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Is Zebrahead's Broadcast to the World the must underrated pop-punk album of all time?


decisions

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On 2/21/2018 at 6:31 AM, _Kyle_ said:

I think The Matches' Decomposer is probably the most under-rated or just generally not heard at all. It's more forward thinking than this and less ... cringy?

The first two Matches albums are the definition of "just decent" to me. They have some good songs, catchy melodies, but really lack consistency and interesting musicianship. The singer drew the album cover for BTTW though! He knew how sick ZH were back then.

On 2/21/2018 at 4:22 PM, knapton said:

I actually physically own this album and its not that good. Its got some decent songs, if you like zebrahead, which is the big kicker. This band puts out the same music every record and yes its very bland usually. 

I agree you have to like ZH to like this record, as their distinct aspects are present on it. But I have no idea how you could say ZH puts out "the same music every record". That's just being disingenuous IMO. WoM was funk/pop-punk/rap, POTY is the transition album that starts to abandon funk to lean more into rock, MFZB is the real revolution that totally replaces funk with metal/post-hardcore elements, Waste of MFZB is a B-side album but even then the tone of the songs is generally a lot more melancholy than what's found on the record, BTTW trades heaviness for more pop-punk and has a new vocalist, Phoenix has a totally different production style than BTTW (reminiscent of MFZB, believe they were done by the same guy) and the melodies are more varied  - some of their most experimental stuff is on here like Juggernauts and HMP, probably the softest rap  and heaviest rock ZH had ever done.

After Phoenix things get a little samey because the most important member of the band left. But even then that's only two records before they changed things up again in 2015, leaning more towards acoustic stuff. Even if it wasn't really to my liking they still changed things up.

ZH would be last band I would say puts out redundant music. Even if it is true of their last few records, how many bands put out 7 albums before the creativity starts to run out? 

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I used to listen to them. Phoenix was my favourite album and they were interesting back in the day but I don't think their music has aged well. 

The Movielife, Saves The Day and Crime in Stereo are the only pop punk bands from that era that I still listen to regularly though. 

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I loved this album during the age of 14-16 but i would never play that record again.

Its catchy and it has good hooks but its such a teenage thing.

Its like the power rangers series, Rather have my childhood memories on it than to rewatch an episode...

You could say the same for Enema in terms of lyrical content but for some reason thats one of the only poppunk records that holds up at any age and still sounds great every damn year.

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On 2/24/2018 at 3:40 PM, decisions said:

The first two Matches albums are the definition of "just decent" to me. They have some good songs, catchy melodies, but really lack consistency and interesting musicianship. The singer drew the album cover for BTTW though! He knew how sick ZH were back then.

The Barber's Unhappiness begs to differ. Their first album is pretty decent, fun, etc. But Decomposer is such an artistic leap, it's almost a different band. 

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On 2/25/2018 at 5:26 AM, raw_sounds said:

I like some ZH tracks, like "Hello Tomorrow" who was the singer during the "Playmate of the year" era? During that time they had catchy songs but nothing more to me.

Why, that was Justin Mauriello - in my opinion the best pop-punk vocalist of all-time, due to his skills of ability and composition. He was as good as you could really ask for live too. His next band, Darling Thieves, was pretty good and I even liked the 2015 soft-alt-rock EP he put out.

I actually wanted him to replace Tom:/ He doesn't do much punk stuff anymore but still posts about his ZH days on social media sometimes.

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 5 years later...

I found this while researching the name: Broadcast To The World is a fantastic album. zebrahead is my favorite band. However, while they definitely are a piece of punk rock for dummies, they aren't near as influential as blink-182. If zebrahead's your cool tall building- the Eiffel Tower- then blink-182's the Empire State Building. Way taller in my metaphor. zebrahead produces somewhat influential music- they're my lead inspiration for writing music, along with +44. Plus Forty Four! Consisting of three of the members of blink! (If you're wondering who the third member is, let's remember Jerry Finn was with blink-182's members for quite some time back then.) The band is fantastic- don't get me wrong, like I said, they're my favorite and they were always awesome- but they don't quite capture the influence or representation of pop-punk like blink-182 does. That's like me saying MGK is better than State Champs- one, he isn't, he doesn't belong on the scene- and two, he only produced two albums, both relatively new. blink-182 was there in the earliest 90s with Flyswatter. When did zebrahead start? At an early time, yes, but not early enough to pick up the talent of a venerable band quite yet: Flyswatter was released in 1993. The Yellow was released in 1998.

