r/LetsTalkMusic • u/torn222 • 4d ago
What's your take on Sum 41?
my friends are a tad older than me and to my opinion missed out on them. Not cause i don't cringe about my younger self obssessing over Pop Punk and Emo but rather cause i think Sum41 aged less weirdly and always did 'their own thing' instead of just going with the flow.
Argueably they had their corny, visually emo, phase but their music today even feels a lot less insincere than their peers in blink, green day or good charlotte.
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u/affectionateanarchy8 4d ago
I thought they were the best out of all the pop punk bands to come out around that time. They had more interesting riffs
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u/torn222 4d ago
I also feel like they were a lot more adventureous and genre fluid if you want.
As a fucking teenager they were speaking the truthTM, oviously and as a grown up musician, i cant help but appreciate their mixture of genres and the general showmanship. covering We will rock you with instuments and adding a bunch of guitar solos is so bold, that i love everything about it1
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u/NoCondition8257 4d ago
All Killer was well named. Under the bubblegum veneer that album had some genuinely crushing guitar work
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u/torn222 4d ago
Oof I agree so hard!
Though i feel like their guitar work peeked during their Chuck record.
At least it's a record that softly turned me into metal. What's your favourite track guitar wise? :)6
u/NoCondition8257 4d ago
Pain For Pleasure, that riff RULES
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u/Illhunt_yougather 3d ago
i really wish they would have done a full album in the same style as pain for pleasure. it would have crushed.
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u/JessyPengkman 4d ago
Absolutely brilliant. People love to be snobbish on that sort of music but they knew what they were.
They weren't revolutionising music, they did pop punk their own way, they wrote insanely catchy songs that every kid in the generation knew, they were fun, cool, didn't take themselves too seriously, wrote all killer no filler which is completely what the title says it is and also they're a pop punk band with 0 nonces which is a win in this day and age.
Great band super fun.
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u/Moxie_Stardust 4d ago
I was around 25 when their first album came out, they were the only band from that wave of pop-punk/emo that I liked. They did have metal chops, which might have been part of it (Grab the Devil By the Horns... is still a great, short track). I can see them being easily dismissed based on Fat Lip, but I had a friend who gave me a copy of All Killer and I liked it.
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u/torn222 4d ago
Interesting! :)
The video to fat lip shaped me quite a lot as a person. Got into Skateboarding, and later into my loccal punk scene. Yet i don't particularly like All Killer. I'd rather got hooked on Does this looked infected and especially Chuck.
Great to hear you like them though! Did you ever listen into them past All Killer? :)1
u/Moxie_Stardust 4d ago
Yeah, Chuck, Does This Look Infected, and Half Hour of Power. I think I listened to Underclass Hero but didn't really connect with it.
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u/torn222 4d ago
yeah. I didn't like it either. I think the mixing is weird.
I did like the songwriting quite a bit but i feel like the record quit the mixing after the singles.Screaming Bloody Murder grew a lot on me recently, despite disliking it initially.
Maybe there's some gold in UH too that i missed out on :)1
u/Musichead2468 2d ago
I love the skate punk subgenre of punk
Sum 41 combines pop punk with skate punk
I was more of a pop punk person as a kid/teen. But more of a skate punk person nowadays
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u/capnrondo Do it sound good tho? 4d ago
All Killer No Filler is a classic, huge album for me when I was a kid. There are good songs dotted around their other records too. They're a nice, fun, high-energy pop punk band with great pop songs.
If you don't like pop punk obviously the styling is going to put you off the whole band, but I think they have great pop songs at their core and that's what elevates them above most of their contemporaries.
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u/thefullpython 3d ago
Fat Lip is arguably the most formative song of my life. I was 10 when it came out and it was the single celled organism that the rest of my music taste, and therefore much of my personality and ideology, evolved from. They were the first band that I was truly obsessed with and even if my interest in their music waned after Chuck, they’ll always hold a spot in my personal hall of fame
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u/black_flag_4ever 4d ago
I have never intentionally listened to them as that wave of pop punk stuff hit after I was out of high school. The limited exposure I had of them when they came out was that they made music aimed at high schoolers in that pop punk style in the vein of Blink 182 and Fallout Boy, which is very different than the pop punk stuff I listened to on occasion like Kerplunk! era Green Day, The Groovie Ghoulies, The Queers , Mr. T Experience and Screeching Weasel. I didn’t have an interest in it then so I can’t give a fair assessment of them or any post-Blink pop punk. I guess my question is whether a person in their mid 40s can stomach the goofiness of Sum 41 if they never listened to them as a teenager. I like The Vandals, but I don’t know how much I’d like them if I learned about them today versus 15 years old me.
