AA.VV.
Short Music For Short People

101 groups, 101 songs, an average of less than half a minute per song… practically the only album where you can insert a twenty-second sample without risking trouble with copyright laws, practically the only album that could be appreciated by the protagonist of Memento (remember the film?), practically the only album where you don’t have time to read who the hell is playing the piece of crap n°57 before piece of crap n°58 has already started.

Well, yes, there are the Naked City or Anal Cunt, but this, as my cat always used to say, is another story. The genre? Released by Fat Wreck, the creation of that man constantly drenched in grease, Fat Mike, that should say it all.
Practically all the planets and satellites moving in the emo(rroid)core galaxy, that tasty slice of sound universe where the drums can only choose between two tempos: "fast" and "faster"; where the bass is played with travertine picks at least two centimeters thick, and the guitars keep piecing together the same selection of 6 different chords, each time in a slightly different order, like playing with Lego bricks. And the vocals follow, with lyrics ranging from “I can't stand you, shitface, and your feet stink!” to more existential moments like “I thought about you last night, while jacking off into my socks” (all strictly true).
Not to mention people like No Use For A Name, who have fifty years per leg but continue to dress in shorts and L.A Lakers caps, because their audience averages 14 years, and sing things like “When Fiona from 3rd E didn’t give me the Baseball History homework, I realized my life was over”. Sometimes, however, to be honest, you can find lyrics with a bit more substance, and in this, folks like Joey Cape from Lagwagon or Propagandhi help raise the average.

But now enough with the theoretical speculations, let's move on to the detailed analysis of the tracks, one by one:
“Short attention span” by Fizzy Bangers, with its total of 8 seconds, opens the album and is its manifesto: “Why can’t people understand, I got a short attention span, shooooort attention spaaaaaaaan!”. From what can be gathered in these eight seconds of nitroglycerine, it is a careless, compact, and well-played Californian punk, with a voice that sounds very mocking. The drums have a rather open timbre, with a rattling snare drum and cymbals in the background, while the guitar distortion suggests a vintage model, like a Vox or a Fender Mustang, attached to a semi-tube Marshall (due to the shallow depth of the timbre). The backing vocals are noteworthy, not highlighted but effective, enriching the chorus (and the only line of the song). Eight seconds and it's over, eight seconds and you're already catapulted into
“Anchor”, by Less Than Jake, a Florida combo closer to the sounds of Strong Out, though less polished. Here the duration is around 29 seconds, and the lyrics are a bit more complex. The sonic wall of guitars is more gentle, probably employing Stratocasters, and here and there brass section inserts emerge.
Alright, I was joking, I'll stop here.

However, if the value of an album were judged on the price/number of possible listens ratio, this “Short Music For Short People” would rank high: you bring it home for nine euros, and it takes a while for you to tire of it… at least because it takes quite a bit to remember all the songs (obviously unless the emo-core and its annexes disgust you). And the level of the tracks is generally high: it seems there are quite a few bands in the genre that give their best in a hundred-meter sprint rather than three thousand meters; to be honest, there's a lot of people in this album that, with all the rest of their productions, haven't added a comma to what was said in the 30 workmanlike seconds granted here. And it's intriguing how 101 groups give a different interpretation of the idea of a "bonsai song", 101 different ways to fill 30 seconds of silence. A bit like “This was done by me!” the Settimana Enigmistica contest where you had to invent a cartoon from a couple of lines.

In general, the most indecent of the collection have been the supposed “sacred monsters”: the NOFX have salvaged 30 seconds of discarded demo from “Pump up the Valuum” and slapped them here; the same for the Misfits, now happily settled into the tunnels of Alzheimer's, and for Bad Religion, who retrieved the reel from “No Control”. The Queers instead make you think unequivocally that their latest works are marketed directly from the mental hygiene clinic where they all reside, while Matt Freeman of Rancid seems now intent on letting us know that he-can-play-the-bass (sure!) even when he goes to buy peaches at the market. Ugly and disappointing.
The happiest moments are instead given by Terrorgruppe and Gwar (whose lyrics are “delicious”), the Damned with 30 seconds of an atmosphere that no one would have expected from them, the historic No Means No who grind like a steamroller, the Dickies who reconfirm what they are, nothing but a lethal melody-making machine, the Circle Jerks, whom I love a priori and therefore cannot be objective, and the Chixdiggit, who produce the absolute 24 most perfect seconds of the entire collection, there isn’t a nanosecond that isn’t where it should be.
Ideal album for very impatient people or those suffering from serious injuries to the short-term memory centers; you don’t have to be a fan of the genre (and I couldn't blame you) to appreciate it… if I don’t find out I have serious injuries to my computer skills centers, I'll even provide some samples!