A Math Problem With A Pre-Determined Sum

I'm not a math whiz but I would like to conduct a little problem, so please bare with me. If you take a love for metal and hair bands and add it to a love of Green Day and punk music you get a sum of 41?  Is that correct? Is that how that band came about? Like I said I'm not a math whiz.

Today's song comes from Sum 41 (as you can tell be my sort of funny but not funny enough to laugh out loud opening). I got into Sum 41 my sophomore year of college, around the time their album No Killer No Filler came out. It was basically four guys who took their love for metal music and hair bands and fused it together with their love of Green Day and punk music. The result was a very pop punk sound. Don't get me wrong I enjoy some pop punk but I hate when it gets classified as punk music. It's not punk, and I'm sure if Joey Ramone heard you refer to it as such he'd punch you in the throat.

Just because it isn't punk doesn't mean it isn't catchy though. All Killer No Filler is filled with addicting little hooks as well as can't help but sing along versus, it's almost like a guilty pleasure (actually I'm pretty sure that's exactly what it is). To be honest I always thought that No Killer No Filler made a good transition from spring to summer. You're just starting to drive with the windows open a bit and it sounds good coming from your speakers. When summer arrives it kind of falls to the back burner though. It's definitely a seasonal record.

Today's Sum 41 song comes from the follow up to No Killer No Filler, Does This Look Infected? My initial reaction to this album was that it was just okay. It felt rushed and kind of gimmicky. I don't know how to describe it, maybe it just didn't have the same feel good sound as No Killer No Filler. It definitely is not a spring into summer album, it's more of a… well it's a filler album really. It's just there. Although there were a couple of good tracks to come off Does This Look Infected? and today's shuffle happens to be one of them.

The Hell Song isn't anything spectacular, I don't think it's particularly catchy either, it's just there. For the most part it comes across flat. There is no passion in the lyrics where passion was intended. The band just seems bored, or going through the motions. It's like "here's a song, we put it on a record, now like it". The video was sort of cool because it's just the band playing with some old action figures. That part of it is fun, but I don't see how it matches up with the song. Does This Look Infected? was kind of the beginning of the end with my love affair with Sum 41. I picked up their next album, Chuck, which I think is pretty underrated but haven't listened to anything new by them since. I guess we'll always have the spring into summer car rides of my sophomore year though. When I was really feeling the catchy, sing-a-long pop punk of it all. Such simpler times.