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Weezer
Pinkerton
1996
1. Tired of Sex
2. Getchoo
3. No Other One
4. Why Bother?
5. Across the Sea
6. The Good Life
7. El Scorcho
8. Pink Triangle
9. Falling for You
10. Butterfly
Blue Album or Pinkerton?
Fuck, that's like asking me to choose between two restaurants to eat at. The Blue Album is a place I go when my friends are around, a place where we sing in unison to 'Undone (The Sweater Song)' and 'In the Garage'. Pinkerton is where I head when I'm feeling down, as nothing feels better than having a fellow nerd feel as useless in relationships as me.
On their second LP, Rivers Cuomo sings about his lack of enthusiasm for sex with groupies, a dysfunctional relationship based only on safety, and the pondering of never getting back into the dating scene before coming full circle about falling back again.
Well, until the girl ends up being a lesbian.
'El Scorcho' is by far my favorite track on the album.
Sunny Day Real Estate
Diary
1994
1. Seven
2. In Circles
3. Songs About an Angel
4. Round
5. 47
6. The Blankets Were the Stairs
7. Pheurton Skeurto
8. Shadows
9. 48
10. Grendel
11. Sometimes
A masterpiece of emo/indie rock. Really all there is to say.
Protest the Hero
Kezia
2006
1. No Stars Over Bethlehem
2. Heretics & Killers
3. Divinity Within
4. Bury the Hatchet
5. Nautical
6. Blindfolds Aside
7. She Who Mars the Skin of Gods
8. Turn Soonest to the Sea
9. The Divine Suicide of K.
10. A Plateful of Our Dead
Post-2003 was an odd time musically in my life. With the pop-punk scene raped, I ended up listening to what I would call a lot of shit. Ending up needing a new fix, I found two bands that quenched my thirst: Between the Buried and Me and Protest the Hero. Not only did they push me to try and become a better musician (it didn't), but both led into a very different direction.
I had never been a big metal fan. Just not my thing at all. Let's sing about playing with our dicks, or being too scared to talk to chicks instead. Mosh pits freak a guy like me the fuck out. I do wear glasses, after all.
Kezia was written by five guys who were still in high school at it's conception. It was a huge step-up, all things considering; their EP was mediocre hardcore punk at it's best. This is them going all out, and tracks like 'Blindfolds Aside' and 'Turn Soonest to the Sea' show that. Also helping is the underlying theme and concept about a young woman's execution, which is better left to listen than explain.
Straylight Run
Internet Demos
2003
1. Existentialism on Prom Night
2. It's Everybody's Fault But Mine
3. It's For the Best
4. Mistakes We Knew We Were Making
5. The Tension and the Terror
6. A Slow Descent
Formed by ex-Taking Back Sunday members John Nolan and Shaun Cooper after their departure from the band after the debut Tell All Your Friends. With Nolan's sister Michelle and drummer Will Noon, the foursome released several demos before coming out with their first LP. These internet demos were released free on their website in 2003. Five of the songs on it appeared on that album, with the exception of 'It's Everybody's Fault But Mine'.
I like the band due to Nolan, whose departure from Taking Back Sunday was evident in the drop of quality. Not to say that Taking Back Sunday was a great band or anything, but I do feel as if the first album one of the better ones of it's kind. Straylight Run doesn't exactly change indie rock, but they are a talented band nonetheless.
Saves the Day
Through Being Cool
1999
1. All-Star Me
2. You Vandal
3. Shoulder to the Wheel
4. Rocks Tonic Juice Magic
5. Holly Hox, Forget Me Nots
6. Third Engine
7. My Sweet Fracture
8. The Vast Spoils of America
9. The Last Lie I Told
10. Do You Know What I Love the Most?
11. Through Being Cool
12. Banned from the Back Porch
Pop-punk is a funny genre, especially looking back as a pop-punk kid myself. Like screamo, it's a genre hated on for the bad with people looking over the good. This is due in fact to what is one of my favorite bands: blink-182. After the release of Enema of the State, we were met with so much shit (Relient K, Good Charlotte, and Simple Plan are the first three that pop to mind) that of course it was going to be looked down on. These bands came and went like hazy days, filling in bad memories in the cracks of music afficados.
