Ted Leo’s big breakthrough came at the turn of the century, right around the time everybody started saying that both the music biz and the electric guitar were dead.
He proved both ideas wrong at once, emerging with a new wave of indie artists who inspired reverent fandom by touring incessantly, keeping costs low, being smart about the still-coltish internet, and, lest one neglect to mention the important bit, by being an absolutely thrilling performer.
Between 2001 and 2004, Leo made a succession of dazzling records with a direct connection to the feel of the Jam, the Clash, and the Specials (associations he’s likely tired of seeing, but then, I’m not the one who wrote a song called “Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone”)—but with a far more direct connection to the emotional reality of a suburban Yank enthralled by that music and desperate to both live in it and live up to it.