Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle” has officially joined Spotify’s Billions club. It’s the latest achievement for a song considered the group’s signature.
Released in 1999, “The Middle” remains Jimmy Eat World’s only Top 40 hit on the Hot 100 to date. The Tempe, Arizona-born group—singer/guitarist Jim Adkins, rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist Tom Linton, bassist Rick Burch, and drummer Zach Lind—dropped the song shortly after being dropped by their label, Capitol Records.
Determined to make their fourth album regardless, Jimmy Eat World chose “The Middle” as the second single on their 2001 record Bleed American, which was retitled to Jimmy Eat World and went Platinum within a year of its release. A music video for “The Middle,” which jokingly played on The Brady Bunch, received significant airplay on MTV and Total Request Live.
Jimmy Eat World still tours together today, and released their tenth album Surviving in 2019. In 2008, they re-released a deluxe edition of Bleed American (returned to its original title), with bonus tracks, compiled from live recordings, demos, and B-sides. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly in 2021, the group spoke fondly of “The Middle” and its effect on fans. The song was even been covered (if unofficially) by the late Prince at the 2009 Academy Awards.
“It’s one of those songs that showed itself, I remember playing the demo for friends, and they’d be like, “Wow, that’s awesome,” Lind recalled of “The Middle.” “It was this immediate song. It makes you feel good. That’s the kind of song it is, and I think that’s the reason behind some of the popularity of it. It’s a simple song that has no wasted motion.”
“It’s been one of the most insane, huge, heartwarming compliments that so many people have something in that song that they can relate to, that they can connect with,” Adkins added. “That’s the biggest compliment for any musician when someone takes the time to live with something you made and makes it theirs, too. `
