??!! Dear You is the best Jawbreaker record. No, 24-Hour Revenge Therapy is. Or, the argument I had with myself on the way to work this morning.
posted by on April 10 at 14:51 PM
24 Hour Revenge Therapy is my favorite Jawbreaker record. It has some of my favorite Jawbreaker songs (“Condition Oakland,” “Do You Still Hate Me?” and “Jinx Removing” especially), and I’ve felt this way for some time.
Well this morning I woke up and decided that I was wrong; I woke up and decided that Dear You is the best Jawbreaker record.
(Bivouac is good, it’s true, but I’ve never ever thought of it as the band’s best. Ever. So that album will be not discussed during this post. But for the record, the song “Chesterfield King” is in my top 10 favorite Jawbreaker songs. And that’s all I’ll say about that.)
With my new realization, I listened to Dear You while I got ready for work. “Fireman” played while I brushed my teeth and fed my cat, and “Oyster” and “Million” played while I tried on three different shirts two different times each before deciding to just give up and wear the first one I had tried on which was just a plain gray t-shirt anyway. (Some mornings I can be stupidly indecisive.) I kept listening on my walk to the bus stop, on the bus, and I continued to feel confident that yes, Dear You is the best Jawbreaker record.
That’s when the argument got heated.
“Fireman,” “Accident Prone,” “Jet Black,” “Sluttering”… all great songs. But my favorites on Dear You (those I just listed), aren’t as good as my favorites on 24 Hour. These songs, I think, are made better with the songs before and after them. Once “Fireman” plays, I really, really want to hear “Accident Prone.” And after “Jet Black,” I have to listen to “Bad Scene, Everyone’s Fault.” I don’t listen to “Accident Prone” over and over again (unless I’m having a hopelessly pathetic night, and I haven’t done that since March of 2002 when I, admittedly, had an “Accident Prone” marathon that ended up with me hearing the song about 23 times in a row). Under normal circumstances, though, I have to let the record keep going. Because it’s a great record.
With 24 Hour Revenge Therapy, though, I can listen to “Do You Still Hate Me?” over and over again without missing the following track “West Bay Invitational” at all (partly because I don’t really like that song). Same with “Jinx Removing.” Both of those songs stand alone, and are just as good when pulled away from the rest of the record. In fact, I generally can’t listen to either of those songs just once, I almost always skip back to hear them again once they’re over. They’re the Lay’s potato chips of punk rock—I can’t have just one.
I realized that 24 Hour Revenge Therapy has some of my favorite Jawbreaker songs, but it isn’t the best Jawbreaker record. Dear You is actually the best Jawbreaker record, but I don’t like it’s “stand out” tracks as much as the ones on 24 Hour Revenge Therapy. Just because an album has my all-time favorite songs on it, doesn’t mean it’s the best record. Right?
Needless to say, I was very exhausted by the time I got to work, and very tired of thinking about it. And for now I’ve given up on Jawbreaker because it got to confusing and I couldn’t decide which record and songs to keep listening to.
So now I’m rockin’ NOFX, and that’s working out just fine.
Shit Megan, this might be my favorite critical can of worms EVER! I've been wrestling with this one for, like, 8 years now, and I'm still equivocal about it (presently, I favor 24 Hour Revenge Therapy).
But I have to disagree with your main point, as I think the sequencing/cohesiveness of 24 Hour is greater than that of Dear You.
Also, "West Bay Invitational" is fucking brilliant! "It won't be the same without you, please come" is one of Schwarzenbach's sweetest romantic overtures, and the instrumental make-out break after "we hung our clothes up on the floor/and put our fait in a closed door" is swoon-worthy!
Weird, I just had this discussion on another blog (I'm a short-timer at work, sue me).
What it boils down to is that 24 Hour Revenge Therapy is the best album, but it does not contain the best songs. 24 HRT provides the best overall experience, and has plenty of good "stand alones." However, the best Jawbreaker song, hands down, is "Kiss the Bottle" followed in no particular order by "Want," "Chesterfield King," "Caroline," "Accident Prone," "Gemini," and "Boxcar (which as you know is on 24HRT)."
