As emo has grown up, so has Jimmy Eat World. After a couple of stellar punk-pop records in the late 1990s they found themselves dropped from Capitol Records. Perhaps as a result, the band cleaned up its act considerably with 2001's Bleed American, which they recorded without the assistance of any financial backing from a label. It turned out to be a wise investment since the record rocketed to the top of the charts mostly on the power of the bouncy anthem, "The Middle." The album also broke commercial ground for the genre and provided a roadmap for acts that followed like Yellowcard and Dashboard Confessional. Futures, released in 2004, repeated that formula with similar success.