When I started collecting records, there was ZERO doubt that this was on my must-buy list. It’s one of my favorite albums ever.
I’m not really a ska guy. I cut my teeth on punk where the motto is “shit’s fucked, we gotta fix it,” and ska’s “shit’s fucked but whatevs, brah, it’s more rebellious to be happy” vibe never ever ever fully clicked with me.
Call me inherently angry.
I can take it in small doses but when a whole album is packed from front to back with goofy songs or songs that target bad stuff but then blow it off like it’s nothing, I get frustrated and bored and that’s a weird combination to be.
So when I found Less Than Jake’s “Hello Rockview” - an album FULL of of darker stuff and the courage to face it - I was hooked. It deals with the feelings of being stuck and stagnant, of realizing the life you wanted is not the life you have, of realizing you don’t really know the person next to you (you know, the one you’re judging harshly), of realizing you have to settle at some point, or realizing that your ideals will inevitably have to take a backseat to the realities of life, even more pedestrian song topics like trying to get over an ex.
This entire album is angst and existential crises all against a backdrop of happy-sounding horns and I absolutely love it. I always put it on in my friend’s car, I delivered pizza listening to it for over a year, I’ve bought it a couple times because it always disappeared in moves and, yes, I picked it up on vinyl.
What’s weird about my vinyl (or my system) is that some stuff is basically inaudible. The one-channel guitar at the beginning of “Great American Sharpshooter” is so quiet it might as well not even be there (for instance).
And I don’t know if that’s the record or my system but it sure is weird.
I still love owning this thing, though.
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