Out of all those bands, the most overlooked is by far Saves the Day. Influencing the genre more than anyone could think of, they released Through Being Cool the same year as blink-182 break out album came out, coming out two years after their debut Can't Slow Down. While I prefer Stay What You Are due to classics like 'At Your Funeral' and 'Freakish', Through Being Cool is one of the quitiscential third-wave pop-punk albums out there.
Definitely one to pick up if you're interested in the genre, unless you're a jaded fucker.
Cansei de ser Sexy
Cansei de ser Sexy
2006
1. Fuck Off Is Not The Only Thing You Have to Show
2. Alala
3. Let's Make Love and Listening to Death From Above
4. Meeting Paris Hilton
5. Alcohol
6. Bezzi
7. Off the Hook
8. Art Bitch
9. Acho um Pouco Bom
10. Computer Heat
11. Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex
12. This Month, Day 10
13. Superafim
14. Poney Honey Money
Cansei de ser Sexy's debut album contains fourteen tracks of indie rock, new rave, electroclash, synthpop goodness (or crap). Best known for the song 'Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex' (featured in Zune and iPods ads), the Brazilian-based rock band is all about fucking, drinking, friends, and fucking some more. And really, that's fine by me. It's one of those albums I listen to in my car when no one is around, but I'm pretty sure if I tried hard enough I could get laid based on this album alone.
'Lick, lick, lick my art tit. Suck, suck, suck my art hole.'
Joshua Fit For Battle
To Bring Our Own End
2001
1. Opprotunist
2. Dreams
3. 12 Years of Catholic Skool and This Is What I Learned
4. Blood Money
5. To Bring Our Own End
6. Destroying From the Inside Out Like Cancer
7. Oh, Good, It's One Of Those 'Reality' Shows
8. This Is Getting Me Stronger
9. Fuck the Men in Her Life
10. Sleepwalkers Guide
11. Contents of an American Dream
Screamo is one of the most tainted genres of music in America, thanks in part due to the second wave of artists. I'd like to think that the second wave never came by, and it's honestly for the best. Gone was the spastic intensity and in came the pop-ballads and major label signings. So fucking sad that the genre is now known for that now, and if there's one thing I hate it's the fact that nobody knows what the genre was really about anymore.
Joshua Fit For Battle, to me, is one of the key figures in the East Coast screamo scene, along the likes of pg. 99, Cricle Takes the Square, Hot Cross, Saetia, and Orchid. To Bring Our Own End is twenty-eight minutes of blissful chaos that is as good of a starting place for those not familiar with the genre as Hot Cross' Crynoics and pg. 99's Document #5.
Boys Night Out
Trainwreck
2005
1. Introducing
2. Dreaming
3. Waking
4. Sentencing
5. Medicating
6. Purging
7. Relapsing
8. Recovering
9. Composing
10. Disintegrating
11. Healing
12. Dying
Now this is an album that struck a chord with me the first time I listened to it. The follow up to 2003's Make Yourself Sick, Boys Night Out's Trainwreck made it's mark with me as being one of the first concept albums that I really loved. I mean, it can't get any better when the synopsis revolves around a man who murders his wife in his sleep, cuts off both of his arms, begins to hallucinate a song, and then starts to kill off everybody he knows.
Everybody.
Filled to the brim with sweet, delicious bits of tastiness, Trainwreck breaks me every time I set down with it. It's definitely one of the few albums that does it to me, and I'd probably thank the closing track, 'Dying', for causing this.
'The smell of her perfume struggles to cover everything. We were inseperable.'
With that, the album literally dies out. It's a rather beautiful and fitting ending to one of the most overlooked post-hardcore albums of the past decade. Trainwreck is among the best of it's kind. It's sad that the band's third album was a step back.
