ABOUT
I've been singing these songs for most of my life. They are familiar and close to my heart, like your favorite threadworn hoodie with thumbholes that fit just right. With "Bomb the Music Industry!" written on the back.
I've selected one song I love from each album and written a little about why I like it, what it means to me, and whatever else crossed my mind. I can't say they're definitely my favorites — ranking music is not the goal — but they're songs that I love.
If you've never listened to Jeff Rosenstock's music before, you might hear a song you fall in love with.
If you've heard some of his music and like it, but are feeling overwhelmed by how many albums he has to explore, this might help you figure out where to start. Songs are arranged, roughly, from newest to oldest.
If you've already heard it all a million times, my reflections might still interest you. If that's you, definitely send me your thoughts!
JEFF ROSENSTOCK
Jeff Rosenstock is my favorite musician. Here are some reasons.
He takes the punk ethic seriously
Jeff embraced free culture back in the dark ages and never stopped. He founded his pay-what-you-want, Creative Commons digital record label Quote Unquote Records in 2005. In 2005, Oink's Pink Palace was in full swing, Metallica's destruction of Napster was still relevant, and Radiohead wouldn't release In Rainbows for another two years. To this day, he still shares his music freely via his label's website.
His approach to music is thoroughly anti-capitalistic. He is deeply concerned with how art is compromised by our dystopian economic system and with how he can fight the entropy. Instead of just selling t-shirts, his breakout band Bomb the Music Industry! invited fans to bring their own shirts to be stenciled. The entire edifice of Quote Unquote Records is a monument to the value of Doing It Yourself: now his art has spread so far that there's some weird stranger writing about him on the internet!
He cares about listeners — and the social production of art, and equality in general — far more than most musicians. He has two uncompromising requirements when he plays a show: it must be accessible to all ages, and he starts playing on time. Starting on time might not sound like a big deal if you haven't been to a concert, but it's so unusual it's almost bizarre. It's de rigueur to start hours after the scheduled time. (Yours truly missed an entire set. Her friends didn't believe her.)
His lyrics are personal, sincere, beautiful, raw, and extremely catchy
You may be surprised after the above to learn that his lyrics are not often overtly political. He doesn't shy away from it by any means, but that has never felt to me like the beating heart of his music, which is just how real he is. He is entirely unpretentious. He does politics in the way he approaches music, but he only sings about it if he has something to say.
Of course, this only holds for a limited definition of "politics". You can't actually separate politics from daily life, a fact illustrated starkly over the last decade as fascists have massively fucked up our lives. Jeff sings about that — the horror, fear, anger, despair, dissociation, and guilty pleasures that accompany existence in $YEAR — and this existential edge is what really makes the songs connect on a more universal level. He is speaking from his perspective through his own reality window, but we are all looking out on the same world.
He does a variety of styles
Some musicians just do the same thing year after year. Others have the opposite problem, always reinventing their style but never developing the core sensibilities that listeners can appreciate across genre gaps. Jeff is one of the blessed artists who land in the sweet spot. He is always experimenting, but he's also pretty much always nailing it.
While his ska days are mostly in the past, the dedicated listener will sometimes be rewarded by surprise bits of it. In 2021 we even got an entire ska album! But if you are one of those benighted souls who doesn't love to yell PICKITUPPICKITUPPICKITUP, his post-BTMI ouvre has minimal skanking. It had already mostly receded during BTMI: if you are open to a little pinch of ska, give it a try; it's much more electronic than brass.
His voice is wonderful
He doesn't have a conventional "good singer" voice, which turns some listeners off. Personally, I love it. I like singers who let loose and sing hard. I'm here for emotion and texture, not sterile pitch-perfect melody. I like yelling, screaming, and voice cracking. But he can sing gently, too, to my ears.
MAKING THIS PAGE
This page is a tribute to the Quote Unquote Records website. Its design is very '00s and uses tables and a bunch of images (JPEGs!) to pull off its tricks. It's somewhat broken and neglected, but it still looks both good and interesting and it works flawlessly.
