So why is The Flatliners’ Destroy to Create on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
Blistering manic pristine glorious ska and hardcore punk.
If this appeals to you and you’ve never heard of The Flatliners – which I’d wager that most people have not – then I invite you to check out an album I deem well worthy of inclusion in the elite tier of the best 1,000 albums ever.
I have no specific recollection of when I first heard of The Flatliners. Sometimes things happen that way, right? At one point, I didn’t have one of the best collections of aggressive music I’ve ever heard of in my life and then boom, there it is, locked in for life.
And by “locked in for life,” I mean it: The Flatliners and Destroy to Create remains one of my go-to albums when I work out (increasingly pathetically as I get older, but still) to this day.
Depending on the day, “Gullible” is at times my favorite Flatliners song of all. Its insane tempo – a band staple – and rapid back-and-forth pivots from hardcore punk to high octane ska are like a distilled, Heisenberg-level concoction that uses the best elements of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones* and The Suicide Machines and Voodoo Glow Skulls, along with a unique quality that makes The Flatliners its own uniquely beautiful and manic thing.
* See: the recently published Devil’s Night Out piece, #48 of best 1,000 albums ever.
And then on other days it’s the impossible mix of the melodic and 1,000 rpm “Fred’s Got Slacks,” which leverages a super simple, almost hypnotic top-line guitar part that sits over a sizzling ska punk riff that throws the hammer down for three minutes and change.
As a pop culture junkie, I will sheepishly admit that it took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to figure out that “ooh… Fred’s got slacks on the boulevard!” which we hear sampled at the end of the track, comes from a super goofy Will Ferrell Saturday Night Live sketch where he plays a devil trying – and failing miserably – to deliver a “hit song” to Garth Brooks’ slacker musician in exchange for the latter’s soul.
“I don’t want to miff you, but that sucks,” Brooks tells Ferrell’s El Diablo.
“Quality Television” is absolutely exquisite ska punk. It’s a riff designed in a lab to delight me.
“There’s A Problem” is explosive and might just hold the land speed record of the fastest-paced song of all time.
I really hope that some podcast somewhere out there has begged, borrowed, or stolen the howling perfection of the song’s first dozen or so seconds as it would make a hell of a show opener.
“Scumpunch” is yet another standout crusher, though it could benefit from cutting loose one of the darker dialogue exchanges it includes from the already dark (and brilliant) Reservoir Dogs.
“Do or Die” is optimally catchy ska punk, a pure delight if you’re into this style of music.
If there’s one thing that’s disappointing about The Flatliners, it’s not just that Destroy to Create is their best album, it’s that all six subsequent releases as of this writing fall well short of this level.
The fact that the band tried to head in a new direction is admirable of course, but post-2005 they seemed to gun for a more “mainstream” sound that still incorporates some of their rough edges. The mix just doesn’t work very well, however.
More broadly, there’s a strong argument to be made that Destroy to Create – produced by this scrappy band from Toronto, Canada – is one of the last great ska punk albums produced by any band, anywhere.
Here’s an example of one of their most popular post-Destroy to Create songs, “Monumental,” off of Cavalcade (2010), so you can judge for yourself.
Perhaps this is an example of how rare, how transitory, the creation of truly great art can be. And if you’re scoffing a little bit about equating a caustic ska punk album with “truly great art,” I’d aggressively push back.
Destroy to Create is truly great art, which is why I have it at #44 of the best 1,000 albums ever.
So dig that.
Some stats & info about The Flatliners – Destroy to Create
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Ska Punk, Punk Rock, Rock Music, Ska, Hardcore Punk
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4 out of 5 stars
- When was Destroy to Create released? 2005
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #44 out of 1,000
The Flatliners’ Destroy to Create on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from The Flatliners’ Destroy to Create that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
Fred’s got slacks on the boulevard.
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.