Yellowcard Case Study

Brandon Axelson

MUS 167500 Music Business I

Christopher Stup

March 11th, 2011

Midterm Paper: Yellowcard

Yellowcard is a pop-punk band form the great state of Florida. The band Yellowcard has been around since 1997, granted with many member changes. The current group of members has been together since about 2002. Only two of the original members are still a part of the band today, drummer Longineu W. Parsons III and violinist/vocalist Sean Mackin. The most intriguing aspect of Yellowcard is that they use an electric violin in all of their songs, something that is very unique in not just pop-punk music, but mainstream music altogether.

The band has jumped from record label to record label a couple different times throughout their career. The three most notable are Lobster Records, Capitol Records and Hopeless Records. Their first album Midget Tossing was released and distributed by DIY Records in 1997 and was followed up by the album Where We Stand in 1999, released by Takeover Records. Both albums featured their original band member line-up. After a couple member changes and a switch to Lobster Records, the band release One for the Kids in 2001. Neither of these albums made it on the Billboard top albums chart or went platinum/gold. These three studio-albums that they released weren’t too successful. You could argue that One for the Kids was a success because it got the attention of Capitol Records who would go on to releases the band’s next three albums.

After they signed with Capitol Records Yellowcard would hit the big time. In 2003 they would release Ocean Avenue, an album that would push Yellowcard into the forefront of the music scene. Their first single off the album “Way Away” would be featured on two video game soundtracks (EA’S SSX3 and Madden ’04) and two TV episodes (The O.C. and Smallville). And the song “Empty Apartments” was also featured on an episode of One Tree Hill. The album also brought much higher accolades; the band took home the...