'These days they are allowing visitation to aid in my rehabilitation. To make these days mean so much more for me. I beg friends and family for forgiveness and now, for the first time, together we'll witness. Together we'll live this song that I've been living incessantly. So come sing with me through these poison pills and chemicals. I know that you'll hear something beautiful.'
K'naan
The Dusty Foot Philosopher
2005
1. Wash It Down
2. Soobax
3. What's Hardcore
4. My Old Home
5. Moment
6. I Was Stabbed By Satan
7. My God
8. Smile
9. If Rap Gets Jealous
10. The Dusty Foot Philosopher
11. Strugglin'
12. In the Beginning
13. Hoobaale
14. The African Way
15. Voices in My Head
16. Boxing My Shadow
17. For Mohamoud (Soviet)
18. Until the Lion Learns to Speak
Mixing hip-hop, folk, and poetry, K'naan has a long career ahead of him. Growing up in a war-torn country, he spent his time listening to hip-hop albums sent to him from America by his father. At thirteen, he left with the rest of his family to join him in Canada. There, K'naan began to use albums by Nas and Rakim to teach himself English, and he taught himself hip-hop and rap diction by copying the lyrics and style.
The Dusty Foot Philosopher recalls much of K'naan's past in his home country. Songs like 'Wash It Down', 'Until the Lions Learn to Speak' and 'In the Beginning' are two tracks that might feel out of place to the first time listeners, but the latter comes out as one of the strongest of the eighteen. The title track is K'naan at the top of his game, showing off everything that his lyrical skills offer in four minutes of beatdown.
All of this is odd, considering my extreme dislike for popular hip-hop and rap artists. This album just feels different and speaks a geninuine truth, where in most I laugh about the idocracy going on.
Glassjaw
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Silence
2000
1. Pretty Lush
2. Siberian Kiss
3. When One Eight Becomes Two Zeros
4. Ry Ry's Song
5. Lovebites and Razorlines
6. Hurting and Shoving (She Should Have Let Me Sleep)
7. Majour
8. Her Middle Name Was Boom
9. Piano
10. Babe
11. Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Silence
12. Hotel of the White Locust/Losten
I feel sorry for any girl who pisses off Daryl Palumbo. The chorus of the opening track 'Pretty Lush' spells out of the overall tone of the album in what might be the biggest lyrical bitch-slap in the scene.
'You can lead a whore to water, and you can bet she'll drink and follow orders.'
It gets even rougher from then on there. Palumbo's anger at his past relationship and his own affliction with Crohn's disease allows Glassjaw's debut album to set itself apart from it's counterparts. There's no subtle jabs here, more like hardened blows from a closed fist.
'I know a girl who sells herself around and I'm sure that one day she'll be signing autographs in your town.'
But with Palumbo's pain comes one of the best revenge albums of all time. There's not a song on the album that doesn't feel embedded with some kind of pain, and at times true beauty shines out of from the frantic, raving screaming and riffs. Glassjaw is a very melodic band, but I find it more fleshed out in Worship and Tribute than here. Still, these moments are probably some of the highlights of the album.
'His friends are good for bang-bang. An amiable hobby. She's got a secret. Just keep it and sleep with it.'
The Pixies
Surfer Rosa
1988
1. Bone Machine
2. Break My Body
3. Something Against You
4. Broken Face
5. Gigantic
6. River Euphrates
7. Where Is My Mind?
8. Cactus
9. Tony's Theme
10. Oh, My Golly!
11. You Fucking Die! I Said...
12. Vamos
13. I'm Amazed
14. Brick Is Red
Along with Doolittle, The Pixies dominated the last two years of the 80s with back-to-back kickassery. Surfer Rosa, the band's first full-length album, is filled with to the brim with choice tracks like 'Bone Machine' and 'Where Is My Mind?'. As per usual, the Pixies' offbeat humor is there in full force. It's most apparent in 'Gigantic', a love song between a woman and a black man('s huge penis).
'Cactus', 'River Euphrates', 'Break My Body', 'Brick Is Red'. I could go on and on about the glory that is Surfer Rosa and The Pixies in general, but the album says enough by itself.
