Sum 41 - All Killer No Filler (2001)

Want a band that didn't age well?

....firstly, why?

Anyway, here's a nice example. Right around the early 2000s, the groundwork was being laid for the new emo movement that would dominate the latter half of the decade via pop-punk, the scourge of internet commenters and pretty much anyone who's ever owned a NOFX record.

Now, the whole pop-punk debates have died down, which is just as well. The 'punk' half of that subgenre has gotten so diluted it doesn't really exist anymore, and it's arguable that it even did around 2001, when this was released. So, for All Killer, No Filler, we'll put all that aside and observe this for what it is - a catchy pop album that just happens to have its roots in punk music.

Why did this album not age well? How about the lyrics? As much grit as Deryck Whibley tries to put into his performance, every word out of his mouth sounds pre-packaged like a Happy Meal for 10-year-olds who got their ideas of rebellion from an episode of Radio Free Roscoe. Picture a cleaned up Blink-182. Go on. Got that? Yeah, and commercially Blink were pretty much sitting pretty as it was. Everything is naughty behavior, rejecting the conformists, laughing when old people fall and being "a no goodnick lower middle class brat."

Hey, listen: I could go on and on about how lame this record will sound to anybody above junior high, and how it was as much an alternative to boy bands as Wendys is to McDonalds, but for this reviewer to go on further about it would be a disservice to Mr. Whibley, who should really speak for himself on this one:

I don't wanna waste my time
Become another casualty of society
I'll never fall in line
Become another victim of your conformity and back down

Maybe we're just trying too hard
When really it's closer than it is too far
'Cause I'm in too deep, and I'm trying to keep
Up above in my head, instead of going under

Nothing's new, everything's the same
It keeps on dragging me down, it's getting kind of lame
I'm falling further behind, there's nothing to explain
No matter what you say, nothing's gonna change my mind

Wow! Whatever you do, parents, just don't let your kids go to a Sum 41 show.

On the bright side (and it is bright indeed), what the band can do to make a worthwhile experience is come up with a sunny, giddy hook that will stick in your head for longer than you'd probably hope for. "Fat Lip" is borderline retarded, but the combination of old school rhyming with slick pop-punk riffs works better than it has any right to. "Summer," "Handle This" and "Heart Attack" are great examples of their ability to churn out something easy and fun to sing along with. And "Pain For Pleasure" is a blissfully dumb Judas Priest send-up. Never let it be said that Sum 41 don't know their roots. Come to think of it, could this be where some of the mainstream's fascination with nostalgia came from?  Nah, that would mean Sum 41 was influential musically instead of in marketability.

I tease Sum 41 a lot, but really, as dopey as this is, it's not horrible or anything. It's a nice little diversion, and it's tightly edited together just to make sure it lives up to its title (of course, the title also opens them up to endless "all filler" jokes). But it is a record that showcases the evaporation of punk rock elements into the teenybopper crowd, and that would probably depress a lot of people.



**1/2