I thought it would fun to recreate it with just CSS. Because I'm relying on modern features, QUR's original tried-and-true site wins out for compatibility. My special effects work with JavaScript disabled, at least! The only JS used is a tiny bit to make the songs work like a playlist, and it's optional.
I've always appreciated QUR's design for its bulletproof simplicity: a list of albums, each of which links to lyrics and liner/release notes which contain links to the mp3 for each song and a full album zip. It's about perfect. I must have downloaded some of these dozens of times over the years when I didn't have my music library handy. My take on it also has everything on one page with notes and download links, but also a few modern extravagances.
THE MUSIC
Listen in your own player (M3U) or scroll down.
SOLO
HELLMODE (2023): Doubt
THOUGHTS?
hm what do i think of this songgngngn
i thin k it is good
LYRICS?
Speak
Even if it feels weird
Even if it feels weird to be yourself
Speak
Even if it’s hard to
Even if it hurts you
Even if your brain begins to melt
Slow motion breakdown
Pantomime for help
Scream
It doesn’t matter anyway
It doesn’t matter anyway so let it out
Scream
Louder than you need to
Loud enough to cut through
Louder than the noise that drowns you out
Slow motion breakdown
There’s no need to be scared
Nobody knows it’s there
When the day stops short
and the sun goes down on you
and you didn’t get done
Anything you wanted to
It’d be one thing if it’s once or twice
But it’s every night your entire life
The redundancy of your POV
Infinite serotonin starving fever dream
Slow motion kill screen
Slow motion kill screen
Slow motion kill screen
There’s no need to be scared
Nobody knows it’s there
Kill all the doubt or the doubt is never gonna go away
Kill all of the doubt or it’ll waste your day
Kill all of the doubt or it’ll never go away
I don’t know how to scrape the dog shit that’s stuck on
The heart of the fuckin’ world!
How to cut loose the doom that’s been screwed to
The roof of your fuckin’ skull!
How to make life the kind where you don’t die
regretting what you haven’t done!
You gotta chill out with the doubt the doubt the doubt
You gotta chill out with the doubt the doubt the doubt
You gotta chill out with the doubt the doubt the doubt
You gotta cool it with the doubt
Slow motion breakdown
Slow motion breakdown
Slow motion breakdown
NO DREAM (2020):
SKA DREAM (2021):
2020 DUMP (2020): Hang Out in the Heat
THOUGHTS?
hm what do i think of this songgngngn
i thin k it is good
LYRICS?
I don’t have to go to work today
It’s Saturday
Let’s have some fun and hang
out in the heat
I wanna pull you off the ledge,
“Get down from there!
Stop listening to this exhausting world!”
Don’t wanna see you wallowin’
It does nothing
Get out your head and
Call me on the telephone
I don’t have to go to work today
It’s Saturday
Let’s have some fun and hang
out in the heat
The radio reverberates
A song I know
A song I hate
But I don’t really mind
An underscore appropriate
For chances missed
As the sun sets and
Colors my unnecessary drive
Oh yeah! Gonna space out like a rocket ship tonight
Oh yeah! Gonna play games on the internet tonight
Oh yeah! I don’t wanna just feel like an idiot tonight
Oh yeah! I wanna feel good for a little bit
I wanna feel good for a little bit
I wanna feel good for a little bit
The dogs all bark at 8 PM
The neighbors scream
The sports team wins and
Fireworks explode
A refund on a present grim
A new week on the horizon
A thousand future lazy nights at home.
POST- (2018): 9/10
THOUGHTS?
hm what do i think of this songgngngn
i thin k it is good
LYRICS?
Every night you go to bed,
you wake up just a little more in pain.
Every time you’re dressing for a sunny day,
The clouds surprise you with rain.
Every cigarette you smoke
‘cause you’re addicted to a quiet source of company.
Every time you told ‘em you were busy
‘cause you’d rather go to sleep.
9 times out of 10 I’ll be stoned on the subway
Reading backlit directives of what I should do
Dodging eye contact with anyone who looks my way.
9 times out of 10 I’ll be thinking of you.
