Notaword

 For my 100th band post on the blog, I intended to focus on something special—naturally, I     completely forgot and continued on as usual. So, for the 101st post, I'm going to put up the works of legendary emo pop band Notaword, whose 1999 album You Can Only Grow So Much eluded me for quite some time, long before I started this blog. Now I finally have a physical copy.

In my experience, Notaword tend to be fairly well known among emo aficionado's. Some of their works are included in the 'long live emo' collection and they've made the rounds within the usual circles. So while I've had a digital copy for a long time, I always longed to have a high-quality rip of the LP because it's just so good.

Notaword were formed in 1996 in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Their closest contemporary in sound and therefore the band they are endlessly compared to is The Get Up Kids, especially pre-Something To Write Home About The Get Up Kids. They share that midwest-pop-punk sound. But Notaword never experienced the same level of success (few emo bands did), which probably accounts for them calling it quits not long after the turn of the millennium. Last.FM says they broke up in 2001, but they released a compilation track in 2003, though that may have been posthumously.

In 1998, the band released two 7", New Car/How Far and These Things Take Time…. In 1999 they released You Can Only Grow So Much, and then in 2000 put out Four From Fortieth. The download below is almost a discography, but according to Discogs there's a compilation track from 1998 called "C14" that I've been unable to find.

You Can Only Grow So Much + Four From Fortieth + 7"s and Rarities