NOFX
Punk in Drublic
1994
1. Linoleum
2. Leave It Alone
3. Dig
4. The Cause
5. Don't Call Me White
6. My Heart Is Yearning
7. Perfect Government
8. The Brews
9. The Quass
10. Dying Degree
11. Fleas
12. Lori Meyers
13. Jeff Wears Birkenstocks?
14. Punk Guy (Cause He Does Punk Things)
15. Happy Guy
16. Reeko
17. Scavenger Type
Out of all the bands that come out of the early 90s pop-punk explosion, I've always thought NOFX's Punk in Drublic reigned supreme over the likes of the Offspring's Smash, Rancid's Out Come the Wolves..., and Green Day's Dookie. Even now, I think that, and NOFX's career shows why, even out of all of those albums, I've liked this one the best.
Unlike Green Day, they didn't whore themselves out to the masses.
Unliked the Offspring, the band actually evolved over the years.
Unlike Rancid, Fat Mike doesn't sing annoying faux-British accent.
It also helps that the album has classic tracks like 'Linoleum' and 'Leave It Alone', which set the mood for the rest of the record. The band's signature humor is laid throughout the songs, with songs like 'Don't Call Me White' and 'Jeff Wears Birkenstocks?'. Definitely a key work (wither Fat Mike likes it or not) in the pop-punk community.
Buffalo Buffalo Buffalo
Phobiaphilia EP
2009
1. Bookend I (In the Beginning)
2. Mayfly Life
3. Fuck!
4. All in This Together Now
5. Hey Luanne
6. Three Wonderful Nights
7. Bookend II (In the End)
This came out of nowhere and became an instant favorite of mine. Lamenting about the loss of past loves before going onto a long winded rant about his true love for marijuana, 'Three Wonderful Nights' is by far the highlight of this fantastic folk/pop EP. That's not to say the other tracks aren't worth your time; the acoustic happenings on this album are too fantastic not to experience, and the somewhat brutal honesty that comes across in the lyrics make for a young man who is wiser than expected.
Cursive
Happy Hollow
2006
1. Opening the Hymnal/Babies
2. Dorothy at Forty
3. Big Bang
4. Bad Sects
5. Flags and Family
6. Dorothy Dreams of Tornados
7. Retreat!
8. The Sunks
9. At Conception
10. So-So Gigolo
11. Bad Science
12. Into the Fold
13. Rise Up! Rise Up!
14. Hymns for the Heathen
Following up the auto-biographical Domestica and the equally telling The Ugly Organ was no easy feat and even though Happy Hollow seems like a step back into the territory of indie pop, it's as impressive as an album as their previous releases. Ditching the cello for a horn section was a bold and unexpected move, but Cursive's third album offers some of the catchiest choruses and infectious riffs the scene has offered in a long time.
Mama, I'm Swollen is still a horrible fucking album, though.
The album explores the faults in the lives of the residents residing in the small town of Happy Hollow, covering topics such as the loss of hopes and dreams, homosexuality, war, religion, infidelity, and hypocrisy.
Brand New
Fight Off Your Demons (Demos)
2006
1. Untitled #1 (Good Man)
2. Untitled #2
3. Untitled #3 (Brothers)
4. Untitled #4
5. Untitled #5 (Nobody Moves)
6. Untitled #6 (Mamas)
7. Untitled #7 (Fork and Knife)
8. Untitled #8 (Sowing Season)
9. Untitled #9
Recorded demos from Brand New's Fight Off Your Demons session. Further explores the growth of the band between Deja Entendu and The Devil and God Are Raging Inside of Me. 'Sowing Season' and 'Mamas' (under the title of 'Luca') reappear on The Devil and God Are Raging Inside of Me, and this particular version of 'Mamas' was later released as the B-side 'Luca (Reprise)' on the UK version of the album. 'Fork and Knife' was released later as a single, as was a re-recorded version of 'Brothers'.
'Nobody Moves' is one of the best songs by the band, and one of the main reason to give this one a shot even if the quality isn't fantastic. This doesn't effect most of the songs outside of 'Good Man' and 'Sowing Season', though.
