So why is The Bouncing Souls on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
This This self-titled Bouncing Souls LP contains two of the most exciting punk rock songs I’ve ever come across, and they happen to be the opening tracks on the album.
In true punk rock fashion, “Cracked” and “Say Anything” (and almost every other song on The Bouncing Souls) are less than two minutes long and go both manic and hard.
While going about this, The Bouncing Souls do two additional things that set them apart: they are surprisingly melodic and show off deft musicianship in how they slow down and speed up the tempo at turns.
Which is all to say there’s literally never a dull moment.
I’ve talked a lot during this long and wild journey through the best 1,000 albums ever about how music is a time machine that takes us back to specific times and places in our lives. With “Cracked” and “Say Anything,” I’m transported back to my early days living in Berkeley, California after moving to the west coast many years ago.
I’d jog at this tranquil little park in the East Bay, with its rolling green hills and view of the water (I don’t think it had a direct view of San Francisco, but I do recall that it was quite pretty there). And meanwhile, I’d have this glorious and ecstatically energetic punk rock music by The Bouncing Souls juggling between my ears to help keep me chugging.
I also recall that I’d consistently get annoyed by people who would jog with their dogs. The I have no problem with this whatsoever, but what would drive me nuts is when the dog owners would commonly allow their dogs to stray well away from them. Therefore, when these people (and their dogs) would jog in the oncoming lane from mine, I’d be forced to change my course to avoid Coco or Buddy or Sourdough as they went to sniff about some random thing.
But then again, keep in mind that I can be a curmudgeon.
The Bouncing Souls album is much more than those two songs, of course. As odd as it might seem out of context, I’ll forever have a soft spot in my heart for “The Toilet Song.”
First of all, it’s much more subdued in sound and mood versus the frantic material the band more typically produces. However, it loses nothing in terms of excitement while also immediately engaging us with the oddest of questions: who’s gonna throw the toilet off the roof?
It’s a wild and even funny question to throw out there at first, but then quickly we’re pulled into a hyper specific narrative of young kids without much going on, seemingly. So much so, in fact, that perhaps throwing a toilet off the roof might lend the night – and one’s life, ever so briefly, perhaps – some meaning. Or at least distraction.
Dave carried it up from the cellar,
Bowl, tank and all
Now we just have to take it on the roof
We can watch it fall
“The Screamer” introduces a little bit of laid-back ska into the mix on an instrumental number – always a good thing – while “Chunk Song” is 68 seconds of pure, luscious punk rock thrash.
Some stats & info about The Bouncing Souls
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Punk Rock, Rock Music, Pop Punk
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 3 out of 5 stars
- When was The Bouncing Souls released? 1997
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #140 out of 1,000
The Bouncing Souls on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from The Bouncing Souls that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
I don’t want to be this way. I kick myself – I wish I could say I have no regrets today.
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.