-called friends are doing now? Who’s to say they’re not the ones that suck?
12. The Rising Tide
Here is a song about the inefficiency of hiding pain without actually doing any self-improvement. It’s a pretty hopeful ditty that rings out for a good minute at the end of the band’s last album. Would be cool to see them put out another record, but also would be cool if you could pull your weight at trivia.
11. Song About An Angel
A top-shelf selection for feeling like you’ve died already but somehow still exist. “Sometimes you see right through me” has to be the last thing I’d want to hear while looking at my friends eating a really good looking Bavarian Pretzel at a gastropub, but you probably need to.
10. Faces In Disguise
It’s the SDRE song that Paramore covered back in 2007! While she’s likely dealt with some fake friends, Hayley Williams doesn’t seem like the type of person to not get an invite to a hang, so I’m not sure how honestly she can cover this. On the other hand you should be reflecting if embodying the themes of this song by masking your emotions in social situations and coming off as irritable.
9. One
Oh wow, it looks like it’s late enough that the function just moved to karaoke. Looks like your friends are making friends with the other people going up and singing normal people music like “Don’t Stop Believin”? Objectively a much worse song than this beautifully lush reminder of how easy it is to numbly allow time to pass.
8. 5/4
The closest “LP2” gets to the cold sinking sadness of the rest of SDRE’s discography. Everyone’s favorites are here, twinkly guitars, broken promises, being alone, climbing something. Sometimes the classics just work well. You know what else people like? Being bought a beer every now and then after everyone else has treated the group.
7. Tearing In My Heart
Nothing like an opening minute-long field recording of the sound of children to remind you about the people you thought you were close to and how they might not feel the same way! Do you even want to have kids or is that something you feel your friends are pressuring you to be?
6. Every Shining Time You Arrive
This song sounds like it plays before credits hit at the end of a ’90s Edward Norton film where reunites with a girl at a bar. If you’re at a bar and constantly putting on music as a bit from a movie, I’m sure no one likes the bit.
5. 48
Big melancholy sad guitar track that takes a sharp left into an aggressive chorus before ramping back down. Someone once started playing this at work and I actually asked them to turn it off after a few because it made 2 p.m. on a Wednesday in the office feel too much like Fridays alone at 9 p.m. in high school. Don’t put shit like this on the group driving playlist.
4. Days Were Golden
Are you so uncomfortable being alone that you can’t spend one night by yourself? Try doing some journaling, try a little bit of self-reflection, but definitely don’t text all your friends saying “Thanks for the invite dickhead.”
3. Shadows
Sorry bud, but from the moment the somber intro drops, dark hell of isolation is taking you. No minute-long intro to get you ready for this one. Your friends are having the time of their lives without you and you’re listening to and listening to enigmatic visual descriptions of abandonment. They don’t do this one live too much, probably because it hits too hard.
2. Guitar and Video Games
“How does it feel when you run?” yeah try exercising there a little bud. If not for your own good physical and mental health, at least to entertain the thought you’re having about becoming noticeably more fit that your friends will regret not inviting you out.
1. Seven
Look up a video of William Goldsmith doing this song recently and see how wild this classic sounds now. Tell me that he’s not the MVP of Sunny Day and he got kicked out of the Foo Fighters. You’re not the problem, and neither are your friends, the Foo Fighters are.
Go listen to the playlist while your friends have a great time without you: