I don't really need to say much about NOFX, do I? With "Self Entitled," the Californians led by Fat Mike release their..... well, how many albums is this actually??? While NOFX released an album almost every year in the late '80s and '90s, since the 1997 album "So Long and Thanks for All the Shoes," a new album has come out consistently every three years. So, "Self Entitled" must be the 12th album. And the guys haven't changed musically this time either, why should they? As long as the skate-fun-punk songs are this infectious, there's no reason to change anything. And so the first song, "72 Hookers," gets right into your legs, and you even find yourself bobbing your head at your desk. In the car, it's even worse... And then there's this lyric, instead of stopping a war with 72 virgins, why not try it with 100,000 eager-to-please hookers... Or better yet, with goddesses, as it says in a verse of the second song, "I Believe in Goddess"! With the third song, "Ronnie & Mags," we go back to the early days of NOFX in 1984, when Ronnie (Ronald Reagan) and Maggie (Margaret Thatcher) could still play war without counter-demonstrations. This is followed by a 180-degree turn with "She Didn't Lose Her Baby," featuring a really strong lyric about maternal feelings during childbirth.
The album flows quite diversely over the 30-minute playtime, with the second-to-last song particularly impressing me. In "I've Got One Jealous Again, Again," so many band names (and album titles) are packed into sentences that I have to applaud loudly. Although I'm sure that I haven't even caught all the bands and albums, including BLACK FLAG (Jealous Again, Damage), MISFITS (Walk Among Us, Bullet), KILLING JOKE, NEUROSIS, FAITH, VOID, FUGAZI, as well as GUNS N' ROSES, ROBBY WILLIAMS, and SURVIVOR, along with album titles from BAD RELIGION and RANCID!
The 12th awesome album from NOFX ends with a song about the last holy night (don't forget, the world ends on December 21, 2012!).
Unfortunately, I don't have a booklet, which are usually particularly appealing with NOFX, so that's a point deduction!
