Orgcore's Best Ever Albums According to the Machine

Ah yes. The end of the world is finally here. And who would have thought it would come not from poisoning our planet, not from electing right wing quasi dictators all over the world, not even from an awesome comet smashing the world. No, we decided to do it in the dumbest way possible by taking all the accumulated knowledge we have and feeding it to machines so we can get new, worse interpretations of that knowledge and have videos of the queen addressing crowds speaking Patwa while sporting dreadlocks and Jamaican flag dresses.

Yes, it was classically dumb, but after all that’s what we are. If you teach a man to fish, he will overfish and feed all the leftover water to cool a big hot machine that tells him to commit suicide. But hey, I’m not any better than them. On what I figure to be around the 20th anniversary of orgcore, I have used my new friend machine learning to figure out the consensus 5 orgcore releases. Has time been kind? Have I even heard these records? We will also introduce the org-i-fier. A scale made up of key factors such as:

How throaty are the vocals?

How obscure are the song titles?

The most interesting punknews.org comment in the album review

We feed the thirsty machine the data and here are the results in no particular order:

The Lawrence Arms – Oh! Calcutta!

Are you there Margaret? It’s me goddamn this record still cooks. A stone cold classic whose reach goes so far beyond the supposed orgcore trappings that it shakes an entire genre to its core. Every track rolls like a freight train graffitied with fuck all this ancient history on it’s side. The computer might be right about this one. As for a personal history, this might be the

record I have heard the most on this list.

How throaty are the vocals? 6/10

- Brenden gives the rasp, and despite a few notable moments, his duet partner Chris is still a smooth talker at heart.

How obscure are the song titles? 5/10

- We are about half and half on this. Some titles are screamed over and over in the chorus while others are references upon references. A nice mix, not overdone to the point where you can’t remember a song name to save your life but also not

so obvious that it becomes a pop album.

The most interesting punknews comment in the album review:

Yes, I emailed him 20 years after he posted this, and yes he got the track.

Notable comparison the machine made to this album: Bomb the Music Industry! - Vacation

The Menzingers – On the Impossible Past

Listen. I don’t get it. I don’t get the thing here. I never have. I listened to this album a lot

when it came out but it never did it for me. I put it on today and it still didn’t. My great

disappointment is not with the record itself, but with me. I thought I was ready, I thought I was old enough. I’m sorry, Menzingers.

How throaty are the vocals? 0/10

- Clear as a hecking bell.

How obscure are the song titles? 1/10

- No references? Sorry machines, no dice here.

The most interesting punknews comment in the album review:

The runner up comment to this one was a guy that begins by arguing about the album,

segues into an argument about microbreweries and ends with him defending fedoras.

Notable comparison the machine made to this album: The Gaslight Anthem - The 59 Sound

Dillinger Four – Midwestern Songs of the Americas

Yes, this record does in fact rip. That has been scientifically proven many times over. As

Dillinger’s debut record, it’s full of absolute huge swings that for the most part pay off. The

record is filthy sounding, and no better examples lies in the God-tier second track #51 Dick

Butkus. The track devolves into…something…something special? But the record has so much

melody in the muck that it cannot be denied. And the lyrics? Pull them up right now and tell me there is no poetry in this gruff music we love. It’s an album of well earned classics that marked the start of a career of writing them.

How throaty are the vocals? 9/10

- Brother, let me tell you. The three vocal trade off in Mosh for Jesus for is

unparalleled in throatiness. It’s the cheat sheet every band in the genre has been

using since this album came out in nineteen-ninty-fucking-eight.

How obscure are the song titles? 10/10

- They invented this trend. Supermodels Don’t Drink Colt .45, Honey, I Shit the Hot

Tub, Portrait of the Artist as a Fucking Asshole. Classics. Also, we should build a

statue of Paddy for his ability to find obscure samples; No less than five songs

begin a sample from God knows where but it really does help you realize how

particularly thought out even the silence is on this album.

The most interesting punknews comment in the album review:

22 years and we’re kind asking the same questions. Never change D4. Never change.

Notable comparison the machine made to this album: Hot Water Music - Caution

Against Me! – As the Eternal Cowboy

I like Against Me! And I dislike them too. It is a total album to album scenario that lacks

any kind of rational thought. Transgender Dysphoria Blues is a masterpiece. I can’t stand

Reinventing Axl Rose. Searching for a Former Clarity is a top tier album with the best production they have ever had. I was surprised the machine spit out As the Eternal Cowboy as the pick here. I know it’s a special album for some people but to me it has always been the absolute middle of the road as an AM album. I haven’t heard it for a while, and honestly it was pretty damn good. The songs are delivered with the urgency that they were written. I’m not a huge fan of the “piratey jigs” AM can get into, but thankfully those moments are brief on this album. Laura Jane’s icepick guitar tracks should be studied in the greatest schools on how to get the sound that so many try to get. I winced when I saw this on the list, but I can find myself returning to it soon.

How throaty are the vocals? 6/10

- What if Hot Water Music warmed up instead of screaming at brick walls? Laura’s

vocals on this record are the start of her power era. It’s throaty, but it’s coming

from the gut.

How obscure are the song titles? 2/10

- Never one for subtlety, this one isn’t really their bag.

The most interesting punknews comment in the album review:

Notable comparison the machine made to this album: Latterman - No Matter Where We Go..! If that isn’t a totally hallucinated comparison that devalues all of AI’s supposed power then I don’t know what is.

Hot Water Music – Fuel for the Hate Game

Close your eyes. You can see it, can’t you? The crowd of husky, bearded men, expressing their excitement by swaying back and forth, the warm cheap beer swishing around in

the bottom of the cans. Rigidly, their fists go up during a passionate moment of the song, as if they haven’t expressed themselves publicly in years. This is the vision I see when I hear the

opening hits of 220 years. Coming out in 1997, this is the earliest album on our list and even

though I loath to define when genres begin, you have to admit that there wasn’t anything that sounded like this album before and you could argue there hasn’t been anything like it since. Like Fugazi on steroids or Leatherface without their English charm. The songs are darker and angrier than either of the aforementioned bands. The album chugs along with a surprising amount of technicality that the band would forgo in every subsequent release. The guitar lines weave in and out of each other, the drums blast double kicks and china hits usually saved for metal bands. The bass. The bass! It percolates along the songs like a grimy version of Karl Alvarez. It’s high in the mix and drives a number of the songs. The howling, traded off vocals laid the groundwork for the orgcore movement that would follow. It’s not just a classic of the genre, it’s the beginning of one.

How throaty are the vocals? 10/10

- Are you kidding me? Go to ear school.

How obscure are the song titles? 0/10

- Nada. These guys don’t really do that.

The most interesting punknews comment in the album review:

Eat dogs called it.

Yes, on the surface this is a great list of Orgcore albums. You can’t go wrong with any of

them. All winners. But what did the thirsty computers forget? Alkaline Trio, Avail, Iron Chic, Off With Their Heads, RVIVR, Jawbreaker, O Pioneers! Ect ect etc.

Artificial Intelligence? It’s not a replacement for taste. At least a drunken Kid Dynamite

fan can be wrong with dignity.