I hate “best-of” albums. They are a blatant record company cash-in, aimed at ripping off as many suckers, I mean fans, as humanly possible. When a band has only released two proper full-length cds, and the evil, greedy record company releases a compilation of the two for the ‘fans’ it really, really grates me.
I love Reel Big Fish. They are one of the best bands on the planet and easily one of the best live acts I have ever come across. Energetic, funny, plain and simply cool, RBF have it all. So don’t get me wrong, this lot are simply awesome.
But I, and most of the Fish army in Europe, have already shelled out ludicrous sums of money to buy ‘Turn The Radio Off’ and ‘Why Do They Rock So Hard?’ on import, all because the record company couldn’t be arsed to release them here. In an ideal world nobody would buy this, just to prove a point, but we all know that this isn’t going to happen.
So it’s a good job I guess that this record is absolutely astonishing, proving that RBF don’t write bad songs. They only write three minute bouncy ska-pop anthems and are far and away the best band in their genre. Forget your Less Than Jake‘s and your Mighty Mighty Bosstones, this lot are the real deal.
Witness ‘Sell Out’, ‘Beer’ and ‘Everything Sucks’ as anthems-in-waiting, and classics like ‘Trendy‘ and ‘She Has A Girlfriend Now’ sit snugly right next to newies like ‘The Kids Don’t Like It’ and ‘Somebody Hates Me’. I could simply list every song and say how great it is, but there is simply little point. Take my word for it, just why do they rock so hard?
Like all, ahem, ‘good’ best-ofs, there’s always something new to attract the die-hards and in this case we get the new track ‘A Little Doubt Goes A Long Way’ which is typical RBF. This is followed with their superb version of the A-Ha “classic”, ‘Take On Me’. I suppose this record is worth buying just for this track, because it is absolutely outstanding. My advice though is to download it… can I suggest that? If I can’t, tough. If the record companies didn’t rip us off, we wouldn’t need to use technology would we?
This is a superb record and all of these songs should be in your record collection. It is a five-star record, no doubt about it. But please, please, please DO NOT BUY THIS RECORD. Let’s stop the fat-cat record companies from ripping us off…let’s take the advice of Reel Big Fish and refuse to “sell out…”
Paul Savage