Okay, let's be serious. It's a cheerful punk interpretation of John Denver, Neil Diamond, Billy Joel and other '70s balladeers. Yeah, right. When my skinny, cleptomaniac friend Chris told me about it, I said, "Uh, great?" Then he sat down with me over a couple of beers and we plugged it in. I became a believer.

You already know all of the songs, and chances are you've spent your life mocking those who like the original artists. But, deep, deep in your soul, you know all the words to "Nobody Does It Better" and "Sweet Caroline," and you probably feel comfortably soothed when you hear them piping thru the local Wal-Mart as you stuff things into your pockets. Me too. So, when Me First and the Gimme Gimmes translated these songs with only a dash of irony, plenty of raw energy and dense bass and guitar work, my ears pricked up and I farted -- a sure sign that it's something special. How special? Well, I spent the better part of a morning trying to track down their label to get a copy, for one thing. That's a big deal, considering how lazy I am.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is this, if you enjoy the guilty pleasure of "fun" music, like relatively lightweight punk sounds, and don't take life to fuckin' seriously, you probably ought to invest in a copy.

-James P. Wisdom