Just like Green Day aped the Ramones and Rancid were trying to be The Clash in the 90's, the Ergs! took the Descendents formula (short songs about girls or nerdy things with a technical precision that shouldn't belong in punk rock) and just ran with it.
I don't think there's much else to say about that. I discovered this album kind of late (about three or four years after it came out) but it really rejuvenated my faith in modern day pop punk. Especially in this day and age when people think of bands like Good Charlotte or All Time Low as pop punk.
During my sophomore year of college, I went through a huge Plan-It-X phase. It started when a bunch of PIX bands played right off campus and continued well throughout the year to the point where Ghost Mice songs became a drunken standard for me and all of my friends.
Spoonboy's debut (and up until this year, his only solo album), I Love You; This Is a Robbery, was one of the many albums that I listened to during that phase. I don't think it left my CD player (because I still used a CD player back then) for about a month's time at least. It was comforting; I was in a pretty uncertain place at that time (going through the obligatory college break up, not knowing what to major in, etc) and it seemed like Spoonboy himself was feeling the same way. I vividly remember spending late November nights in the wood studio working on my project for class and listening to the album on repeat.
I also vaguely recall smelling a bonfire on those nights,
but it was probably just the kiln from the ceramic studio.
It was after I listened to this album that I tried my own hand at writing songs. I didn't really try to mimic his style, but I really liked how he (and other PIX artists, for that matter) would write songs that had somewhat of a traditional style, but went with a very narrative approach. I know that's why people love Bruce Springsteen, or Billy Joel, or whoever else, but for me this person was Spoonboy. His songs were short, catchy and they got their point across in a way that spoke to me. I don't think I liked any of the songs that I wrote at that period (I've only really ever liked two or three songs that I've written), but the fact remains that I never felt comfortable trying my hand at songwriting until after I listened to I Love You; This Is a Robbery. I think that's a pretty big effect on my life- hence its inclusion on this list.
I'm not really sure what to say about this one. So far a lot of these albums that I've included have also taught me something, or they opened up my ears to a new sound.
Anthem isn't really one of those albums. I just really, really liked it a lot when it came out. At that point, I only knew of All My Best Friends Are Metalheads and I wasn't familiar with the whole "90's ska bands going horn-less in the early 00's" fad at the time. I still liked it a lot.
I also knew this girl who said they didn't like "She's Gonna Break Soon" for being too poppy sounding. A fair complaint, except this girl was also the type who worshiped Fall Out Boy (but only their "old stuff). So yeah.
Also a Gilmore Girl was in the music video.
You know, the one who was also in Sin City.
Taking a break from the 25 album thing. I'll continue it later. Anywho. I work as a Security Officer at this store. They play music for the shoppers. The music is made up of a bunch of classic radio hits as well as some more modern tunes. It's also made up of maybe 600 different songs, with only 300 of them being played a day. This gets repetitive.
I've grown tired of a lot of these songs. There's all those staple 80's songs. A Flock of Seagulls. The Outfield. Men at Work. Etc. With the exception of Men at Work, I don't even need to specify which song (Who Can It Be Now?) that the store plays because you can probably already guess the song. I don't even like that kind of stuff ironically, so having to hear those songs at least twice a day, multiple days in a row is pretty grating.
However, there are some songs I do enjoy. That's what this list is about. Enough introduction, I'll just get started.
#5. Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus
I'm not a huge Depeche Mode fan. I'm more a fan of this song. Any version of it, I don't really have a preference. Something about the lyrics. (Although I imagine a lot of people like the lyrics).
#4. Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out
A few months ago, I remembered how much I enjoy the first Franz Ferdinand album. I don't mean that in a hip "holier than thou" way, I just mean that I like the album.
#3. Talking Heads - Burning Down the House
The funny thing about a lot of these songs is that I'm not really a big fan of the band. That said, I really like the vocal melody in the chorus of this song and I'm glad it gets played frequently at the store.
#2. Huey Lewis and the News - Hip to Be a Square
I can remember hearing this song on Sesame Street. And then it got name dropped in American Psycho. Funny how these things happen.
#1. The Clash - Train in Vain
All-in-all, I'm not actually a super big fan of the Clash. I love London Calling and both versions of the self titled album. But after that, I'll enjoy some singles or individual tracks but not a whole lot else. That said, I think this is a great tune. It's not too complicated, it's just a fun pop song.
And there you have it.
Oh wait, one more.
Bonus song: Mya + Blackstreet - Take Me There.
This song gets a bunch of nostalgia points because it's the song my graduating class sang when we finished elementary school back in 1999. I haven't heard this song pretty much since then.
nimrod. was one of the first albums I ever bought with my own money. It was one of the only Green Day albums that my parents didn't have (39/Smooth and Kerplunk being the other two) (this was before 2004) and I had been really curious to hear it because I already knew I liked all the singles from it (thanks to International Superhits, but more on that later).
nimrod. is the first Green Day album to really showcase some growth in terms of style. There are the standard Green Day tracks (Nice Guys Finish Last, All the Time), acoustic tunes (Good Riddance), harmonica ballads (Walking Alone), silly ska songs (King for a Day), attempts at hardcore (Reject), surf instrumentals (Last Ride In) and a bit of extra instrumentation not heard on a Green Day album before. (the violin in Hitchin' a Ride, baseball bats on the B-side, Desensitized, etc.) So if anyone says that American Idiot was bad because Green Day experimented with and changed their sound too much, you know that they're full of shit and have no clue what they're talking about. But I digress. (Note: it's one thing if a person just doesn't like the album, my comments are merely directed at those who make blind complaints about American Idiot not sounding like Green Day's older albums when their older albums already have a bunch of diverse sounds on them).
Anywho, nimrod. played a large impact on my life because it signifies when I really began to listen to music on my own instead of just burning CDs that my parents already owned. I don't necessarily think it's the greatest Green Day album (Insomniac is) but I do think it was very important in shaping my musical tastes.
Do I really need to say how this album was influential on my life?
Sure, it's lame if a band covers any song from this album, but even if you aren't a fan of the Ramones,
you'd have to be a total dumbass to say that it didn't at least help kickstart a new genre of rock and roll.
Anyone who knows me knows that I often cite Green Day as the band that got me into the music that I'm into today (not to get into semantics, but I'll generally be referring to it as "punk" even though many purists would strongly disagree). While that is kind of true, it's also a lie. The Offspring's Americana definitely came before.
A pretty fly introduction.
Americana is probably one of the best known Offspring albums, due in part to its singles. Pretty Fly for a White Guy, She's Got Issues, Why Don't You Get a Job?, The Kids Aren't Alright... except for that last one they're all pretty campy and dumb songs. But take away all the humorous tracks (including that quasi-cover of Feelings) and what's left is pretty solid.
Overall, Americana introduced me to 90's mainstream "punk" (if you want to call it that). This album may not have been on Epitaph, but it wasn't too far removed from it either. I was too young to really understand the themes of most of the songs (or maybe I was just too dumb) but I understood that I liked how the music sounded. Given that, there's a chance that a year later when I began listening to Green Day that I would've enjoyed it anyway but Americana was still the first semi-punk album that I started listening to on my own, which is how it found its place on my list.
