Revisit other SputStaff Top 10 Lists:

Bjork | Bon Iver | Chelsea Wolfe | Kanye West | Metallica | Mastodon 

mewithoutYou |  My Chemical Romance | Queens of the Stone Age | The National 

 Say Anything | Swans | Taylor Swift | Tim Hecker | Thrice

Foreword:

To the average music enjoyer, the phrase “I really like Yellowcard” is fairly meaningless. At worst, it’s even slightly embarrassing – yeah, Ocean Avenue was pretty cool, but dude, you just admitted to liking pop punk, yikes. However, to the average Yellowcard enjoyer, the phrase “I really like Yellowcard” means so much more: it’s the kind of iykyk that conveys being in on the band’s quality beyond the two-ish hits from 2003. You appreciate the beauty of “Keeper”s chorus, you know “Life of Leaving Home” by heart, hell, you’ll even admit being aware of how excellently “Fragile and Dear” soars. Long story short, it’s hard to be a casual Yellowcard fan.

Above all, however, Yellowcard has meant many different things to many different people – a sentiment that would be horrifically corny and generic if it weren’t so crucially embedded in the shared experience of enjoying their music. Everyone has different memories intrinsically tied to different records – a testament to the band’s consistency both in terms of quality and ability to connect with their ageing audience. Now, a slice of this old, tired audience have combined their forces to decide on Yellowcard’s ten finest cuts. It’s you and me and one spotlight on the greatest pop punk band since MGK: it’s Sputnikmusic’s top ten Yellowcard songs. – Jesper L.

This list was aggregated and assembled with help from our Contributor reviewers. 

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Honorable Mentions:

15. Lights and Sounds

14. Ten

13. Sleep in the Snow

12. Hide

11. Back Home

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Sputnik Staff’s Top 10 Yellowcard songs:

(10) “Awakening”

from Southern Air (2012)

I’ve never seen Yellowcard live, but I can’t help getting the sense that this is one that the crowd absolutely loses their minds for every time they break it out. It’s like the Platonic ideal of the life-affirming, fist pumping anthem that lands on just the right side of maudlin sentimentality; the kind of sensibility I’d have been way more suspicious of in my younger, more cynical days. What more simple, more well-worn of a subject than a glass raised to a lost love, but the spice that makes this homey stew so savory is the total lack of bitterness behind it, the shedding of all the baggage that comes with the end of a relationship and the commitment to starting life afresh, and to keep moving forward. Praying I’m never going to need this one, but as a panacea for all post-romance blues, few songs will do it more effectively. – DadKungFu

(9) “Cut Me, Mick”

from Paper Walls (2007)

I remember the first time I heard “Cut Me, Mick”: I was on a bus somewhere watching the UK’s delightful spring weather through sticky windows. While its punchy (heavy!) riff and punky verses captivated me as much as the typical Yellowcard song did, there was something truly special about the chorus, something that had me replaying it over and over again. It’s a mesmerising melody, conveying misery and hope at once – most importantly, though, it felt like it effortlessly lit up the grey, rainy skies. Every repeated listen revealed just a little more, from the dynamic contrasts enhancing the chorus’ explicit beauty to all the tiny melodic deviations allowing the song to fully blossom. Ultimately, it felt like the song was meant to be played at that exact moment and, while I don’t need its magic to render my situation enjoyable anymore, “Cut Me, Mick” still sounds incredible on this bus journey through sunny Albania exactly ten years later. – Jesper L.

(8) “Fields and Fences”

from Yellowcard (2016)

I wouldn’t call myself a fan of Yellowcard, exactly. Having gotten into music too late to really gravitate towards pop-punk, I’m missing the nostalgia factor which presumably does yeoman’s work for others’ appreciation of the genre, in general, and this band, specifically. That said, I’ve grown to appreciate the group’s ability, at their best, to create genuinely touching tunes, often from dangerously sappy raw material. Few songs see this prowess in finer form than “Fields and Fences”. While its status as the band’s supposed last will and testament has now been supplanted, given Yellowcard’s reemergence with the release of Childhood Eyes, the song’s near seven minute runtime, twangy and rustic faux-Americana vibe, and powerfully bittersweet emotional resonance will always stand tall amid their finest works. It’s achingly beautiful, and other than that, in terms of a conclusion, I’ll leave you with Ryan Key’s “I don’t have much that I can give you”. – Sunnyvale

(7) “The Takedown”

from Paper Walls (2007)

Could “The Takedown” be the quintessential Yellowcard cut? Trying to capture what makes the song so special in a few sentences feels borderline cruel to me, so this is gonna have to come from the heart. Besides being the most stimulating opening track of their career, “The Takedown” carries so much weight as a standalone anthem to all those late, caffeine-fueled evenings. No matter how many times I hear the song, Key’s refrain of “it’s one long night that we’re passing through” feels like a fresh, vital invitation. For such a potent few minutes, it seems to thrive on its sense of exploration – the pummeling drums, furious guitars and wonky strings all trampling over each other to reach new heights for Yellowcard’s sound. Above all though, “The Takedown” is rejuvenating in every sense of the word. During some rough times of feeling burned out with work or life in general, the song is more akin to a religious experience. In a bittersweet sense, it sometimes feels like I’m channeling the song’s youthful, relentless energy just to mask how ancient I’m starting to feel inside and out. It is what it is. Whenever I need a pick me-up, this is the one. – Atari

(6) “Way Away”

from Ocean Avenue (2003)