And also, why would you mention a post for zebrahead on a blink-182 forum? Leave MF Z out of this 182nd forum, B. They are fantastic; they have their own forum and I think blink-182 is doing fine without them. They aren't even adjacent bands- if you're gonna feature a zebrahead post on Less Than Jake's forum, then that makes sense. On blink-182's forum? They don't know anything at all about each other (zebrahead song/album reference count: 2), and to my knowledge have never gotten intimate with each other.

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The band is alright... I like their stuff with the first two singers, but not so much with the new guy (Matt and Justin are missed)

Although Zebrahead is one of those bands I have to be in the mood to listen to, and not a whenever band like with others.

5 hours ago, Matt. said:

Anybody know what this kid is talking about?

No, I'm lost as well...

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 2/25/2018 at 9:26 AM, raw_sounds said:

I like some ZH tracks, like "Hello Tomorrow" who was the singer during the "Playmate of the year" era? During that time they had catchy songs but nothing more to me.

I dont know wtf i was saying, i revisited Zebrahed and made a cool playlist

Chech, Rescue me, Hello Tomorrow, Poty, Strenght, Now or never, Runaway, Into You..

They are great but i only like the Justin era.

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  • 4 months later...

I just want to say how funny it is...

Finally I accept that Justin Mauriello will never return to the band and that Matty Lewis made for a good replacement for him (and at this point is more of a co-vocalist for the band than Justin was) and then Matt leaves the band to do some weird solo country project (I still don't get the shift from Pop Punk to Country, makes no sense at all (at least with Tom going from blink-182 to AvA we saw a bit of AvA in the 2003 album with 'Asthenia' and 'I'm lost without you'))

I'm sorry, but I still can't get into Adrian Estrella's vocals. I miss Matty, and at this point, I'm back to hoping they can patch things up with Justin and bring him back into the band.

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  • 1 month later...
On 2/20/2018 at 2:08 PM, decisions said:

Hmmm, I’m surprised these songs don’t hook the people on this board. Can you guys maybe elaborate on what makes Blink’s songs good, but these forgettable? 

To me these have way more interesting stuff going on - cool genre mixing, the guitars sound better than anything Tom ever did, great vocalist who has range and clarity while still having personality.

I think that while zebrahead's one of my favorite bands (right now it's Ryan Oakes) that it's not a matter of mixing or, as you said, the guitars are better (it's also a heavy metal album. What the fuck do you expect?!), it's lyricism. This album's songs would sound the same to if blink-182's Enema Of The State met Dookie, which are two very popular albums. zebrahead's sound here (note that they were more innovative on The Yellow Album and Brain Invaders and sounded more complex on Call Your Friends, Phoenix, EP II and Walk The Plank) is not the problem. It's the fact that their lyrics make sense and are massively meaningful. But lyrically they try to be what they're not, something like TOOL. Obviously, they are nu metal and pop punk, and while this wouldn't matter otherwise they don't quite pull off the lyrics to songs like Vicarious by TOOL. If you look at blink-182, they're really quite simple: simple lyrics, a catchy melody, an awesome drummer (who vastly out-drums Ed Udhus, which doesn't matter, just my opinion) and aggression. It's because of how simple they often are that put them in the stars. zebrahead on the other hand tries to go against the grain of blink-182 and Limp Bizkit's success and tries to write complex lyrics that feel presented like a movie.

Unfortunately for them, they exist between two worlds and while they are huge in Germany and Asia, quite a few of us in the States don't think they live up to people like TOOL. If you want good lyrics, try Ryan Oakes. His lyrics are way simpler but tie in much better. Plus he writes it all and makes hip hop, hardcore punk and RnB, so it isn't an awkward rift between the simple writing of blink-182 from Matty Lewis and the pseudo-complex writing like Eminem from Ali Tabatabaee. Really, Ryan Oakes is a better choice. That being said, on paper they sound bad, but in practice they sound fantastic, especially with Adrian Estrella coming in. 😋

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