Hello Rockview

Decently-executed LP, but this ska/grunge/garage combo felt like it was everywhere in the 90s and feels pretty tired even today. Points for the prominently-mixed bass and solid instrumentals, but mostly tuned out of this one as all the songs sounded similar and didn't grab me.

Hello Rockview is a late 1990s punkpop album by Less Than Jake. I never heared of it and did not miss much. It has pointy punkpop and punkrock tracks and also some ska. Lots of horns also in the punk tracks. Too bad the compositions don't really stand out and it also sounds very inoffensive. Maybe the lack of rawness is due to the over usage of autotune (though that does not show on first listening). It's like punk for kids musically, lyrically it's just uninteresting.

F the h8rs love me some Less Than Jake

That was certainly an album

I'm continuously surprised by the legs on Ska, when it seems like it should be a minor an boutique subgenre of Punk. Generally I like it fine, and this is maybe a shade above the pack. Solid musicianship, lyrics are pretty basic but work for the songs, the singing doesn't vary much. Typical of its type it benefits by no song wearing out its welcome.

I enjoyed that. Should give more of their stuff a listen.

After The Weakerthans yesterday, Less Than Jake today. Ominous coincidence? The negative comparative forms used to name those acts indeed kind of mirror my experience of the users' list these days. Where are the truly great albums left to review, goddamnit? I've seen the big names that should come by now, and yet they haven't popped up yet. Heavy sigh. I have to admit my mood this morning needed everything but ska punk from the nineties. I'm trying to judge this thing in its own merits, placing myself in the mindset of a teenager or young adult living in that decade (which I have been). But I would lie if I said the method is fully working... At least there's more intensity in the vocal performance on one single song from this record than there is to be found in the whole career of Blink-182. Funny to read on the *Hello Rockview* wiki page that auto-tune was so heavily used for its vocals parts by the way -- first registered use for a "rock" singer, according to the producer. You would never believe it on superficial listens (the "discreet", "merely-fix-the-bum-notes" method was obviously applied here). That anecdotal tidbit aside, the instrumentation and other production values expected for this genre are well pulled off -- sounding more pop-punk / skate-punk that The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, for instance, and yet still punchy enough to make this record lively overall. I'd rather return to my own ska punk references (The Suicide Machine -- that one feels truly PUNK! -- Capdown, the ska-punk tracks of Rancid and NOFX...), references that are clearly a little wilder and a little less streamlined. But that would probably be my own nostalgia speaking here (more on that later...). Oh and the lyrics sound "progressive" enough for my tastes, which I can only subscribe to The user who selected this album is a "perfectionist" -- very low global score for both lists -- but as far as I can tell, they leave thoughtful and balanced reviews, and I haven't seen a single heinous word in their takes, so I'm not gonna try to pick a fight with them. It just seems a little crazy that some of the greatest names in music history receive 1/5 grades from this person and yet this is what they suggest for the secondary list. But at the end of the day, music appreciation is always subjective, so more power to this user for raising their idiosyncratic flag high. To return to this album... According to Wikipedia: "NME listed the album as one of "20 Pop Punk Albums Which Will Make You Nostalgic", saying that it is "A soundtrack to shoving your friends, listening to 'All My Best Friends Are Metalheads' and wondering how you ever liked pop punk which didn't have a trombone." Yeah, well, this is just as I feared... It's never a good sign when the first selling point modern reviewers ascribe to an old album today is nostalgia. Honestly I feel "too old" for this music style now, at least overall... But I'm also too young at heart to prioritize said style when so many stellar albums in all genres have been released during the 2020s. Just to take an example somehow adjacent to this specific music genre, 100 Gecs' own use of ska punk in their zany and unhinged electropop albums is admittedly "unprofessional", mostly parodic and filled with all sorts of cheesy overtones. And yeah, it's HEAVILY auto-tuned this time around, ha ha! And yet, somehow, the best 100 Gecs ska punk tracks feel more alive, more vital, or just funnier these days than everything I've heard from Less Than Jake -- in keeping with the very strange times we are going through... The Wiki page also mentions that the CD booklet for *Hello Rockview* is a full-blown comic book, with the lyrics serving as dialogue between its characters. Wish I could browse through those pages myself. I guess this nice design idea also makes the album very endearing to Less Than Jake's fans. File this under the "1001 Best Album Artworks Of All Time"? At least for the booklet? 2/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums. 7/10 for more general purposes (5 + 2) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 66 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 85 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 162 (including this one) ---- Emile... Je viens de lire ta dernière réponse. Je vais essayer de trouver le temps de rédiger la mienne pendant la période des fêtes. D'ici-là, ben bonne année!

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