Why does nobody talk about that album by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones after Let's Face It?

I was driving home from work last Tuesday, flipping through my Spotify and landed on a track called 'The Rascal King' from this Bosstones album 'Pay Attention.' I always thought they just had that one big ska-punk record in '97 and then faded out. But I dove into this thing and it's got these weird experimental horn arrangements and a song about a guy burning down his own house. Turns out it came out in 2000, right when everyone was moving on from ska. I think I missed it because I was in high school and got told ska was dead. Has anyone else dug into a band's later stuff and found something that totally changed how you saw them?

2 comments

2 Comments

pipera501d ago

Right, "right when everyone was moving on from ska" is exactly the problem. I think that album got completely buried by the shift in popular music post-Nu Metal and pop punk explosion, even though it has some of their most interesting songwriting (like that weird carnival-esque breakdown in "Rascal King"). It's a shame because if it came out two years earlier it probably would've been a big hit, but nobody wanted to hear horns in 2000.

johnfoster1d ago

Man, I totally disagree... that album came out at exactly the right time for me. I was into all that nu metal and pop punk stuff, but hearing horns and that carnival breakdown in "Rascal King" felt fresh, not dated. Sure, it didn't chart like their old stuff, but for those of us who stuck around, it was a sign they were still growing. The real problem is people got too caught up in the whole "ska is dead" thing to even listen.