Why is Descendents’ Cool To Be You on my best 1,000 albums ever list?
Houston, we have a problem indeed. But not with this record.
Some stats & info about Descendents – Cool To Be You
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Punk Rock, SoCal Bands, College Rock, Pop Punk, Hardcore Punk, American Punk, Alternative Rock
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4 out of 5 stars
- When was Cool To Be You released? 2004
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #798 out of 1,000
Descendents’ Cool To Be You on Spotify
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.
What does Descendents’ Cool To Be You mean to me? What does it make me feel? Why is it exciting or compelling?
Cool To Be You has cleaner-sounding production than other Descendents albums, which one of the few ways to tell this is a different era for a band that at the point that this one was released had already been around for some two and a half decades.
Released in 2004, this is smack in the middle of the George W. Bush administration, early in the Iraq War, and still very much in the aftermath of 9/11. With that backdrop, “’Merican” is both an incredible statement and blast of vintage Descendents punk rock.
This is one of the more fascinating choruses you’ll hear in punk rock, if not in music as a whole:
I’m proud and ashamed
Every fourth of july
You got to know the truth
Before you say that you got pride
“Dog and Pony Show” slows down the manic tempo a notch and shows off some really nice vocal harmonies and guitar work while still pounding out some really exciting pop punk.
“Blast Off” rocks really hard and shows that Milo and the Descendents crew haven’t lost their most excellent sense of humor. And who can’t relate to the universality and human experience of eating chili verde and then sending the countdown has begun for… well, see the song for more.