“Way Away” is, perhaps, the Most Yellowcard song there is. I had it at #1 on my ballot and it’s not even my favourite song of theirs, for the simple reason that this song just has the whole blueprint for Yellowcard encoded in its DNA: Willian Ryan Key’s youthful voice yearns for summer skies and a life more satisfying, Longineu W. Parsons III pounds his drums like a man exorcising a demon with every fill. Violinist Sean Mackin proves, for the first of many times, how effortlessly he can steal the spotlight from some very solid guitar work. The most impressive thing of all is how these aspects fall in place for one single word: as Key ends his chorus with a keening “anything!”, everyone in the band pulls together for one golden moment, like a giant neon sign advertising to you that Yellowcard’s discography really begins here. – Rowan5215

(5) “Telescope”

from Southern Air (2012)

Oh nostalgia, the only thing more associated with pop punk than wanting to leave “this town” (something Yellowcard loves to write about as well). It’s funny, one of the albums fans tend to be the least nostalgic for in their discography is arguably their most nostalgic in tone. ‘Southern Air’ is my favorite Yellowcard album- and one of my favorite pop punk albums ever- driven by an almost melancholic take on the band’s signature sound, looking at past experiences, breakups, and grief with a sense of bittersweet nostalgia- longing for the past but also okay with where you are today.

The album was important for me throughout numerous hardships in my life and is one I continue to go back to all these years later, but one song in particular in a sense embodies all of these emotions and feelings moreso than the rest- and that’s “Telescope”. Looking back into the past through rose-tinted glasses, living in a nostalgic moment and coping with the reality of the loss of a person and the moments you shared with them backed by mid-tempo guitars, wistful violins, and an incredibly catchy chorus. As embarrassing as it can be to admit, the song made me cry on numerous occasions at some of my lowest points- as someone who misses the moments I share with someone almost moreso than the person a lot of the time, I connected with it- and tie it up with Ryan Key’s sincere vocal delivery and final chorus surprise bgv features from Alex Gaskarth & Cassadee Pope? Hits me. It’s my favorite Yellowcard track, one that is severely underrated on an album that severely slept on to begin with. – Mateo Ottie

(4) “Holly Wood Died”

from Lights and Sounds (2006)

I’ve always found Lights and Sounds to be a bit of a mixed bag for Yellowcard, but my respect for it is unwavering. Instead of delivering more of the same, the album was a bleak departure from the optimistic, summer-ready tunes of Ocean Avenue. At times it’s too gloomy for its own good – an overcorrection patched up with the more nuanced Paper Walls – but there’s no denying “Holly Wood Died” is a shining gem from this era of Yellowcard. Striking the perfect balance with Key’s apathetic take on a dreary Los Angeles and an explosive, violin-heavy chorus, it’s a tune that sticks with you – the final instrumental stretch allowing just enough breathing room to contemplate the difference between expectations and the grim reality. I’m not convinced they’ve ever really made a track quite like this, and I doubt they ever will. – Atari

(3) “Be the Young”

from When You’re Through Thinking, Say Yes (2011)

For years I really did not understand the appeal of Yellowcard. Their inescapable sincerity and skyscraper melodies put them in the company of bands I’ve always adored, your Jimmy Eat Worlds and The Early Novembers, but their surprising technical proficiency and violin-as-lead marked them out from the pack and made them just that little bit too weird for young me. I’m almost glad that I took my time to come around, because there’s something bulletproof about Yellowcard’s sound which feels a lot more evergreen than some of their more dated contemporaries. “Be the Young” encapsulates this better than any of their other songs, capturing that bittersweet yearning for a better day, whether in the future or past, with a soaring chorus melody which may the best they ever put to tape. – Rowan5215

(2) “Southern Air”

from Southern Air (2012)

I’m fully committed to the belief that Southern Air is Yellowcard’s finest record. It delivers in everything needed for that honor – enough summery, youthful, vibes and requisite pop-punk bangers to satisfy the core fanbase’s yearnings, and enough maturity in themes and delicacy in execution to satisfy killjoys like me who wince at songs which seem to pull their premises and lyricism from some thirteen year old’s diary. And, vitally, the “hit rate” of killer tunes is higher than anywhere else in Yellowcard’s discography. As a triumphant closer, “Southern Air” encapsulates its titular record’s myriad strengths. It’s catchy as hell, for one thing. A little melancholic too, just enough to not be sugar-sweet, but all the while wholesomely focused on the idea that, sometimes, life actually does get better. And, finally, the track sinks its flag into that beloved, sun-drenched soil – “this will always be home”. Pop-punk might generally be a young man’s game, but Yellowcard have, if anything, managed to create most of their best work later in their career, and “Southern Air” is definitive proof of that notion. This is one of those tunes I see myself coming back to decades hence, if only to hold on tight to something from my younger days which persists in its evergreen appeal. “The future’s comin’ on”. – Sunnyvale

(1) “Ocean Avenue”

from Ocean Avenue (2003)

My introduction to Yellowcard was sometime in early 2005 when I received an illicit mp3 file of “Ocean Avenue” from my best mate via MSN Messenger – a staple way of obtaining listening material at the time for those in the UK whose parents hadn’t yet upgraded from dial-up internet or terrestrial television. While already obsessed with pop punk, “Ocean Avenue” showed me a side of it I hadn’t known previously – an absence of scrappy musicianship, snotty brattishness and obscenities. With its melodic verses recounting happy memories and urgent choruses boasting a poignant sense of longing for something one once had, it had the perfect formula for a pop punk song, but the ultra-polished production, the earnestness of the subject matter and Key’s saccharine-sweet vocals gave it a new, wholesome sparkle. While not my personal favourite of theirs, “Ocean Avenue” has clearly stood the test of time as more than two decades later, it’s still the best introduction to pop punk’s most gentlemanly dudes, still their defining track, and now a true classic of the genre’s 00s wave. – BitterJalapenoJr.

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