I've gotten over it since you've been gone…

[Reel Big Chris]

Is how I feel about Reel Big Fish. With almost 5 years since an original release, I've lost the passion. I went out and bought "Best of Us…" yesterday and gave it a brief listen this morning, and all I can say is "come on". Now I know about the whole Jive situation and the guys have to re-record all of their old songs if they ever want to sell them again, but this was uninspired. We were all worried about how the WDTRSH songs would come out without the help of Jonathan London, and I can say they turned out pretty meh. They weren't bad, just slower and not interesting. All the re-recordings did was make me want to listen to their old albums again. And after hearing this, I don't think I want to hear a re-record of Everything Sucks. All of their albums have grown on me and hearing their songs in any other way just doesn't seem right anymore.

So don't get me wrong, I'll still support the guys, and after thirteen years of devotion, I still care for them as a band, but let's put it this way: I haven't been to a show in almost a year, and I'm fine with that. I don't really wear their shirts anymore, I'm kind of over the whole Ska thing, and I'll give their stuff a listen from time to time. I have thirteen years of good memories, but these past 5 years have been a bit of a let-down. So, as Aaron said best, "I've gotten over it since you've been gone". Sorry guys.

PS- I haven't listened to the Skacoustic versions yet, but my hopes are low.

[El]

The Cheer Up! songs ended up worse than the Why Do They Rock So Hard? songs, though, and what the hell does Jonathan London have to do with them?

Half the songs on the Best Of ended up sounding great, and the other half weren't [i]that[/i] bad. (Except Suckers) Even if you didn't like this, a rehashing of their old songs, don't give up on this band until you hear their new album. They haven't really had a new album since 2005, so give them a chance.

[Reel Big Chris]

Sorry, Avila. Whatever, it's early, I'm tired and sick.

[El]

[quote1279731757=Reel Big Chris]
Sorry, Avila. Whatever, it's early, I'm tired and sick.
[/quote1279731757]

Now I see what you mean. Yeah, the production made a lot of that album for me. I seriously think without Val Garay, some of the more polished Cheer Up! songs start to fall apart.

[CannonBall]

[quote1279735279=Reel Big Chris]

PS- I haven't listened to the Skacoustic versions yet, but my hopes are low.
[/quote1279735279]

The acoustic tracks actually sound decent for the most part because the distorted guitar isn't there to overpower everything else…

Does anyone else feel like they just replaced the electric guitar from the best of cd and replaced it with an acoustic guitar? The songs that weren't on the best of disc sound decent, but the duplicates don't work as well… too stiff.

[The Wind]

The percussion is completely different.

[CannonBall]

Yeah, but I'm pretty sure they recorded everything to a click track, so it would still be easier to use most of what was already recorded and just overdub new guitar and percussion tracks.

[Sonic Libido]

the vocal, at least, is carried over.

[El]

[quote1279771115=Sonic Libido]
the vocal, at least, is carried over.
[/quote1279771115]

It sounds like the horns are, too, and I think all vocals are, not just Aaron's if that's what you meant.

[Desensitized]

I haven't heard this yet (don't think I will, either), but the White Trash and cheer Up songs sound worse? What a shock.

They should have just done another triple disker and got this out of the way.

Yeah, I haven't been here often recently, but that's because there's nothing to discuss.

[El]

[quote1280521308=Desensitized]
I haven't heard this yet (don't think I will, either), but the White Trash and cheer Up songs sound worse? What a shock.

They should have just done another triple disker and got this out of the way.

Yeah, I haven't been here often recently, but that's because there's nothing to discuss.
[/quote1280521308]

Well, some of the Cheer Up songs sound great (Good Thing and Ban the Tube Top, for example) but others just lack. Suckers just has shitty vocals all around. And my biggest problem with the White Trash stuff is that it's ALL slower and some of it sounds uninspired. Some of it's good, though. In the Pit in particular is growing on me.

[madamadam]

All I'll say is I'm kinda glad they didn't go ahead with the box set if it was gonna be this quality.

It's enjoyable but there's not really much for people who know them well already since most of the songs simply aren't up to the same level as the originals, which is disappointing. The fact that the song I was looking forward to hearing a remake of the most turned out to be the worst sounding song on the album (Suckers, just ahead of SHAGFN acoustic) is just incredibly frustrating.

[CannonBall]

[quote1280533975=madamadam]
The fact that the song I was looking forward to hearing a remake of the most turned out to be the worst sounding song on the album (Suckers, just ahead of SHAGFN acoustic) is just incredibly frustrating.
[/quote1280533975]

I guess we're just suckers fr thinking suckers would be good.

[Desensitized]

Maybe this does prove my theory that they're just not the same band they used to be anymore. The band in those songs (in more ways than one) simply isn't here anymore. Maybe that's why none of their angry songs since Why Not have worked right.

Suckers was great because of the production and the vocal deliveries, I can't see how messing with that would result in a better song.

But I dunno, Ban The Tube Top and Good Thing aren't exactly hard songs to mess up. They would have worked on White Trash with no issues.

[Author]

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