Say Anything’s ...Is A Real Boy caught most of the music scene off-guard, despite the buzz rumbling from inside the genre (rock, punk? does it matter?). Full of desperate lyrics that cut into cliques of people and music, frontman Max Bemis poured his life and well-being into the album – he recorded every instrument except drums - and a few years after the album’s release he was admitted into a hospital with bi-polar illness. With the illness mostly behind him, Bemis re-grouped and wrote another giant concept album, In Defense of the Genre.