As we know, Florida sucks, but Mayday Parade sure doesn’t. Tallahassee’s pride and joy pop-rock/pop-punk has seen more than their fair share of drama, we’re looking at you, Jason Lancaster, but we won’t focus on that or Mr. L, as we’re here to praise the forever underrated five-piece with one lead vocalist who refuses to wear shoes. Yes, we know that the band has four catchy EPs, “Tales Told by Best Friends,” “Valdosta,” “Out of Here,” and “Miracle,” and no, these are NOT LPs, so if you want to see them included in a Mayday Parade piece, make your own and we promise not to read it. If you’re still bruised about this truth, we forever wish terrible things, and not the underrated band, but the idea of pain your way.
7. Sunnyland (2018)
Mayday Parade has yet to make a bad album wherever you are, and we are not joking in any way, shape, form, or satellite, but sadly this one just sounds complacent in a non-epic way from start to finish, and since good is the enemy of great, it’s hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning. Sadly, the band’s sixth effort “Sunnyland,” and first of two as of now for Rise Records, just doesn’t take our breath away as the band mostly stayed the same throughout, and if we were them, despite “Black Lines” not selling as well as its four predecessors, we would’ve gone deeper into the sonic and songwriting direction there. Even its one-word album title sounds semi-lazy and phoned in in comparison to their other releases.
Play it again: “Piece Of Your Heart”
Skip it: “Always Leaving”
6. Monsters in the Closet (2013)
Mayday Parade’s fourth album, consists of one of their better opening tracks, “Ghosts,” which features Journey’s Brian May-like playing, but sadly the album tapers off as tracks come in and out. Honestly, this album’s biggest handicap is that it truly didn’t have a chance to be better than its self-titled predecessor. Still, its album cover, which kind of looks like a combination of John Denver’s “Labyrinth” and Roald Dahl’s “The Indian in the Cupboard” in the best way, would make a good t-shirt, so Fearless Records, if you’re reading this, and we know that you are, please send us an XL for our Covid ginger beer guts even though you don’t have MP on your roster anymore, you angel demons.
Play it again: “Ghosts”
Skip it: “Nothing You Can Live Without, Nothing You Can Do Without”
5. What It Means to Fall Apart (2021)
Yes, Mayday Parade has more than one album, and their newest LP “What It Means to Fall Apart” does far from that, and is the first mentioned here to be consistent throughout. Shoutouts are in order for the current lineup of Derek Sanders on lead vocals and sometimes piano, Alex Garcia on lead guitar, Brooks Betts on rhythm guitar, Jeremy Lenzo on bass, and Jake Bundrick on drums and sometimes lead vocals. Here’s to another lucky seven MP albums, one for the rocks, and one for the scary! Closing an album with a song called “I Can’t Do This Anymore” is scary when one wants more from this five-piece, but it kinda could be a form of notice to the end of it all. Think of them please.
Play it again: “Golden Days”
Skip it: “Heaven”
4. Black Lines (2015)
Ah, yes, the very polarizing record from Mayday Parade! Departures can sometimes sound like arrivals: Imagine Mayday Parade listened to a lot of the now-canceled Brand New, the forever rad Smashing Pumpkins, a bunch of hipster Coachella acts, and purchased a ton of vintage delay guitar pedals on your rich and neglectful stepfather’s dime, and you have “Black Lines,” BY FAR, the most underrated MP effort and we are not taking any more questions regarding the matter. Also, this album is the last of their Fearless Records, err, records, and the band went out with a bang in every way but sales/streams/fanfare. Let’s be honest, this one may have been just out of reach for you in 2015, but now that you’re eight years older, and have had much more time to let your hollowness go, you need to revisit this one stat.
Play it again: “Letting Go”
Skip it: “Underneath The Tide”
3. Anywhere but Here (2009)
The band’s lone major label/sophomore release “Anywhere but Here” is a co-writer’s dream, but the band’s then-nightmare, as it was doomed from the start because of general apathy with the lineup. Still, despite the fact that “Anywhere but Here” alienated some, which means one or more, it somehow has a lot of staying power and various songs will always permeate their setlists, unless they are solely playing another album front to back. Produced by David Bendeth of Breaking Benjamin, Paramore, Of Mice & Men, and Joni Mitchell fame, this album sounds HUGE, but didn’t move many units, unintentionally making it a setback for the five-piece, even though it initially debuted at number thirty-one on the Billboard 200. Sadly sales dissipated after week one, and it seemed that the band would never recover, but with the next to be mentioned subsequent effort, it did! The end?
Play it again: “Kids in Love”
Skip it: “Center of Attention”
2. Mayday Parade “Self-Titled” (2011)
Oh well, oh whale? If this self-titled LP was flip-flopped sequentially order-wise with “Anywhere but Here” and released on Atlantic Records instead of an indie without a huge music video and radio budget, we firmly believe that Mayday Parade would’ve still been on a major label today and their radio hit catalog would’ve also been quite sizable. However, that wasn’t in the cards for this fan-favorite studio effort. Self-titled LPs often go in one way or another: Back-to-basics like what worked before or a major departure that may or may not successfully grow their fan base. This one is more of the former, and a grower that shows up and out, so when you see your friends who abandoned their pop punk roots for seemingly greener pastures, show them this album’s cover and scare ‘em back to Warped Tour forests.
Play it again: “When You See My Friends”
Skip it: “A Shot Across The Bow”
1. A Lesson in Romantics (2007)
What is truly obvious to us here is Mayday Parade may never be able to top their no “skip it” track debut studio album “A Lesson in Romantics,” and that’s ok, as Stuart Smalley said to you, but we will direct towards them, “They’re good enough, they’re smart enough, and doggone it, people like them!” You’d drink too if you had Liberace for a son, so walk on water or drown, and take this to heart: If you wanted a song written about you, all you had to do was ask, and we’d STILL say no. This album eventually went GOLD, yes, GOLD, which is an insane achievement for an indie or major label, so there is literal proof that more than Jamie was all over it.
Play it again: Every second of this one, rinse, and repeat
Skip it: If you skip any, we’ll teach you a lesson