ADULTS!!!... SMART!!! SHITHAMMERED!!! AND EXCITED BY NOTHING!!!!!!!

I wasn’t thinking I’d enjoy some ska punk, but in its very short runtime of 22 minutes this album won me over. I really loved the last track Struggler in particular. Nice suggestion!

I never listened much to Bomb the Music Industry! before. Playing this album I understand why. It is very messy and the vocals are frequently off key to a point it starts to irritate. Still this album is full of energetic and melodic punk and ska tracks with a lot of fun. The production is unstructured and makes it sound spontaneous. Most of all album is short and therefor the weaknesses don’t get the time to kick in.

Would love to hear why this was added. The genre is well covered at this point and I don't really see what new this is bringing. My personal rating: 3/5 My rating relative to the list: 3/5 Should this have been included on the original list? No

I've never been a big ska fan, but I like this. I've listened to Jeff Rosenstock before and I instantly recognized that he must be behind this.

Rating: 7/10 Best songs: You still believe in me?, Slumlord

Ska punk, pop punk. Está bien. Un 4, venga.

Pretty much ska? Solid, I liked it, but from the title to the band name to the artwork it all seems to epitomize the kind of focus-free, energetic (even frentic) attitude of protest that never seems to suggest much sense of a coherent alternative or forward path. Though I appreciate that the band walked its talk in terms of publishing, show policies, and pricing and hell, extra point for that.

Ah yes, I finally got myself to listen to Jeff Rosenstock through this generator (*Worry* now has its two feet firmly planted in my users list's 5-star gallery), and *obviously*, I have since explored the discography of his former punk / ska-punk main act Bomb The Music Industry! Generally speaking, I tend to prefer their lo-fi, "anything goes" beginnings... "Album Minus Band* and *To Leave or Die In Long Island* harbor some exhilarating / exciting / bonkers / provocative / disturbing / delirious / funny-as-hell moments (take your pick!). Once the production values and musicianship got a little more sophisticated after those two early LPs, I find the band's artistry less endearing overall. THAT BEING SAID, this one album suggested today is clearly the exception. Of course, on a purely technical viewpoint, Rosenstock was still a *terrible* singer back then, ha ha. Or as he put it himself on later song "Vocal Coach", from album *Vacations*: "If I got a vocal coach, and I could hit all the notes, you'd fall in love again?". Said vocal coach sure had their work cut out for them at the time, lol! Yet all sarcasm about Rosenstock's vocal skills aside, there's so much f*cking conviction and energy and pizzazz and wit in Jeff's performance on opener "You Still Believe In Me?" that the bum notes here *add to the fun instead of taking away from it* -- probably because the song is so catchy anyway. And the brass-laden punk instrumentation is pretty wild, foretelling all the good things of the man's later solo career. After that first song, this short album just needs to surf on the vibes and energy displayed on the onset to win you over. Clearly, this is the sort of ska-punk I can fuck with. Some tracks land better than others, but all of them are bringing something different to the table, at least. And if Rosenstock's conversational lyrics were at times a little overstuffed and overbearing in other Bomb The Music Industry! releases -- as hilarious as some of those lyrics were -- the vocal parts are here *relatively* reined in so as to not relegate the music to the background. Penultimate "The First and Time I Met Sanawon" is a bop for the genre. And the middle section of closer "Struggler", where the whole band in full force blasts their way into your ears just as a burnt-out, paranoid Jeff -- vowing not to go outside anymore -- claims he "will never change", is a terrific moment. By the way, I want to give a bonus point for one laugh-out-loud detail at the end of that closer, where the band makes one final riotous din... Amid the collapsing wall of noise, someone indeed tentatively starts picking the delicate arpeggiated intro of Guns N' Roses's "Sweet Child o' Mine", as if they're clumsily trying to launch into a grand arena-rock anthem while the rest of the band is falling apart around them. Hearing such an overfamiliar, dramatic intro being awkwardly attempted at the very moment the song is disintegrating is just the cream on the cake, and it perfectly sums up the crazy antics of the band. In between those two bookends mentioned up there, you have quite a few similar fun moments surfacing from the mayhem. The only problem -- not an insignificant one for the requirements of this list -- is that with 7 tracks and 21 minutes, *Adults..." leaves you feeling shortchanged to an extent. For all intents and purposes, this thing feels like an EP for me, instead of a full-blown album. And surely, this also has a bearing on my grading. I might wish to feel smart, reel from being shithammered, and be excited for "nothing", I still want the party to last longer than this. 3.5/5 for the purposes of this list dedicated to essential albums, rounded up to 4 8.5/10 for more general purposes (5/5 for the musicianship and production values + 3.5/5 for the artistry) ---- 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: 103 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 116 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 243 (including this one, too short to be considered an LP -- I have reached the same conclusion for NOFX's *The Decline*, you know, even though I gave it 5 stars). ---- Hey Émile, j'ai répondu sous Demon Days ET ta sélection pour la users list ! 🙂

Nice short ska-ish album

First impression: oh no this awful. But pretty quickly that recedes and it is just fun. Still terrible but somehow ok. Fun conquers all I guess. Struggler is great.

Angsty

Really comes and goes. I like the genre so no complaints here.

BtMI has some good stuff. S/o to this being only 20 minutes

I dunno whether ADULTS!!!... SMART!!! SHITHAMMERED!!! AND EXCITED BY NOTHING!!!!!!! is meant to be a pastiche or pisstake or whether it's meant to be serious, and I guess it doesn't matter because it's short and sharp and good fun. 3/5, there's like no depth to it but it's a simple fun listen.

I'm down for some more Jeff Rosenstock. Short and sweet ska punk. Maybe too short even. Apparently classified as an LP, but definitely felt more like an EP to me. Strong 3/5.

Not a fan of Jeff Rosenstock, can't stand his drunken, rambling vocal style and this project sounds exactly like all his others. Mercifully short at least, and does include some alright uptempo rock that felt exciting despite Jeff's best efforts to scream over it.

Not sure I can recommend a 21 minute long angry ska album.

I didn’t like the bad ska music.

It was like watching a violent film; I enjoyed the spectacle but glad I wasn’t in the room when it happened

I’ve never heard of Bomb the Music Industry before, but I’ve listened to Jeff Rosenstock’s Hellmode, and it wasn’t really my jam. Hopefully this album will be much better! Well, my hopes that this album would be better than Hellmode were dashed pretty quickly. I don’t mind ska punk, but this album didn’t really add anything to the genre in my book. The guitar parts were fun at times, but I really didn’t care for the way the guitar playing would drop out of these songs; it was a total momentum killer for me. Also, when it comes to ska punk, I want more out of the horns, and I just didn’t care for their parts on this album. Worst of all though were Jeff’s vocals, which I really didn’t care for. I’ve certainly listened to a lot of albums that I enjoyed less than this one, but Bomb the Music Industry just isn’t my cup of tea.

You really just be adding anything by now, huh? 1