Edit: A post with 40 comments shouldn’t be sitting at zero upvotes. If you’re engaging with the post, upvote it.
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u/torn222 4d ago
Hitler bad, Vandals good!
I kinda feel like it's a shame that goofiness dies out the older we get. Not that getting older and more mature is a bad thing yet as me and my friends are turning 30ish, i feel like ther could be more joy in being less sincere all the time.
But to get back to topic, sum did a bunch of great and mature records. Chuck is dedicated to a dude that saved their lives in Congo and i feel like they grew up a lot on that. Also i enjoy screamingn bloody murderer a lot more the older i get.
I highly encourage you to give them a second try. Some Say, Crash and With Me are ballads that aren't necessarily innovative but still great in comparison to a lot of bands of that area.
Angels With Dirty Faces, Thanks For Nothing, Jessica Kill and Walking Disaster are a a couple of less popular songs i like a lot. I think they show off a lot of their bandwith. Their choruses are admittedly kinda similar and catchy but they seem so much more versatile compared to blink and green day (which i still love).Edit: As around 50% of the commests are my own, i'd take great offense in you not downvoting the thread. That's not very punkrock of you ;D
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u/Illegal_Tender 4d ago
How old are your older friends?
Sum41 peaked like 25 years ago when I was a freshman in highschool
They had a big moment with all killer no filler and were fine but generally eclipsed by other pop punk bands of the time like greenday or the offspring which were their predecessors in the genre
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u/torn222 4d ago
They're around 35. We grew up in Europe though and might have gotten into it a tad later.
I just think it's so funny, that wer're like 3 years apart, and that's such a big difference lol
I feel like all killer is a much better debut than most of their peers, yet especially the chuck record is such a big difference to the other pop punk bands. to me they felt always a tad more adventureous.
Also i used to hate the offspring quite a lot and just saw them live after years, and they actually improved their craft quite a lot. Their Hellfest show was so bloody good. I've been hating them for years based off festival encounters. but that concert was actually decent lol
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u/madkeepz 3d ago
they are a good band. They sounded WAYYY better and had a crisp clean production, cleaner than most groups within the same genre. Their songs are great too, although I stopped listening to skater punk for years now
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u/LifeTunedToCSharp 3d ago
I liked “The Hell Song”. Not super familiar with them outside of that. Not really my thing.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Law-429 3d ago
I was the core demographic when they were popular and absolutely loved them in the early 2000s. I thought they were the best of all the pop punk bands but as a teenager I never really thought critically as to why. I just knew that I liked the way they sounded.
I went a long time without listening to them as I got into styles of music but I revisited them as a 38 year old and fully understood what made them so good.
The song-writing is phenomenal. Every song could be two or three separate songs on their own, but they managed to pack that much density into everything. They also had the metal element which made them a lot heavier than their peers. They managed to combine the heaviness of metal with the catchiness of pop punk in a way that was so uniquely their own.
The three album run of All Killer, Does This Look Infected and Chuck is simply legendary.
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u/foundrycollegehangar 3d ago
Their album “Chuck” is a masterpiece and easily their best record. It’s the only time they truly embraced their metal roots into something fast, furious, and melodic as hell.
They’re a really great band for the first few albums. All Killer through Chuck is a great little run of records. Deryck Whibley’s memoir is also incredibly entertaining.
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u/dopesickness 4d ago
I’d say the first album is their best by far, and if I had to guess they probably won’t have a big mark in the broader context of music history. That being said, I would’ve made the same statement about Korn ten years ago and they’ve had a massive revival in recent years. So I think it’s hard to say how things end up aging.
On a side note, Green Day and Blink were more progenitors than peers, they were well ahead of that curve. Sun 41 def took from their playbook. On the flip side, Good Charlotte weren’t peers but corporate industry plants. Not a part of pop punk scenes the way the others developed, more so built for TRL to cash-in on the music scene like Avril Lavigne. Same way bands like Nickelback and Puddle of Mudd cashed in on grunge.
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u/torn222 4d ago
That's so intersting!
I used to love Green Day, still do actually. But i always felt like Blink were a cynic take on Green Day.
Part of me wants to defend Avril and GC honestly: Adult me knows better, yet teenage wants to dance lol
Funnily enough though, i just spend my day getting into Korn, despite the "classics". So i feel called out and i love every second of it! :D1
u/RusevReigns 3d ago
Yeah Sum 41 was cool but if you listed them among Blink, Green Day, Offspring, Weezer, Sum 41 would have to be at the bottom to me for best runs. I have a soft spot for a few of their songs but Good Charlotte was not cool to like and were the most driven by teenage girls of the group as they found the make up look cute. Simple Plan was distinctively whiney but has held up reasonably well. Yellowcard felt close to a one hit wonder to me but are selling concerts well in modern day.
