So why is Rotten Apples’ Real Tuff (Durable Plastic) on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
Recently, this here best 1,000 albums ever project featured some bands and artists you might have heard of from the likes of The Beatles, Weezer, the Recently, this here best 1,000 albums ever project featured some bands and artists you might have heard of from the likes of The Beatles, Weezer, the Ramones, Tom Petty, and Amy Winehouse.
I mention this because I recognize that most people haven’t heard of a band called Rotten Apples.
In fact, I can barely dig up any information about them on the world wide webs. The band name should not be confused with a Smashing Pumpkins greatest hit album, for instance, nor the Alice in Chains song, “Rotten Apple,” off (appropriately, I guess!) Jar of Flies, or the Guns n’ Roses song of the same name, off of Use Your Illusion I.
That being said, this is unconfirmed, but I feel somewhat confident (female lead singer + punk rock music + the timeline roughly stitches together correctly) that the band features outstanding singer Dejja Colantuono and, in a crazy twist of fate (to me, at least), they wrote a bunch of songs in my very own neighborhood of West Seattle:
In a few months, Colantuono and her Rotten Apples wrote a dozen songs, putting them together in all-night, wine-fueled sessions in the singer’s West Seattle basement.
What I can confirm is that I discovered Rotten Apples in the mid-2000s by way of the exuberant and scorching song, “Love Career.” I’m pretty sure it was on a Pandora “radio station” based on the (incredible) fictional band, Sex Bob-omb, from one of my favorite movies, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.
This Scott Pilgrim radio station was amazing but only featured a small number of songs*, so I would listen to it over and over again, like a short mixtape spruced up for the burgeoning digital media age.
* It definitely included some music by Plumtree, and I really wish I could recall some of the other punk and indie rock it included as it was all pretty great.
As I’ve written about before, I have a predilection for female-fronted hard rock and garage punk bands – think The Distillers, L7, The Gits, 7 Year Bitch, Elastica, and Veruca Salt – and I’d wager that “Love Career,” at just over two minutes, is up there with the best output from any of those bands.
And the rest of Real Tuff (Durable Plastic), at seven songs and just under twenty minutes (a long EP, kind of), is very nearly as good.
“Fight for Your Life” has a killer guitar hook and leans a bit more into pop-punk energy throughout.
“My House” opens with a nice, Nirvana-ish grungy feel before launching into an exuberant mode that has more of a Veruca Salt feel.
Some stats & info about Rotten Apples – Real Tuff (Durable Plastic)
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Punk Rock, Rock Music, Garage Punk
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – not rated!
- When was Real Tuff (Durable Plastic)released? 2003
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #285 out of 1,000
Rotten Apples’ Real Tuff (Durable Plastic) on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Rotten Apples’ Real Tuff (Durable Plastic) that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
You made your choice and it’s a golden opportunity to move ahead in your love career.
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.