Speaking of badass, I have two words for you: Matt Freeman. Bassist for Rancid, formerly of Social D? You know? The insane one with the insane bass solos and shit. I'm gonna try to learn some of his shit so I can become an excellent punk bassist or something. See, Brittney and I are starting this street punk band with Spencer Clites and I'm playing bass. Gonna be a lot of fun because I get to scream duet with Brittney like Lawrence Arms shit. Recent Lawrence Arms, that is. I'm gonna take the "ad" out of "badass!"
I gave Katie a bunch of CDs last night including D4's Civil War, both of Dead to Me's CDs, the rest of the CDs I got for Christmas, and Weezer's Pinkerton. I shouldn't have given her Pinkerton yet. It doesn't get much better than that. She said she's been listening to it all day and that "Tired of Sex" is her favorite song on it right now. I've never heard that one before, but whatever. It's pretty much the best album EVER. So getting into that, my list for today is my top 11 favorite albums.
1. Weezer's Pinkerton
This is pretty much just the best album I've ever heard all-around. The drums are incredible, especially. The best drum performance, I think, Pat Wilson has ever given on a Weezer album. It's often cited as the first emo album and I'm totally for original emo. 10 amazing songs, nothing filler. Fucking divine.
2. Dillinger Four's Versus God
I'm a sucker for my D4. This is just my favorite album of theirs but there are plenty of reasons why. One reason why it's my second favorite album I've ever heard is that it's the best kind of pop punk there is and the songs are geniusly composed. And what's not awesome about song names like "total. fucking. gone. song" or "Music is None of My Business"? 10 stars out of 5.
3. Propagandhi's How to Clean Everything
What makes How to Clean Everything an amazing album? Oh nothing, maybe just that John Samson helped write a lot of the songs. Maybe because it's the most angry pop punk the world's ever heard. It mixes pop punk and thrash punk. Perfectly. Not to sound like an early Propagandhi poseur that hates Potemkin City Limits (don't get me wrong, that album's in my top 20), but this is definitely my favorite of theirs. Maybe not their best, but my favorite.
4. Bracket's Requiem
Bracket has to be the lamest band I know of, but I love them dearly. They're my favorite band, probably. This is their most recent release and it was completely self-produced and home-recorded. Therefore, it's their first release that they could do whatever they wanted on. So what'd they do? Made an a'capella/punk album. Umm...pretty much the best vocal harmonies you will EVER hear in punk music EVER. EVER! Not to mention the songs are incredible.
5. The Weakerthans' Left & Leaving
This album makes me cry every time. John Samson is the best lyricist I know of. This album is the epitome of his pure genius. I'd give some personal favorite songs, but it'd be easier just to recommend the entire album because there's no stopping the brilliance. But I'll say that the title track is incredible. You may have heard "Aside" on the credits or the soundtrack of Wedding Crashers.
6. NOFX's So Long and Thanks for All the Shoes
This thing is giving me hell about uploading more pictures, so I'm just going to give pictures to the top 5. However, that doesn't stop this from being NOFX's best album, in my opinion. It's their best album in their opinion, too. It's basically a skacore album, I guess. I'm not really into that much ska, I'm sorry (however, Goldfinger have won my heart), but this is a good mix of ska and punk and hardcore. NOFX aren't the best song writers or musicians by any means, but they have a pretty good idea what they're here to do and what they're good at doing and they do it all very well. Did I ever mention they got me into real punk? Or that I met Fat Mike a few months ago? Or that he told me that I'm fucked because we live in WV?
7. The Lawrence Arms' Oh! Calcutta!
The Lawrence Arms...where to start? I can start by admitting that I've only known about them for like...maybe 3 years. So I didn't know about them before this album was on the shelves. I don't own The Greatest Story Ever Told on CD, but I have all of the songs. Well, based on what I've heard from their other CDs and off of Oh! Calcutta!, I can speculate that I think they've gotten much better and work together much better as a band on this album than on previous ones. I was talking about doing duet screaming with Brittney in our new street punk band like The Lawrence Arms do. That's exactly what you should expect on this album. Very powerful songs, very dirty sound. Kind of like a polished turd, but a very well-composed turd. This album is not shit by any means. Listen to it, bitch. Did I mention that Brendan Kelly from TLA is the reason I have this blog in the first place?
8. Against Me!'s As the Eternal Cowboy
So I was in FYE looking for NOFX albums I didn't own to ask for for Christmas. The guy says "If you like NOFX, you should check out Against Me!" Thank God for that guy. I'm not sure who it even was now, but this was a good pick of a CD on my part. It's a blend of westernish folk with punk. I do love my punk blends. Umm...11 songs I want to say? A couple of very good acoustic songs and an instrumental as well as the full-band songs. Very energetic but with some calm sections in between. Let me point out songs like "Potatoes, Rice, and Bread," "Turn Those Clapping Hands into Angry Balled Fists," and "You Look Like I Need a Drink" as being just a few of the amazing songs on this album. I give every album on here 10 stars out of 5, I just like some more than others and some mean more to me than others.
9. Dead to Me's Cuban Ballerina
If I Forget's first album was this good, I'd have shot myself. It wasn't, so I'm still here. Let me begin by saying that the drums on this album VERY heavily influenced the drums to I Forget's first album. I could point out a rip off of a fill or rhythm in pretty much every song on here. But why not rip it off? It's only like 11 amazing straight punk (okay, maybe a lot of pop thrown in, too) songs. It probably wins the award for album most listened to by Kyle Wagoner. It's only like 25 minutes in length! Some of the best 25 minutes of my life were spent listening to this album. Oh! And their new EP is fucking amazing, too. It's probably not even 10 minutes long. I'd say that they've gotten a lot better since this album, but it was still fucking the bomb.
10. Green Day's Nimrod
The most all over the place genre'd album I've ever heard. It's so random that it's like a b-sides album, but the songs work together much better than a b-sides album. It's got songs like "Platypus (I Hate You)," "Nice Guys Finish Last," "Take Back," "Worry Rock," and that song I sang at the middle school graduation like the corny bastard I am, "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)." Don't let that song scare you, though. It's a fucking awesome album. Green Day's best, I'd say. Everything's fuckin' wonderful!
11. The Weakerthans' Reconstruction Site
I would have stopped at 10, but The Weakerthans are so good that they made my list twice and this album couldn't not be on it. I bought this album in NYC and listened to it on the way home (I bought it with Randy's Randy The Band and Lagwagon's Blaze). Umm...not much to say other than it's one of the best albums I've ever heard ever. I say the same thing for a lot of these albums, but fuck! John Samson is a god! He's helped write 3 of my top 11 favorite albums! He actually completely writes everything for The Weakerthans lyric-wise and often music-wise, too. He's a god, it's official.
So there you have it. Fucking awesome albums. I'm quickly falling in love with Jawbreaker's Dear You, so if I make a list again one day, it may very well make it. Fuck I love those albums. I'm also probably forgetting some good ones. If those aren't enough for you, try The Vandals' Look at What I Almost Stepped In or any album by Randy...OR! Motion City Soundtrack albums. They can fucking write albums. I just didn't put them because I haven't listened to their albums a million times like the ones I named. They're definitely probably some of the best albums I've ever heard though. Frenzal Rhomb's another good one for albums. Superdrag.
Okay, that's all. Don't be greedy, I worked hard on those.
love,
Kyle
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