Short list #1: The Five Albums that didn’t make the cut.

I the process of making this list, I had a lot of albums to choose from. Over the years, you tend lose track of what albums you liked and what influence they had over you. Last week when I was driving home from running errands, I realized that I left off five albums that were big in shaping my musical influence and really needed to be added to a list in some way or the other. This is the reason why I have decided to make this list of five albums that didn’t make it, mainly because of the fact that they deserve to be mentioned too.

Just like the real list, there will be no real order to it, just the order that I posted them in,

1) Turn The Radio Off – Reel Big Fish: Honestly and truthfully, while in 1996, I was only 10 when this album came out and also in the only in the fifth grade, I was kind of glad that I waited four years to really get familiar and have somewhat of a firm grasp of what music was.

This album was one of my many gateways to ska and while I think I want to be somewhat embarrassed, I realize that I shouldn’t be. Ska is pretty cool, considering that it’s now officially an underground genre again. While it went mainstream for a while there, ska never really big and didn’t get any radio play and there for never really became cool amongst the people who might have given it a chance.

Song like Sellout, taught me that going mainstream, while it means more money, isn’t cool to sellout and leave your true fans behind. Beer, taught me now that I’m older, that even if anything gets bad, you can always have a beer and everything will be better. Hell, I also learned that songs like She Has a Girlfriend Now isn’t meant to be serious and that music can sometimes be funny. This album will always be one that I go back to from time to time, mainly if I want to relive my high school days.

2) Losing Streak – Less Than Jake: Punk Ska at its finest. I guess that you could say that like the previous, it was one of my gateway albums to the world of non-mainstream music. It also helped that in my middle school days with my short attention span, that almost all of the songs on this album where just about two minutes long. Songs like Johnny Quest Thinks that We’re Sellouts (Which I would realize later that it was rerecorded from an older album), album opener Automatic, and Just Like Frank, were long enough for me satisfy my attention span.

3) Hello Rockview- Less Than Jake: A different take on the same band. While there aren’t really short songs like on the last album, this one is much improved over Losing Streak. Songs like All My Friends are Metalheads really reminds me high school for some odd reason. At this point in your life, you could make a choice, you could either keep going to church and be like your parents or you could leave and hang out with your friends more. The intro is also pretty damn awesome too. History of a Boring Town also makes me think of my home town and how I still find it to be boring (although at the end of last year, things really got interesting and the town didn’t seem boring then). Hell, Scott Farcas Take it on the Chin, isn’t half bad either considering it based off of A Christmas Story, which at one point was my favorite holiday movie.

4) Borders and Boundaries – Less Than Jake: I guess that you could say that I was a huge Less than Jake fan at one point, mainly because of the fact that I have picked three albums that fit into this somehow. His album had a lot of songs that defined my most of the first half of high school. Songs like Look What Happened, Gainesville Rock City, and the rest of the songs, made me want to take a road trip and take pictures at each border of each state both ways. However the stand out track for me has to be Mr. Chevy Celebrity and the fact that it’s the first song that I realized that it was telling a story and that almost all of songs told some kind of story. But this one, that there was a deep meaning to the lyrics than just telling a story. I always wanted to write a short story based off this song, but never got around to doing so… yet.

5) The Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater Soundtrack – When this game came back, the world had seen anything like it. Granted Skate and Destroy and Town & Country Surf Designs: Wood & Water Rage both had skateboarding, but nothing like this. For years skateboarding had tried to break into the mainstream and become a legit sport. Thanks to this game, I was introduced punk and alternative full force and really fell in love with it. Stuff like Police Truck, Jerry Was A Race Car Driver, and Superman really opened my 13 year old mind to what my taste in music might just be. I guess that you also could say that this is where my obsession with soundtracks began too.