20 Year Old Student, who watches too many movies, plays too many games, and listens to mostly rock ...
20 Year Old Student, who watches too many movies, plays too many games, and listens to mostly rock music.
Apart from that I’m a top reviewer with 600 reviews on Epinions (same alias) will be transferring my reviews across bit by bit
Member since:16.11.2005
Reviews:49
Members who trust:10
I remember at the eve of me going to high school, my sister gave me a little speach. As I was entering my first year there, she was entering her final one, she gave me a rundown of basically an entire high-school life in a nutshell, the part that always stuck with me was about third and fourth year. "you will become an a**e, it's unavoidable, it happens to us all. If there is one period in your life that you will look back upon and regret acting like you did the most, it will be one of those two years. When you get older, don't judge yourself too harshly on what you did in those days, you were an a**e" some of that is quoted exactly, some un-accented and some shortened to give you the general gist of things. So what is the purpose of this rant? the answer is simple, in third and fourth year, I liked Green Day.
Released in 1991, 1039 Smoothed Out Slappy Hours isn't an album as such, it's an album with two EP's attached. The band's full length debut was 39 Smooth, and also lobbed on are the 1000 Hours and Slappy EPs, not that you would notice if you hadn't been told.
I recall getting this album for Christmas one year, after hunting it down stressfully myself for my mum to buy off me to keep for Dec 25, which was at the time only a week or so away. It cost around £15, which is the second highest sum I ever payed for a Green Day album, with only live album Foot in Mouth costing more.
At the time, Green Day consisted of guitarist/singer Billie Joe Armstrong, bass player Mike Dirnt and drummer John Kiftmeyer. Kiftmeyer wouldn't appear on another Green Day record, with 'Tre Cool' replacing
him from the next album onwards. Exactly why he left isn't something I know, or can really be bothered researching into.
The album starts off decently, At the Library is essentially 'classic' Green Day. Lyrics about wanting a girl, who Billie has just met backed by the fast paced skate-punk/power-pop/emo/whatever it's called guitar music that Green Day have become famous for. The lyrics are fairly slurred, and it isn't one of the best songs in the band's CV, however as far as this album goes it's about as good as it gets.
The next 'highlight' of the record is track number 4, Disappearing Boy, another song about some variety of relationship gone awry, featuring trademark Green Day sound, like the opener, it really isn't anything close to the band's best work, but on an album like this you have to take victories where you can get them.
It's followed by the song Green Day, which is a totally bland and unrewarding piece of sloppy,generic,skate-punk bile. The only reason I even give this it's own paragraph is because of the song title. The band's name is apparently a meaning for spending a day sitting smoking ganj. Something I presume the head of LookOut records was in the midst of when he opted to release this
The next track is also the next one worth talking about, Going Away to Pasalacqua, probably the best song on the album, although the version found on the aforementioned live record is a lot better, and actually has spoiled this rendition for me, because it's a lot slower. However, the beggining of the song really does drag you in, where it's just Billie Joe singing "Here we go again" and the guitar,bass and drums all burst into life in time with the next line. Once again, not a career highlight, but probably the best one on the record, due to it actually being quite listenable to.
The next real talking point isn't until track 14, a cover of the Operation Ivy song Knowledge, while most people fawn over this as a classic, and the "all I know is that I don't know/all I know is that I don't know nothing" chorus is clearly designed to be sung along to, something which may well apply to the original version, I haven't heard it, but this song is so horribley performed that it becomes like listening to a particularly bad, drunken, pub-rock band who have been thrown out for being crap busking outside, while you yourself are drunk. It is fairly amusing to laugh at how bad it is, but only for the first listen.
Now, for the rest of the songs, all 14 of them. They are crap. Everything I said in the piece on the song Green Day applies here, and some of them even fall below that level to the point they are actually un-listenable to. The lyrics are the same, an incredibly whiny voice and tone used to talk about girls and getting stoned. It's like being back in third year. Seriously, go to your local high-school, listen to a bunch of 15 year olds talking and playing some generic pop-punk guitars behind it and you have the majority of this horrible record at a fraction of the cost.
Even when I liked Green Day I accepted that this album was a complete waste of time,space and effort, the only reason I even forced myself to try and listen to it again is that I saw there were no reviews of it here, and figured that I might dissuade someone somewhere of buying and violating their own ears and brain with this nonsense. This might actually be my shortest music review ever, but given that three quarters of the record are essentially the same song, I really can't find any motivation to write about it for much longer. Even now that I don't like Green Day, I am willing to admit that Billie Joe has a way with songwriting and can pen some catchy hooks and sing-a-long lyrics better than the majority of people, but this record is just plain horrible. The hooks aren't there. The lyrics are poor. The general sound of the record is crap. It's like an amateur recording of a bunch of drunken 15 year olds playing their first gig.
While I would love to talk in length about how much this album sucks and write a 10 page book on it, I cannot, basically because there is no complicated reasoning behind it being so bad. It's just a horribley recorded record with a few potentially decent songs floating amongst a plethora of poorly written and executed aural bombs that hurt listener's ears.
There is no reason for anyone to want this album. At all. Even if you idolise Green Day, this record will do nothing but marr them in your eyes. 90% of it sounds the same, a generic emo/pop-punk song, performed badly. This shouldn't appeal to anyone, anywhere, and Im sure the band themselves probaly can't bring themselves to listen to it.
A lot of people, on occasion myself as well, have been involved in discussions about if Green Day really are a punk band. But to be perfectly honest, when talking about this album, the argument is void, because it doesn't matter what genre you put this into, it's crap. If you like Green Day, that's fine, stick to listening to the albums you like, you won't like this. No human could.
Track Listing:
1.At the Library 2.Don't Leave Me 3.I was There 4.Disappearing Boy 5.Green Day 6.Going to Pasalacqua 7.16 8.Road to Acceptance 9.Rest 10.The Judge's Daughter 11.Paper Lanterns 12.Why do you want him? 13.409 in Your Coffee Maker 14.Knowledge 15.1,000 Hours 16.Dry Ice 17.Only of You 18.The One I Want 19.I Want to Be Alone
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
I own all the Green Day Albums, but I can't remember the last time I listened to this it must have been 6 or so years ago. A great review by the way...keep them coming!!!
Vheissu 10.12.2005 16:32
even as the huge Green Day fan that I am, this is a bit of a hit-or-miss collection. there's plenty of good stuff (in my opinion), but there's some truly wretched stuff also. Alex
At the Library Don't Leave Me I Was There Disappearing Boy Green Day Going to Pasalacqua ... more
16 Road to Acceptance Rest The Judge's Daughter Paper Lanterns Why Do You Want Him? 409 in Your Coffeemaker Knowledge 1 000 Hours Dry Ice Only of You The One I Wan...
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Dec 8th, 2005
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