All The Best Songs is a No Use for a Name compilation album first released in 2007 and then again in 2016 to include songs from their (awesome) final album. It’s a great collection of songs that includes all of the band’s “hits”, showcasing the fantastic melodies, hooks, and song writing abilities of Tony Sly and the rest of the band. Best-of albums can never please everyone and every fan will have an opinion about which songs should have been included. So, with that said, this is a list of 10 songs (in no particular order) that aren’t on the compilation but that I feel should be included when considering the best songs by No Use for a Name.
PS. Choosing only 10 songs from your favourite band is no easy task but with the recent anniversary of Tony Sly’s death I thought it would be nice to give it a go in the hope that someone else out there will enjoy the playlist as much I enjoyed making and writing about it.
Lies Can't Pretend
I remember the day I first listened to More Betterness! very clearly. I was in high school, it was the holidays, and I was at one of the few CD stores that had a "punk" section and a listening station. I had only heard Leche Con Carne at the time, so I picked up More Betterness! based on that alone. I took it to the store clerk and asked if I could give it a try. Luckily the store was quiet, because I was hooked from beginning to end and happily handed over the little money I had to buy my first No Use album. Although there are a lot of fan favourites on More Betterness!, I feel that Lies Can't Pretend really showcases all of the characteristics that make the album so great. The guitar riffs in perfect harmony, the fast-paced basslines and drum beats, and Tony's just-enough-rasp vocals layered in just the right places make for a song that everyone should listen to more.
Alone
Leche Con Carne is almost entirely made up of fast and aggressive songs, but the album never gets tired or monotonous for me. This fact made putting together this list more difficult and if this were a top 15, there would be at least 2 other songs from the album on this list. Alone is one of the shortest songs on the album but it is fully satisfying, maintaining the speed and aggression of the rest of the album and at the same time providing glimpses of the more melodic direction the band would take in the future. As the penultimate song on the album, Alone also wins as being the best song to precede Exit, one of the best No Use songs and album closers ever.
Killing Time
I can't lie, when Keep Them Confused was first released I was disappointed. After all the hype of waiting for a new No Use album, I disliked the production and didn't enjoy the majority of the songs. There were a few songs that I loved immediately and to this day I feel that It's Tragic, Killing Time, and Slowly Fading Fast (spoiler alert) are a near perfect trilogy of songs. For a long time, the sequence of these three songs was the only reason I listened to the album at all. Since then, my contempt for the album has waned but my love for the three songs and Killing Time especially has never faltered. Killing Time is told from the perspective of a grieving mother who has lost her son to a meaningless war. The lyrics were very relevant at the height of the war in Iraq and the closing line of "If an angel earns its wings every time somebody dies, then today the angels black out the blue sky" is one of my favourite lines from Tony Sly ever.
No Way To Live
In the year 2005, Warren Fitzgerald and Joe Escalante of The Vandals respectively wrote and directed the film Cake Boy and released it into the world. Don’t feel bad if you've never heard of it or if you've never seen it; count yourself lucky. The soundtrack was alright though, featuring a number of songs from No Use For A Name who also play a fairly large part in the film. No Way To Live serves as the theme for the film and is thankfully MUCH BETTER than the film itself. Catchy hooks, rich basslines, loads of melody, and Hard Rock Bottom era Tony vocals make this song worth the pain and suffering of sitting through the film – or just find the soundtrack and listen to that instead.
Best Regards
After high school I moved to Australia with my dad. Leaving friends and family behind in South Africa was difficult but one of the few things that gave me solace was the fact that I could walk into a music store and find an actual punk section to browse through. Making Friends was one of the first albums I purchased during a trip into Brisbane city and after spending a few years falling in love with the likes of More Betterness! and Hard Rock Bottom, it was great to hear that No Use were tending towards a more catchy hooks and melodies, which cemented my love for the band even more. It's difficult to look past the classics like Invincible, The Answer Is Still No and the impeccable On The Outside but this list is focused on the "deeper" cuts so I thought I'd pick Best Regards although I wouldn't argue with anyone for picking a different song from the album, it's *that* good. Best Regards starts off with a classic fast punk drum beat, brings in the full band with a pick slide, and doesn't let up until the short but sweet guitar solo and the closing lyric "I hope you're happy". There are also a few small touches in between the verses, whether it's a small guitar harmony, drum fill or slight rhythm change, it’s these touches that really edged the song into this list for me.
Undefeated
Hard Rock Bottom (just like More Betterness!) is an album that I remember getting some hate when it was released. No Use definitely smoothed out the rough edges, Tony Sly's vocals became a little less shouty and the band fully embraced a more melodic sound. I love the production on this album; the bass is punchy and deep, the drums are perfectly balanced and Tony's vocals are so sweet to the ear. Picking a favourite song from the album is tough because if I didn't choose International You Day, I'd get an angry look from Robyn (it was the song we first danced to at our wedding) but it is already featured on All The Best Songs, so I get an excuse to pick a different song that I love and think deserves to be on this list. Although there are a bunch of really great songs to choose from, Undefeated has the speed and furious sound found in songs from previous albums but which also fits in perfectly on Hard Rock Bottom, discarding any fears from fans that the band may have lost their edge.
Don't Miss the Train
Don't Miss the Train was one of only two albums that got no love from the song selectors of All The Best Songs, probably because it (as well as Incognito) wasn't originally released by Fat Wreck. It may not have the production value that the Fat Wreck releases do, but there are still some solid songs on this album that I feel deserve some recognition. I chose Don't Miss the Train because I feel it highlights the more melodic/punk elements the band would embrace going forward within an album that has quite a lot of hardcore/metal influence. The live version featured on Live In A Dive is a great rendition; it stands up to the band’s newer material nicely and was a strong factor in me checking out No Use's older, pre-Fat Wreck material.
Slowly Fading Fast
Keep Them Confused doesn't rank in my top 3 No Use albums despite being home to some of my favourite No Use songs. It's also the only album that gets more than one song on this list because I love these songs that much. Slowly Fading Fast is one of the faster tracks on the album, with a simple chord progression that is crafted into a really catchy melody and chorus that can get stuck in my head for days. The subtle ahs in the chorus and the cool little bass riffs found throughout make the song easy to listen to over and over again (truthfully you should skip back two songs to It's Tragic, listen and repeat).
Night Of The Living Living
It would be a big mistake to compile a list of the best No Use songs without including something from The Feel Good Record Of The Year and it was a smart move by Fat Wreck to reissue All The Best Songs with some songs from the band’s final studio album. The Blasting Room has put out some of my favourite records over the last two decades and Feel Good Record is no exception. All of the songs sound great and have an energy that I felt was missing from a lot of Keep Them Confused. Night Of The Living Living has some of the beautiful symbolism that we got used to hearing from Tony as well as some interesting and tight basslines throughout the song, making it one of my favourites from the album. I think Feel Good Record was able to bring a few No Use fans out from their hiding places with songs like this one which showed that the band had found their sweet spot in the world of punk rock.
Hazardous To Yourself
The final song in this list comes from The Daily Grind EP, released way back in 1993. It’s No Use's first on Fat Wreck and the foundation of the sound the band would refine on Leche Con Carne. In 1993, I was still very busy watching TMNT so I only listened to The Daily Grind after hearing some of the older material on Live In A Dive. To be honest, all 8 songs on this EP are great examples of early 90s punk rock with a heavy Bad Religion influence and without sounding too Fat Wreck-y. I think Hazardous To Yourself best demonstrates the combination of the Bad Religion influence – with the vocal harmonies, guitar solos and Tony’s singing on some of the verses – and the band’s earlier hardcore roots, and is an indication of the kind of music No Use would become so great at playing.
This top ten was written by Brett Coomer.
Awesome list, NUFAN was so great
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