The best NOFX album is either White Trash, Two Heebes and a Bean, or Punk in Drublic.
The correct answer is Unfun.
I have no strong opinion on which is the best, but "Oyster" is a shitty song that really sours my overall opinion on Dear You, despite its strong points.
"Lurker II: Dark Son of Night" is the worst song on Dear You, Christopher. And, Pope, where is "Sea Foam Green" in your best songs list?
accident prone. nuff said.
Or, shit, "Sea Green Foam" if you want to be a nerd about it...
I remember really liking "Sea Green Foam" when I first heard it on the Ben Weasel Punk USA comp. Then I heard it again when Etc. came out and did not dig it much. It does have one of the best Jawbreaker lines though: "Now I need a guillotine to get you off my mind."
And I'm not trying to be a name dropping jackass, I swear. I'm just a huge Jawbreaker dork.
Totally one of the best Jawbreaker lines. I almost got a guillotine tattoo because of it...
I'm currently of the opinion that Dear You is the greatest Jawbreaker album, although I've gone back and forth many times. The problem I have with Dear You, like Megan, is that it contains many tracks that I don't like (I'm looking your way, Oyster). Quite often I find myself just listening to just the last half (iTunes has destroyed my attention span).
I tend to put Unfun in a different category. It's got quite a few of my favorite Jawbreaker songs (Fine Day, Busy, Gutless, Incomplete), but it's just different enough from the later albums from being in the running.
Actually, it kind of seems like the last 5 or so songs on all their albums are the most cohesive and the parts I really like to listen to.
Hey Mr. Pope, what about Shirt, You like that one?
Gillsans, I want to hug you while you work.
Sometimes you do...
It's weird to read this argument. I don't know many other Jawbreaker fans that ever really got into Dear You - I own it, but it's always just been "that last album"... could be that my advanced age of 32 made sure I didn't have any fond youthful memories attached to it.
There's some great songs on that record fro sure - but many of them were older songs they'd be touring with forever, so I was always a little sad to hear them get such an overly slick treatment. To me, Jawbreaker is very time-and-place, and that Dear You just didn't fit the bill.
24 Revenge is their best and probably the one I've listened to most, but I have fonder memories of older, less well written songs.
You're in my head like a dumb song...
And I believe we're all forgetting Rich and Sister, my favorite sort-of obscure Jawbreaker songs.
Also weird to see these top lists, as it is well documents (in my brain) that "Eye-5" is, although not their best, THEE most classic Jawbreaker song of all time. In the same vein, "split" (their addition to the double 45 No Idea issue) is one I never ever got sick of. Classic goodness.
Oops, "spilt" wasn't supposed to be in quotes... wtf was that song called? It was the 45 set that had Radon and Samiam and someones else - eesh it was a long time ago.
I have to admit that I didn't get into Dear You until after I was listening to Orange Rhyming Dictionary twice a day. (Shameful, I know--it just wasn't punk enough!). So yes, when it came out, it was kind of a sad epitaph for a once great band ruined by a major label. However, as my tastes matured, my appreciation grew.
As a general principle, I tend to think that song-to-song flow and overall album cohesiveness are much better indicators of a "best" record than are a few standout songs, no matter how astounding. Can a record really be considered a band's best if you have to scramble for the stereo each time your favorite song is about to end in order to avoid poisoning your mood with the out-of-place, mediocre track that follows?
In fact, some of my favorite records are the ones where you can hardly tell where one song ends and the next begins. Speaking of NOFX, they took this idea to its logical extreme (their specialty) in
'The Decline'. And I think that's one of their best records (definitely the one with the coolest physical CD, anyway).
Oyster totally stunk up the rest of Dear You. I was embarrassed just listening to that song. 24 Hour Revenge Therapy it is.
So, I ask everyone I meet what their favourite jawbreaker record is, and over the course of the last decade I've noticed an obvious girl/boy divide on this one. Boys tend to opt for 24 hour, whereas girls are firmly on the side of dear you, the big exception to this rule is the slightlier bookish boys, who tend to favour dear you also.
They're both amazing records, but only one features the genius stroke of jet black next to bad scene. just sayin'
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