Reviews

Quickly draw up a list of every moderately to ragingly popular pop-punk band that was birthed and burned out between 1995 and 2005. Something like...

Blink 182

most of Green Day's discography

Sum 41

New Found Glory

old Good Charlotte

non-ska Goldfinger

Simple Plan

All-American Rejects

...etc. whatever. You get the point.

The Wonder Years is exactly like all these bands. They are neither better nor worse; more interesting or more pallid; more annoying or more fun; more mundane or less relevant. They are the same.

That probably sounds like I totally hated Get Stoked on It!. Not true. I thoroughly enjoyed "Keystone State Dude Core" every time I heard it. After I listened to "I Fell In Love With a Ninja Master," the wiry, waah-waah keyboards actually sounded pretty good. The energy is infectious; the sound is accessible; the package is fun. The usual positives about this particular brand of pop-punk. So yeah, I had fun.

But you know what was way more fun? Making the following connection in the second song and watching it work for almost every song after that. I was stoked on that. Basically, the lyrical content of this entire album consists of jokes and/or ruminations you might make while getting baked in the backseat of a four door after picking up Diet Rite and cereal boxes at the Quik Trip when you were sixteen. "'Bout To Get Fruit Punched, Homie," is dedicated to the idea that Cap'n Crunch can be trusted over real-life individuals. He'd never ‘do you like that,' behind your back. Well, duh. Not the Cap'n, of course, but that rabbit and leprechaun, watch out for those sneaky bastards. They'd totally do you like that.

In "Buzz Aldrin: The Poster Boy for Second Place," the chorus is something like: Wouldn't it be cool if we were astronauts/Zero gravity to blast off/Take my hand, it's time to leave this place." There are kids in smoky cars parked on the edge of the woods saying those exact words right now. I just know it.

And there's your target audience right there. Bored, stoned kids trapped in a suburban zenith, who possess a childish sense of humor and a penchant for pop-punk.

For those of us not members of this demographic, there is an alternative. Instead of listening to the Wonder Years, listen to the Wunder Years. I'd like to take the last hundred words of my review to remind everyone of the greatness that once was The Wunder Years. Everything they released was powerful, emotional, poetic punk rock, like the Lawrence Arms plus the Weakerthans plus Hot Water Music. From "The Chills," Brian Moss passionately sings, "I work in the factory where I was born." Just take that in for a second. Then go buy either Pitstops on the Road Less Travelled or Fashion over Function. And yes, that is how I'm going to end this, discussing a band completely different and unrelated to the one being reviewed. While I can respect that different subgenres appeal to different individuals, the plain and simple truth is that Jawbreaker was better than New Found Glory, and the same goes for all the bands they inspired.