Artist: NOFX

Album: The Greatest Songs Ever Written (By Us)

Label: Epitaph

Tracks: 27

               Length: 61:35

               Reviewed By: Justin Brinker

 

No one knew that twenty-one years would pass and that NOFX would still be putting out records.  I mean you can only do so much with three chords and irreverent humor and it usually runs out after the second record, the third if you are lucky, just ask Fenix TX.  Somehow NOFX has managed to evade that and help spawn a genre that up until a few years ago was somewhat credible and relevant.  You could argue they are one of the more controversial bands in terms of the love or hate relationship most people seem to have with the band. Regardless of your opinion you cannot deny that NOFX has been a moving force within the music community, particularly in punk rock, and their latest release, “The Greatest Songs Ever Written (By Us)” tries to embody two decades of work.

 

“Dinosaurs Will Die” is an interesting choice for the album opener, considering 2000’s “Pump Up the Valium” is not one of NOFX’s stronger releases.  From there the album goes back about eight years to 1994’s “Punk In Drublic” with the near perfected “Linoleum.”  One major drawback to this record is it’s sporadic nature.  There is no chronological order; you go from the metal-tinged days of 1988’s “Liberal Animation” with “Shut Up Already” to the bass-driven skate punk from 1997’s “So Long and Thanks For All The Shoes” song “It’s My Job to Keep Punk Rock Elite.”  The ska/reggae-influenced phase that the band toyed with is also found in this collection of songs with “Kill All the White Man” and “180 Degrees” while the pop-punk “Murder the Government” clocks in at just 40 seconds.  Then of course there is the newly revamped and socially conscious NOFX on 2003’s “War on Errorism” which boasts three tracks: “The Idiot’s Are Taking Over”, “The Separation of Church and Skate”, and “Franco-Unamerican.”  There are also a track from 2001’s “45 or 46 songs that weren’t good enough to go on our other records”, “Party Enema” as well as an unreleased song, “Wore Out the Soles of My Party Boots.”

 

The artwork is in typical NOFX fashion.  A twenty-four-page booklet with photos, parts of an interview, bad reviews of the bands past releases, and the self-depreciating humor from Fat Mike himself.  A big downfall to this record is that everything, with the exception of the aforementioned unreleased track, is found on their full-lengths and EP’s.  Then again what can you expect, it is a “greatest hits” record. This is not a must have for long time fans who more than likely own everything on this album, but it is a very strong cross-section of the band’s twenty-one year music career and does a pretty good job at covering all the facets of that career.