Why is Mad Caddies’ Just One More on my best 1,000 albums ever list?
Drink smoke drink smoke this is what we do. Well, not what I do necessarily but… you get it.
Some stats & info about Mad Caddies – Just One More
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock, Rock Music, Pop, Pop Music, Ska, Ska Punk, Punk Rock, Third Wave Ska Revival, SoCal Bands
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4.5 out of 5 stars
- When was Just One More released? 2003
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #733 out of 1,000
Mad Caddies’ Just One More 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 Mad Caddies’ Just One More mean to me? What does it make me feel? Why is it exciting or compelling?
Mad Caddies are in that small cadre of bands and artists for me where at a base line I don’t actively dislike anything that they produce. To untangle that doubly negative: I at least like everything that they do. They have an infectious sound that’s always at least kind of pleasing and never turns me off. This is super rare and a truly great thing to be sure. They also happen to fall into my sweet spot of horn-driven melodic ska punk with great hooks and fun upbeat energy. They are that, but to be sure they are also very good at that if you can dig.
“10 West” is one of their very best songs (and more about I-10 the highway below). It’s everything I note above, and has immensely great ska punk energy: it’s a fun road song, a party song, a traveling band song. You can’t go wrong with “10 West” if any of this is even a tiny bit appealing. It’s also a great gym/workout song, as are many of Mad Caddies’ best.
Another reason that Mad Caddies are unique is that they have affinity for creating a carnivalesque sound on some of their music. They do that effectively on “Villains” before leaning into more of their punk rock proclivities in a highly excellent way.
“Drinking for 11” shows off the band’s truly great horn section, and is a nice mid-tempo change up that bands that do this exceptionally well, like Mighty Mighty Boss Tones, would surely appreciate.
Personal stuff that’s somehow related to Mad Caddies’ Just One More
I’ve spent a lot of time driving on I-10 in my day. It’s an interstate highway that crisscrosses the entire width of the United States, stretching from Jacksonville, Florida on the east coast to Santa Monica, California on the west coast.
I’ve driven most of it at least once. I know this because the first time I ever visited California, it was during a five-week road trip that began with me driving solo from Long Island, New York to Atlanta to pick up my man Adam, who was staying at his mom’s house at the time. We then cut down to I-10 after some adventures in New Orleans and literally hit that “10 West” of Mad Caddies lore all the way to California.
I highly recommend doing a road trip around the U.S. if you get the opportunity. As I’ve mentioned once or twice, I was both “fortunate” to get this opportunity and somewhat foolhardy in that I used a bunch of school loans to fund the trip after I dropped out of my first go at grad school. I’m literally still paying for that trip, these many years later. As luck had it, it was a public university, if you’re curious, so the damage could have been a lot worse, I suppose.
Later, I would live for many years in Southern California, which included some truly hideous commutes. Which, pre-covid and pre-WFH era, was essentially analogous with “I live and work in Southern California.”