Cut

I like that interpretation, but I think this may be less about leaving music, and more about leaving the major label leagues and attempting at being the popular band those labels always really want their acts to be. No more disco-rock attempts, no more Butch Vig, no more names in lights. Just the Jimmy Eat World they're good at being.

refer yourself to an interview Jimmy Eat World did about Invented. The reason they chose the title "Invented" for the album is because that's exactly what it is. The emotions expressed in these songs were not directly experienced by the band members. The reason this is unique is because the exact opposite happened with their darker albums, such as Futures. When they wrote Futures, JEW was in a very dark place and the members were dealing with some very heavy situations. This, however sad, allowed them to write some very emotional, very profound, and very sincere work. On the other hand, The members of JEW were very happy and content with where they were in life when they wrote Invented. Jim didn't want to write about depressing experiences as if they were his own, when they weren't. So what did he do? He turned to art. Jim Adkins took a few of his favorite artworks from his favorite artists, and analyzed them. He chose 11, to be exact, one for every song on the album. Jim sat down and wrote out an entire background story to every painting and/or photograph. He used these created background stories to draw the inspiration to write the songs about them. Thus, the songs truly were "invented", yet still retained that authentic emotional perspective. Knowing this, I find it hard to believe JEW is saying this is their last album.