So why is Wipers’ Is This Real? on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
When I think about the vast array of music that’s being collected, organized, and celebrated on this crazy best 1,000 albums thing, it occurs to me that the selections were made for all kinds of reasons (on top of a baseline of being “really great,” of course!).
What I mean by that is some albums evoke a strong sense of nostalgia. I found myself having to be very “careful” with selecting albums in this category because in some cases, it’s music that was very important to me at one point in my life but perhaps not as much now that I’m (dreadfully) older.
Then there’s music that never stopped being important to me, or increased in importance over time, and that made things easier, relatively speaking.
Then there’s a band like the Wipers, which I only had the chance to check out relatively recently, and that I enjoy more every time I throw them on.
With Is This Real?, I get more impressed and hyped about it all the time. I think it’s an extraordinary collection of dirty-yet-melodic punk rock that’s sort of one of the greatest grunge albums of all time, even though it was produced back in 1980.*
* And a young guy named Kurt Cobain famously was a huge fan of the Wipers as well. More on Kurt and the Wipers below.
So often when I think about the Wipers, “Let’s Go Away” instantly starts playing in my head. It’s so good and so catchy, like an upper tier Ramones song dragged through the mud but at a really fast speed.
“Is This Real?”, the title track, slows things down a touch while leaning into the band’s melodic punk rock sensibilities. The guitar tone on this track – and throughout the album – is out of control good. It’s the one that every kid rocking out in their parents’ garage wishes their guitar could sound like. And Greg Sage’s voice is just spot on perfect for this kind of music.
I first heard of the Wipers by way of the outstanding documentary soundtrack called Hype!, which is about the explosion and exploitation of the Seattle grunge scene. The song included is “Return of the Rat,” a driving, dirty punk rocker that is as proto-grunge as it gets.
If the slow, melancholy, and melodic “D-7” sounds familiar, it’s likely because you caught the Nirvana cover version of it at some point.
Songs like “Wait A Minute” that combine Ramones-y melodic punk with a dirty feel – but also has really strong pop chops – just blow my mind. This is one of my most favorite kinds of music.
Pop culture stuff that has something to do with Wipers’ Is This Real?
Conan O’Brien hosts a great podcast called Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend, and I was really excited when, about six months ago, he had Nirvana alums Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl on along with music producer Steve Albini to talk about the 30th anniversary of Nirvana’s In Utero.
It’s an amazing, often funny, and wide-ranging interview. I bring it up though because at some point Albini unveils his rather good Kurt Cobain impression, which happens to be Wipers-centric.
It’s a very short impression, and I’m paraphrasing, but it’s something like, “Do you know the Wipers? I love the Wipers.”
Imagine a soft-spoken Cobain saying that, and it’s just good stuff. Or just go track down the interview – there’s a longer story there that involves a hysterical prank phone call that’s well worth it if you are the kind of person that is reading these words deep into a piece about Is This Real? being one of the best albums of all time.
Some stats & info about Wipers – Is This Real?
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Punk Rock, Indie Rock
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4 out of 5 stars
- When was Is This Real? released? 1980
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #293 out of 1,000
Wipers’ Is This Real? on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Wipers’ Is This Real? that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
There’s gotta be a better place, there’s got to be, so let’s get on the move.
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.