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u/callmesnake13 3d ago
Irredeemable garbage. They are the second place face of soulless corporate mall punk after Good Charlotte, which probably makes them even lamer than Good Charlotte.
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u/fromthemeatcase 4d ago
Even in my teenage years, I scoffed at all pop-punk, emo, and related genres. I was well into my interest in electronic music, various Euro stuff, and actual female musicians by the time Sum 41 came around.
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u/torn222 4d ago
Interesting! I'm scoffing at it more the older i get.
Would you mind to care elaborating why? :) Personally i feel like it's the lyrics most of the time.2
u/fromthemeatcase 4d ago
I've never been a big lyrics person, but it's the vocals that I couldn't stand. By the time Sum 41, Blink 182, etc. had come around, I had heard bands like Rancid and Pennywise, and then I heard guys who sounded like they were 14 (even worse that they were in their 20s than if they actually had been 14), and it just sounded bad to me.
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u/Tripping_On_Mars2007 4d ago
I don't think music nerds (like the ones on this sub) are particularly fond of 2000s pop-punk.
But i liked them. Much better than simple plan and all related trash
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u/torn222 4d ago
admittedly, simple plan are the reason i learned english at all.
Looking back they are so fucking corny, but they too have a space in my heart.
Yet I'm glad to hear you like them. What's your favourite record, if you don't mind me asking? :)0
u/Tripping_On_Mars2007 4d ago
I've only heard all killer. Much better than I expected them to be.
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u/torn222 4d ago
i highly advise you to check out Does this look infected and especially Chuck,
The switch from the intro to reason to believe on chuck did something to me. It still gives me goosebumps to this day.
Not sure if it's purely nostalgic but it doesn't make me cringe as hard as other music i listened to around the same age :)0
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u/realclean 4d ago
Man I truly used to love Sum 41. Their albums were rarely great all the way through, but most of them had multiple bangers at least through when their guitarist left. Some of their more recent stuff is interesting, but I'm just in a different point in my life for it to hit the same way.
Still, to this day, I can't think of many back-to-back tracks that I like more than No Reason-We're All to Blame on Chuck
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u/torn222 4d ago
When chuck came out over here, the headphones to my fucking mp3 player broke. so i just had it playing aloud while learning how to do 180s tailtaps on my bmx and let's just say, i had a blast and joggers coming by got a boost lol
Also there was some fighting movie edit of "Thanks for Nothing" that i cannot seem to find anymore.
Idk if copyright protection took it down but that's how i got into them after having no taste in music at all. A buddy showed it to me while waiting for hours for the internet to boot and we made it the first song to cover in our premature band lol1
u/realclean 4d ago
Going on 20 years now of listening to Chuck to make me want to punch through a wall. I was surprised that it wasn't brought up much in the thread elsewhere.
Was on a Say Anything/Wonder Years kick earlier today, but thanks for the reminder for a perfect couple of capstone tracks for me
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u/PocketLass 4d ago
Their first three albums are part of my formative years, part of my core makeup essentially lol. I used to walk home from middle school singing AKNF front to back. They really had a spark on that record. I haven't been a huge fan of their post Does This Look Infected? catalogue but I went to their farewell tour and thought it was awesome. Love Sum 41.
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u/torn222 4d ago
I agree!
Though i have to confess that the intro to no reason skip on chuck made me feel a lot. That was bloody beautiful.
And i am so fucking jealous you didn't sleep on their breakup. I am so fucking mad i never got to see them live and.. idk. probably your fault but hell yeah! How was the farewell show? :)2
u/PocketLass 4d ago
I also saw them live twice when I was a teen! Once with Billy Talent opening for them and once with them opening for BT haha. The farewell show was great, they played a lot of my top songs. I was only surprised when they didn't do the little choreo bit during Makes No Difference! Deryck had so much energy you could really tell he was giving the farewell tour his all. I was very happy to be there.
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u/torn222 4d ago
Fuck off, i'm so jealous.
Why did you have to bring BT into this.
Missed them, i shit you not, twice on two separate festivals due to bad weather.
Glad to hear you had a blast at the farewell show! :)
Call me in advance next time tho :D1
u/PocketLass 3d ago
That's such bad luck!! But hey at least they're still a band, you can get another chance! 😀
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u/twosuitsluke 4d ago
Love 'em. Does This Look Infected? is easily their best album. NOFX are my favourite punk band, so it's no surprise I like them as Sum41 started out playing NOFX covers. They have that metallic edge to their music so they'd have fit in well on Fat Wreck Chords.
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u/torn222 4d ago
I'm so glad they never got into fat wreck, as i feel like a lot of their bands sound so replaceable.
