The Sane Psycho

2. Sunny Day Real Estate- Diary (1994)

One can not talk about this album without stating it's importance in Emo music. And indeed, this is a landmark Emo album. You know, back when Emo was a legitimate genre of music with heartfelt, emotional songs rather than commercialized Mall Punk about high school crushes. More importantly, it's a great album.

I don't know too much about music composition aside from playing cool riffs with power chords, but since Emo was at that time a subgenre of Post-Hardcore, I'm sure the music on hand is technical and complex. It's also beautiful. You can feel the emotion coming through their instrument and in the singing. They're songs that stay inside your head because even if it didn't have any lyrics, the music drips emotion. It's truly powerful stuff.

Admittedly, you can't always understand what the singer is saying, and the lyrics are fairly abstract. Still, that doesn't mean it has bad songwriting. In fact, it's quite the opposite. These are songs about heartbreak, about loss, about pain, about sadness. And you can really feel that on this album, as it burns into your very soul. It's also easily relatable to a lot of people, which is why Emo had a dedicated following in the '80s and '90s.

Though the band swears up and down that they're not an Emo band, it's hard to overstate their influence and impact on the genre. This is truly a groundbreaking album, and one that spoke to an entire generation of disenfranchised youth. Moreover, it's a truly great album to listen to. It's no wonder I selected it for Music Banter's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.