Why is Streetlight Manifesto’s Everything Goes Numb on my best 1,000 albums ever list?
Ska punk with a level of musicianship and sophistication that very few bands ever achieve. Oh, and don’t forget the energy energy energy.
Some stats & info about Streetlight Manifesto – Everything Goes Numb
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Ska, Punk, Ska Punk, Third Wave Ska Revival, Punk Revival, Alternative Rock, Rock, Rock Music
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4 out of 5 stars
- When was Everything Goes Numb released? 2003
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #743 out of 1,000
Streetlight Manifesto’s Everything Goes Numb 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 Streetlight Manifesto’s Everything Goes Numb mean to me? What does it make me feel? Why is it exciting or compelling?
As I talk about in the two Catch 22 entries already released on the best 1,000 albums ever list (Alone in a Crowd, #806; Keasbey Nights, #758), it’s very natural to think about that band (not to mention Bandits of the Acoustic Revolution!) when considering Streetlight Manifesto:
Catch 22 sounds a lot like Streetlight Manifesto, which makes perfect sense as [Thomas] Kalnoky would go on to form that band. Both are great, as is a fantastic if short-lived side project called Bandits of the Acoustic Revolution, which came in at #863 of the best 1,000 albums ever.
And, really, I think of Everything Goes Numb as the pinnacle of that collective of bands’ and musicians’ creative output to date.
I’m reminded a little bit of an outstanding band called Yolk from Binghamton New York (it’s highly unlikely you’ve heard of Yolk, but one of my many ambitions for this project is that some more people will be exposed to their stuff), which wields incredible horn sections and nimble musicianship overall that spans a bunch of different genres.
In Streetlight Manifesto’s case, they fall roughly into the “ska punk” camp, but with a level of musicianship and sophistication that very few bands ever achieve. And as with Catch 22, everything they do they do fast: these cats are about energy energy energy. The title track, “Everything Goes Numb,” is the perfect showcase for what they can do.
“Point / Counterpoint” starts off with an acoustic sing-songy bit before blasting off into horn-driven ska punk bliss.
“A Moment of Silence” leans into the band’s ska side in a very pleasing way. The vocals here are also particularly good.