NOFX are obiously bloody great and it's Does this look infected? that got me into punkier music.
While I'd like to argue Sum were a Poprock Band in a way, they were just more unique or experimental and adventureous if you may.
What are you're favourite tracks? :)
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u/Inglorious555 4d ago edited 4d ago
I like Sum 41 alot, I get that they started off as Pop-Punk but they had alot of twists that made them stand out
My favourite stuff from Sum 41 is their 2010's material that's often overlooked, Screaming Bloody Murder is a well rounded album that shows they're more than your average run of the mill "Pop-Punk" band, the same is extended to the two albums after in 13 Voices and Order In Decline although they're noticeably a bit punchier and guitar solo heavy compared to Screaming Bloody Murder, 2004's Chuck and bits of their debut EP and first two albums have their Metally moments too, I liked how they had more to them than it seems based on their earlier singles
The one album I find myself going back to the least is their most recent one "Heaven and Hell" which in my opinion feels like they scrapped what they had going for them with 13 Voices and Order In Decline just to cash in on Pop-Punk's resurgence and as a result doesn't feel as memorable, 13 voices and Order In Decline were heavier, more focused and grown up albums and I loved them for that, Heaven and Hell doesn't scratch the same itch and comes across like men in their 40's trying to emulate being teenagers again to some extent.
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u/fiercefinesse 3d ago
I wasn’t interested in Fat Lip because it was too happy sounding and I didn’t like the verses. Stuff like The Bitter End though, now we’re talking. I like how they incorporated metal guitar work.
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u/MisheGossnik 3d ago
Their early stuff is pretty solid, but they also did a hardcore album, 2016's Order in Decline, that's super political and rips into Trump and MAGA, and it absolutely rocks and I wish more people knew about it. I have a lot of respect for them for that album alone.
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u/hoochiscrazy_ 3d ago
All Killer No Filler is one of the greatest ever pop-punk albums and underappreciated if you ask me.
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u/terryjuicelawson 3d ago
They came a bit too late for me, I was already deeply into 80s and 90s punk, was sort of done with it, and moving into more interesting territory and these guys were rather slick with a couple of songs on heavy MTV rotation so it just held no interest. If I was 14 when it came out, I bet I would have been all over it like I was Green Day / NOFX / Lagwagon / Rancid / Pennywise / Bad Religion maybe a decade earlier. In hindsight they are OK, Good Charlotte just outright sucked in comparison. I definitely preferred Blink out of those options, again until they just turned into a bit of a bland corporate rock band.
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u/RusevReigns 3d ago edited 3d ago
They kind of felt like the biggest Blink-182 rivals to me, especially living in Canada where Sum 41 was more popular than in the US. Yes others like Green Day and Offspring were huge and had young fans, but I think age, video, etc. wise it made more sense for Blink and Sum 41 to be going for the same type of fans for me, with Blink as the alpha popularity wise, but you knew someone that was a Sum 41 instead of Blink person. Fat Lip was a pretty fun breakout song and In Too Deep had memorable diving video. When they released their 3rd album Chuck with an sad alt rock first single Pieces I didn't like it that much and I thought it was sign they were over and in those days them and Blink seemed older than they were by their late 20s. I know he later said he got groomed by the lead singer of Treble Charger (who I otherwise liked more than Sum 41) so it makes sense in retrospect he was trying to sing about what he was going through.
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u/stev_mempers 4d ago
Just another bad, generic pop-punk band, which makes their line about not being a casualty to society especially rich. You didn't miss anything.
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u/dangleicious13 4d ago edited 4d ago
Great band. Always did their things how they wanted to and went in the direction they wanted to. Their double album to close it out was cool as hell.
A fan of all of their eras, from their pop punk beginnings to whatever you classify 13 Voices/Order in Decline.
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u/TranslatorCapital818 2d ago
Only one good song as far as I was concerned. I lost any interest in then after "Fat Lip".
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u/GuyFawkes99 4d ago
Just one of a billion bands that did high-energy pop-punk. Nothing distinctive or innovative.
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u/torn222 4d ago
Okay, i'm curious.
What makes you think they aren't distinctive. We can argue about innovative.
But i feel like compared to their peers they were distinctive.
A Bunch of bands wanted to sound to like MCR or Blink. They somewhat adjusted to it, but i always thought their Influences in Metal, decent Riffs and Beastie Boys type of rapping were quite distinct to the usual Pop Punk of the 2000s.
Please correct me if i am wrong :)1
u/ShineALight3725 3d ago
Youre right. They had the metal influence in their music that other pop punk bands didnt have.
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u/TelephonicReturns 4d ago
They are a good singles band, they released some stomping singles that got a lot of play on MTV.