3 out of 5

Label: Columbia

Producer: Greg Nori and Deryck Whibley

God damn you.

This should be a worthless single with some standard major label filler live tracks – Motivation, Makes No Difference, and Rhythms – but there’s one non-album track, that title one, and it’s a fucking catchy killer.  Re-working some bits from other songs, ‘What We’re All About’ is a totally obnoxious rap-rock singalong that’s nonetheless expertly and thickly produced by Nori and brings out all the surprising musical chops and snotty charm and stuck-in-your-headness that helped propel Sum to the top of the charts.  With singles, having one good track can change the dynamic of what follows: while the live inclusions don’t add anything to their original versions (although Makes No Difference’s flatter live recording brings out some guitar bits which are mixed down on album), Motivation seems to take a few seconds to warm up but then each track is committed well and recorded cleanly, satisfying that the group can pull off their quick sound on stage (at least for a few minutes).  They’re still filler tracks, but offer enough harmless buffer until you can hit play on the first track again.  Bastards.