Every little victory don’t matter
if nobody seems to care.
Winning ten bucks on a scratch-off lotto ticket.
The keys you thought disappeared.
Every vacant moment you’ve exhausted all the options
that you thought could fill the hole.
Every star you’re wishing on
just hoping for a little self-control.
Tired of feeling selfish.
Tired of feeling restless.
Tired of feeling down.
9 times out of 10 I’ll be stoned on the subway
Reading backlit directives of what I should do
Dodging eye contact with anyone who looks my way.
9 times out of 10 I’ll be thinking of you.
I’m so out of place when I can’t be with you.
If I don’t see your face It’s almost like I missed you.
Don’t see your face, it’s almost like I missed you.
It’s almost like I miss you.
WORRY. (2016):
WE COOL? (2015): You, In Weird Cities
THOUGHTS?
hm what do i think of this songgngngn
i thin k it is good
LYRICS?
Philip’s living up in Chicago.
Matty’s working hard in Ohio.
Fitzy and Chris are very far away.
Sean, Ian and Rick are in Michigan
And we try to see each other whenever we can
But there’s only so many days that we can stay.
I’m always getting high
When no one is around
‘Cause nothing makes me feel
Anything’s worthwhile
Nothing makes me happy
I’m like a bratty child
Nothing makes me laugh
Nothing makes me smile
Some of my friends are good Americans.
How can they empathize with the trouble that I’m in?
I don’t have to wake up, I don’t have to feed a kid
And it’s got to the point where I’m not sure if that’s something I wanted
Instead of getting high
When no one is around
‘Cause nothing makes me feel
Anything’s worthwhile
Nothing makes me happy
I’m like a shitty child
Nothing makes me laugh
Nothing makes me smile
But when I listen to your records
I don’t need to look at pictures
It’s like I’m hanging out with you in weird cities
Getting lost, and pretending
That we’ll never go back
We’ll never go back
You, laughing with me
getting lost in weird cities
‘cause we’ll never go back
We’ll never go back
To always getting high
When no one is around
‘Cause nothing makes me feel
Anything’s worthwhile
Nothing makes me happy
I’m like a shitty child
Nothing makes me laugh
Nothing makes me smile
But when I listen to your records it’s like I’m hanging out with you.
When I listen to your records it’s like I’m hanging out with you.
When I listen to your tunes it’s like I’m there with you.
I wanna hang out with you.
SUMMER (2013):
I LOOK LIKE SHIT (2012):
BOMB THE MUSIC INDUSTRY!
VACATION (2011):
ADULTS!!!... SMART!!! SHITHAMMERED!!! AND EXCITED BY NOTHING!!! (2010):
OTHERS! OTHERS! VOLUME 1 (2005-2008):
SCRAMBLES (2009):
GET WARMER (2007):
GOODBYE COOL WORLD (2006):
ALBUM MINUS BAND (2006):
TO LEAVE OR DIE IN LONG ISLAND (2005):
THE ARROGANT SONS OF BITCHES
THREE CHEERS FOR DISAPPOINTMENT (2006):
ALL THE LITTLE ONES ARE ROTTING (2000-2006):
THIS IS WHAT YOU GET (2004):
where are pornocracy and built to fail? included in comp? haven't listened in a while. and what about other projects he worked on, live albums, splits, etc? this ain't intended to be an encyclopedia but what about Kudrow, Antarctigo Vespucci, etc? could do them as an expansion i guess
DOWNLOAD
SUPPORT JEFF
If you enjoyed this page, please send a donation to Quote Unquote Records with a note saying which music you liked, or buy something from Bandcamp or Really Records.
LICENSE
Copying and sharing anything (or everything) on this page is allowed and encouraged.
All songs, lyrics, and album art were made by Jeff Rosenstock (and friends) and released by Quote Unquote Records. Most use the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0). Get Warmer, Goodbye Cool World, To Leave or Die in Long Island, and Album Minus Band use version 2.5. This is What You Get does not specify a license.
This page is licensed the same as the rest of my site.
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