Like the Justice League – here is another collaboration for the ages! It’s Scuzz Sunday!

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The New Mutants. The Young Avengers. Take up your pick as we get obscurer and obscurer – but Tenacious D vs. Sum 41 are shaping up to be the superhero team for trashy Emo-Punk. I’m Jacob Braybrooke, and it is time for a festive edition of Scuzz Sundays, the weekly feature where we get in touch with one of the ghosts of Pop-Punk Christmas past, to see whether the sounds from the late-90’s until the mid-00’s can hold up to quality and value today – in 2020! “Things I Want” is a rare find for either fanbase of the Rap-Rock heavyweights Sum 41 or the Hollywood-famous Alt-Metal duo Tenacious D, because it’s tricky to find on any album these days. It was once shared on MySpace (Remember that? No… neither do I…) by both groups back in the 00’s, but it was originally included on “Kevin & Bean Present: Swallow My Eggnogg”, a Def Jam Records compilation of festive-themed Skate-Punk singles and other Hard Rock/Pop-Grunge rarities. The true release date of this LP is pretty unclear to me – as I have three sources of research saying different years to me. However, the most reliable of these sources is Discogs.com, which lists the CD package as a 2001 release. Thankfully, the rare single has been lifted and restored by some lucky users on the video sharing platforms YouTube and DailyMotion. According to the Fandom wiki of Tenacious D, Epic Records once produced a few not-for-public-sales release promos for this track, before it was recorded in 1999. Let’s hear the results of it below.

When you come to think of it – it’s odd that “Things I Want” was doomed to be published on an obscure festive Pop-Punk compilation album, since both parties of Tenacious D and Sum 41 had gained fame and star power within the genre at the time, and they would have had the pushing power of A&R and label representatives to score a quick hit with the novelty of the track, but perhaps it was more of a passion project than an interest in easy commerce which drove the project forward for the two tribes. In whatever case, “Things I Want” still saw the light of day. It is quite surprising, given the circumstances – if not totally unexpected – “Things I Want” does still sound much like you would expect a Sum 41 and Tenacious D collaboration to sound like. Teenage humor and brash guitar lines mix with the quirky Jack Black vocals and the festive intro to create an alternative to your bog-standard Christmas music fare, one which sounds more rooted in classic Metal from Black’s part and the quick, shredding bass guitar lines are produced by Sum 41’s line-up. Lines like: “I wanna see-through jump suit that fits me tight/I want all of the Beatles copyrights” and “I wanna chop Florida off the map/I want Pamela Anderson’s speedo top” bring the Emo-Rock subculture to the forefront, with Black declaring: “There’s a lot of cool s**t I want” over the top of soaring electric guitar solos and melodic, quick Drum time signatures. The lyrics don’t go beyond the basic humorous list of items shtick a great deal, but the fast-paced guitar chords and the generally fast instrumentation keeps the flowing pace going. Overall, I didn’t expect to like this much – just because it was dumped onto a random compilation LP that I had not heard of prior to this, but it certainly exceeded my predictions for it. While I think the jokes ware thinner a little towards the end and it’s not the most Chrismassy festive track out there, it’s still some good fun and it doesn’t take itself very seriously at all – and that’s for it’s own benefits. The instrumentation is also quite entertaining, and that frantic pacing takes a bit of skill. It’s pretty decent, although it’s all about the giving and not the receiving.

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Thank you for checking out my latest Festive post! I have got more tricks from up my sleeve of my Christmas jumper tomorrow – where we’re going to be taking an in-depth look at a festive track that was released brand new for this year. It comes from a popular English singer-songwriter and theater performer who has released eight studio albums to date, and she has been commonly known as one of Britain’s greatest soul singers. She’s recently celebrated 25 years of her career in music. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/