Today's weather calls for another installation of "Music For a Hranj Day". However, in this chapter I'm not going to provide the usual recommended listening for a day of crappy weather. This post is going to explore a concept that my band, Save Face, joked about to the point that it became a legitimate idea. I'm referring, of course, to "The Good Album".

To understand what I mean by "The Good Album", consider the following conversation that takes place fairly often during car rides to shows:

Shane: "What should we listen to?"

Tyler: "Saves The Day"

Shane: "Okay." Puts on Stay What You Are

Brodan: "This song sucks. Put on The Good Album."

It's safe to say that every band with a significant discography has a "The Good Album". To further understand this concept, consider the following examples (all of which make for great rainy weather albums, by the way):

Please note that the views expressed in this post may or may not reflect the views of the entire entity that is Save Face.

Saves The Day - "Through Being Cool"

To my knowledge, this is the album that really got the "Good Album" joke off its feet. Let's be honest: when you want to hear Saves The Day, you want to hear "You Vandal", "Shoulder to the Wheel", "Holly Hox, Forget Me Nots", etc. If you disagree, you are just lying to yourself. This album has aged wonderfully and is just as punk and emo as it was in 1999.

The Fall of Troy - Doppelgänger

Funny enough, The Fall of Troy was discussed in my last Music for a Hranj Day post, and with the announcement of a new album after 7 years, it seems appropriate to discuss them again. Doppelgänger is a hard-hitting masterpiece full of amazing riffs and catchy hooks unmatched in any other FoT releases. If The Fall of Troy is unfamiliar to you, this is the album you need to start with. The album's (arguably) biggest hit, F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X., has transcended into a right of passage for any aspiring guitar player.

Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf

This selection was probably the most difficult to make. I've found that many Good Album discussions regarding QotSA are conflicted between Songs for the Deaf and Rated R. More often than not, however, when I hear a Queens' song in the wild it comes from this album. Overall, I think SFtD simply has more memorable songs, and the album's overall production, ongoing themes, and radio interludes make it a joy to listen to from front to back at anytime, anyplace.

Between The Buried and Me - Colors

Colors is the one selection in this list that I didn't want to have to make, but in reality there is no denying that it is The Good Album. BTBAM has one hell of a discography. Narrowing the selection down to one album is almost criminal knowing that other incredible works like The Great Misdirect and The Parallax II exist. On tour they still play multiple songs off this 2007 release because they know it's what the audience wants to hear. For further justification of this selection, see White Walls.

Sum 41 - All Killer No Filler

Like BTBAM, Sum 41 has a lot of great albums, but All Killer No Filler features the most "hits" out of any of them. Songs like Fat Lip and In Too Deep served as the elementary school anthems of every future punk in America. While Chuck and Does This Look Infected are both great albums as well, nearly every song on All Killer No Filler has about a 80% chance of turning into a nostalgia-driven sing-along. I would say that only 3 of the 13 tracks on this album could be considered deep tracks. You simply can't argue with those numbers.

Concluding Thoughts

Every serious band will have a "Good Album" once they reach a certain level of maturity. Although I'm sure that Save Face was not the first group to discuss this idea, I hope this blog post can lead to a more widespread adoption of this ideology.

Thanks for reading and keep your eyes peeled for future Good Album discussions/lists! If you've got a Good Album recommendation I should know about, tweet me @brodan_ and follow me to keep up to date on my blog posts.