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"The Best of Me"
Single by the Starting Line
from the album Say It Like You Mean It
ReleasedJune 16, 2003 (2003-06-16)
Studio
Genre
Length4:18
Label Drive-Thru
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s) Mark Trombino
The Starting Line singles chronology
"Three's a Charm"
(2002) 		"The Best of Me"
(2003) 		"Leaving"
(2003)
Music video
"The Best of Me" on YouTube

"The Best of Me" is a song by American rock band the Starting Line from their debut studio album Say It Like You Mean It (2002). The song was released as the album's lead single on June 16, 2003 through Drive-Thru Records. It was written by vocalist/bassist Kenny Vasoli, guitarist Matt Watts, drummer Tom Gryskiewicz, and guitarist Mike Golla.

Background

"The Best of Me" was first released as a single on June 16, 2003; [4] it was pushed to modern rock radio stations in the U.S. on July 22 of that year. [5]

Music video

On October 27, 2002, a music video for "The Best of Me" was posted on Launch.com. [6] The video starts with a guy attempting to impress a girl by playing music from a boombox outside of her residence. When the music stops, the band appear and start performing. [7] A second music video was posted online for "The Best of Me" through MTV.com on June 13, 2003. The video received significant rotation on MTV2. [2]

Reception

While "The Best of Me" did not chart well during its original release—only reaching the bottom region of the UK Singles Chart [8]—it became the band's most popular song. [9] Likewise, it has been widely considered an key pop punk track from the 2000s. Kelefa Sanneh, writing for The New York Times, called it "infectious"; [10] NME writers called it an "essential" pop punk track. [1] Billboard ranked it at no. 12 on a ranking of the genre's best love songs, with columnist Hannah Dailey writing, "Love can be complicated. No one knows that better than The Starting Line, whose youthful 2003 hit examines how mature conversations, forgiveness and time spent apart are sometimes needed to make a long-term relationship work." [11] Cleveland.com ranked "The Best of Me" at number 33 on their list of the top 100 pop-punk songs. [12] Alternative Press included the song in the genre's most "influential" tracks, [13] and also ranked it at number 35 on their list of the best 100 singles from the 2000s. [14]

Kellin Quinn, frontman of Sleeping with Sirens, placed the song among the 10 "Songs That Changed My Life" for Kerrang!; [15] the same publication ranked the Say It Like You Mean It album among the genre's best, singling out "Best of Me" as "one of the genre's most sing-alongable tunes." [16] The song became one of the most-played songs at Emo Nite, [17] the popular traveling event series hosting era-specific performances and karaoke, in the 2010s–20s. [18] In 2020, the song was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Credits and personnel

Personnel per booklet. [19]

Charts

Weekly chart performance for "The Best of Me"
Chart (2003) Peak
position
UK Singles ( OCC) [8] 79

Certifications

Certifications and sales for "The Best of Me"
Region Certification Certified units/sales
United States ( RIAA) [20] Gold 500,000‡

‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

References

  1. ^ a b Blog, NME (June 2, 2011). "20 Essential Pop Punk Tracks Everyone Should Know". NME. Retrieved April 18, 2023.
  2. ^ a b Loftus, Johnny. "The Starting Line Biography, Songs, & Albums". AllMusic. Retrieved April 18, 2023.
  3. ^ "The 10 best songs from the 10 worst emo bands". Louder. Retrieved July 23, 2023.
  4. ^ Edwards, Tom (June 29, 2003). "Single Review: The Starting Line - The Best Of Me / Releases". Drowned in Sound. Silentway. Archived from the original on July 16, 2018. Retrieved April 17, 2023.
  5. ^ "FMQB Airplay Archive: Modern Rock". Friday Morning Quarterback Album Report, Incorporated. Archived from the original on June 2, 2013. Retrieved April 17, 2023.
  6. ^ "The Starting Line / News : TSL Interview on MTV2". The Starting Line. Archived from the original on December 8, 2004. Retrieved April 17, 2023.
  7. ^ Laderer, Ashley (February 23, 2017). "The 10 Best Emo Music Videos". Paste. Wolfgang's Vault. Archived from the original on March 18, 2018. Retrieved April 17, 2023.
  8. ^ a b "Official Singles Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved April 17, 2023.
  9. ^ Lakshmin, Deepa (April 15, 2016). "107 Emo Bands You Knew About Before Anyone Else - News". MTV. Retrieved April 17, 2023.
  10. ^ "MUSIC; Sweet, Sentimental and Punk". The New York Times. August 10, 2003. Retrieved April 17, 2023.
  11. ^ Payne, Chris; Dailey, Hannah (February 13, 2023). "20 Best Pop-Punk Love Songs". Billboard. Retrieved April 18, 2023.
  12. ^ Smith, Troy L. (March 2, 2022). "The 100 greatest pop punk songs of all time". Cleveland.com. Archived from the original on March 3, 2022. Retrieved April 17, 2023.
  13. ^ Piers, Ryan (September 23, 2020). "These are the 25 most influential songs of pop punk". Alternative Press Magazine. Retrieved April 18, 2023.
  14. ^ Paul, Aubin (November 20, 2009). "At The Drive-In's 'One Armed Scissor' tops AP's 'Haircut 100' singles countdown". Punknews.org. Retrieved April 17, 2023.
  15. ^ "Sleeping With Sirens' Kellin Quinn: The 10 Songs That Changed My Life". Kerrang!. April 22, 2020. Retrieved April 18, 2023.
  16. ^ "The 51 greatest pop-punk albums of all time". Kerrang!. September 23, 2017. Retrieved April 18, 2023.
  17. ^ Laderer, Ashley (May 4, 2017). "Emo Nite Takes NYC, and Thursday's Geoff Rickly Is 'Looking Forward To Connecting With Old Friends'". Billboard. Retrieved April 18, 2023.
  18. ^ Yuccas, Jamie; Novak, Analisa (April 12, 2023). "How "Emo Nite" events helped bring back a lost genre". CBS News. Retrieved April 18, 2023.
  19. ^ Say It Like You Mean It (booklet). The Starting Line. Drive-Thru Records. 2002. DTR32CD.{{ cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) ( link)
  20. ^ "American single certifications – The Starting Line – The Best of Me". Recording Industry Association of America.
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