4 out of 5

Label: Island

Produced by: Deryck Whibley, Greig Nori

Not that Sum 41 were ever an indie band after Fat Lip blew up, but still, I recoiled a bit: a big ol’ single on a big ol’ movie soundtrack (this was on the Raimi Spider-Man movie), and totally 100% aping the rap shtick of their hit single? It was just, like, tripling down on going “mainstream,” or whatever.

But: setting aside that picking through 2000s pop punks for those with more less credibility (however we define it) is kind of silly, I was firstly not realizing that this was Sum re-covering a track they’d done prior to Fat Lip, and that the rap from Fat Lip was already biting on bits from that song – which was featured on Half Hour of Power in a shorter, slightly punkier version than this “original version.”

Secondly: this is a damn catchy song. It’s easy, I think, to lump a lot of these groups into the same bucket, but what caught my ear about Sum 41 was how damn skilled they were all around as musicians, and while lyrically they might cover generic topics, those lyrics also felt like they were injected with a bit more thought and intelligence than, say, Blink 182’s. And if What We’re All About is biting on Beastie Boys, it doesn’t do it cheaply: the lyrics are pretty funny and varied, the rap-rock is legit, the production and playing kick ass, and then they go and bring in Kerry King for a freakin’ solo, ’cause why not.

…It is maybe a stretch too far at 3+ minutes, as we’ve had our fill by the second go-round or so, and I don’t think any version of this single had much else to write home about – my edition is actually just the song itself, but otherwise, you got between 1 – 4 live tracks or All Killer album cuts. But unless you wanted to own the Spidey soundtrack for its other songs (and I did not), this single was very much worth it.