Song of The Week

The song of the week this week is Elected, by Alice Cooper. This song chronicles Alice's joke bid for president. This song as released as a single in 1972, and was also released on the 1973 album "Billion Dollar Babies." Originally, this song was released on the Alice Cooper Group's debut album, Pretties For You" as the song "Reflected". The song wasn't great, and some of the lyrics were described by Alice himself as mostly gibberish. The song has plenty of lines about how great a president he'll be, and how establish a third party "a wild party!" The song ends with two lines that perfectly describe the character of Alice Cooper : "Everybody has problems/ and personally, I don't care. This song is just, overall, an awesome song, and you should check it out if you haven't already.

Album Review: The Clash

Album Review: The Clash

Year Released:

UK Version:1977

US Version: 1979

Rating: UK Version: 99/100

US Version: 95/100

This album is about as good as a punk album can get, both versions, and especially the UK version. Just to clear up any confusion, there was a UK version released in 1977, and the record distributor in the US refused to release it. It was released with six different songs, including the single version of "White Riot", instead of the album version. The US version was released in 1979, after The Clash's third album, London Calling, was released. Both albums are masterpieces, though I would argue that the UK original version is slightly better. It's the way it was meant to be released, after all. Of course it's better.

So, let's dig into the review. The UK version starts with "Janie Jones" while the US version starts off with "Clash City Rockers".  Honestly, I think "Clash City Rockers" is a better opening, and it didn't even make it into the UK version. Anywhere else, and I wouldn't want it on the album, but it's the perfect opening, even if it's not their best song. Janie Jones is overall a better song, but in this circumstance, "Clash City Rockers" is slightly better.



Next up on the UK version is "Remote Control". This song is a rant against conformity, and oppression. It was released as a single without their permission, and they disowned it after it  came out. The song "Complete Control", which was released on the US Version as a retaliation to "Remote Control". The first two lines are: "They said release 'Remote Control'/ but we didn't want it on the label". So, as you can tell, they didn't want to release it.


The next song is "I'm So Bored With the USA". the title is pretty self-explanatory, and it's a really good song. It and the song "London's Burning" deal with boredom. "I'm So Bored With the USA" also deals with all the problems, like drug addiction, that faced the United States at that time. It's one of my favorite songs on this album, and it's great. The song "London's Burning" also deals with boredom, and drug use. It's specifically about Amphetamine Sulfate, and why it's a bad drug. It's one of the best songs on the album.

The rest of the album is great, too with some highlights include "Career Opportunities", a song about how no one can find jobs, "Police and Thieves" a cover of a reggae song by Junior Murvin "Garageland, a song celebrating their garage band status, and on the US version, and "I Fought the Law", a cover of a song by Sonny Curtis of The Crickets. It's an amazing album, and you should totally listen to both versions, or any version you can get your hands on. It's one of the greatest punk albums of all time, and a great album in its own right.

Album review: MXPX

Rating: 90/100

This album is the 10th studio album by the Bremerton Skate Punk/Pop Punk band, if you don't count cover albums and EPs. It stays true to their roots, but expands on some of their earlier work, and carries a strong theme of nostalgia. The band did a kickstarter to raise enough money to record and release the album on their own terms, and I think the fans that contributed will definitely be satisfied with it.
Next is "All Of It" a much simpler song overall, and is interesting because it's a love song coming from 40-something-year old happily married punks. It's cool to hear a more mature love song then a lot of the stuff they did earlier in their career.

After that is the song "Friday Tonight," this song is a kind of nonsensical journey, and it's probably the weakest song on the whole album. It has my favorite set of lines though: "How old would you be if you forgot your birthday?/How would you change your life if you could never die?/Would you do good or do crime?

Nostalgia is ever-present in this album. The song "The Way We Do" talks about incidents with bands such as Face To Face, Simple Plan, and Bad Religion. The song "Let's Ride", my personal favorite off of the album, starts off with the line "About the time that I turned fourteen" and talks about the band's experience growing up. "About the time that I turned sixteen", "About the time I turned nineteen", "There I was at twenty-nine." The video for this song is definitely the est off the album, and many MxPx fans hailed it as one of their best videos ever.

Also on the theme of nostalgia, is the song "Moments Like This", about mortality from the perspective of a guy with kids who knows he won't live forever.

After that are the songs "Uptown streets", a less hard-rocking tune, but still great, "20-20 Hindsight", and four others.

Just listen to the album, it's really fun, but my only problem with it is it's not super deep, or political, or meaningful, or anything like that. That's why it gets a 90/100, instead of 100/100. Also, a few of their earlier albums, like "Life In General", are a bit better. If you want to hear a fun album, check this out. They also have a video playlist with the entire album on it, so if you want to try it before buying it, you can listen to the album in its entirety.

A bit of a warning, though, it does contain very mild cursing on "Rolling Strong", and "Friday Tonight". For some reason, those tracks have explicit tags, but I've heard much worse without an explicit tag. If it was a movie, it would be rated PG, so I don't think of it much as an issue.

Welcome to the blog!

Hey, and welcome to my blog! This is where I'll talk about my interests, mostly music and occasionally random tidbits of pop culture. I'll mostly be doing album reviews, and random music related posts. Thanks for reading this, and stay tuned for cool stuff!