Formed in 1999, Amityville, NY's Taking Back Sunday took their version of melodic hardcore from bands like Lifetime, Endpoint, and Sunny Day Real Estate, as well as guitarist Ed Reyes' emo band the Movielife. The band's first demo, a five-song CD, was released in February of 2001. After a year of self-promotion and touring, including shows with At the Drive-In and Alkaline Trio, Taking Back Sunday signed to Victory Records. The band immediately went into New Jersey's Big Blue Meanie Recording Studios with producer Sal Villanueva and engineer Tim Gilles to record a full-length debut. That album, Tell All Your Friends, layered Adam Lazzara's emotional vocals and the dual-guitar assault of Reyes and John Nolan for a classic hardcore sound with pop songwriting components. It was released on Victory in March of 2002.

The year 2004 proved to be successful for Taking Back Sunday, with the band opening for Blink-182 and being one of the main headliners for the Vans Warped Tour. In addition, their second album, titled Where You Want to Be, was released on July 27, 2004 on Victory Records. This album had a different sound than Tell All Your Friends. Propelled by the single A Decade Under the Influence, Where You Want to Be went on to debut at the #3 spot on the Billboard 200 albums chart, with sales of around 163,000 copies. Taking Back Sunday received even more mainstream exposure by appearing (on the day of Where You Want to Be’s release) on the late night talk shows Jimmy Kimmel Live and Loveline, and by contributing the song This Photograph Is Proof (I Know You Know) to the soundtrack for Spider-Man 2. They also contributed the song Your Own Disaster to the Elektra soundtrack, and the original version of Error: Operator to both the Fantastic Four soundtrack and tie-in video game, where it served as Mr. Fantastic’s theme. An instrumental version is also used as background music within the game.

On April 25, 2006, Taking Back Sunday released their third album, entitled Louder Now, on Warner Bros. Records. It nearly mirrors the first two albums in style and message, yet delivers with a more polished sound. Louder Now was leaked onto the Internet in its entirety on April 19, 2006. Taking Back Sunday received mainstream exposure by appearing on the late night talk shows The Tonight Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and Late Night With Conan O’Brien.

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