Mustard Plug – Masterpieces: 1991-2002

There aren’t too many ska bands around these days, and for that, I’m glad. Not because I hate the genre, because in reality, I love it. But, if there were millions of ska bands around, the genre would be flooded and ruined, which would really be quite a sad thing. Yeah, in the mid nineties it blew up and everyone was playing ska, but it soon melted away. Nonetheless, there are a few bands which have stayed from the beginning and have remained faithful to the spectacular genre, one of those bands is Mustard Plug. The band, which formed in 1991, has released five albums and is currently in the middle of writing a new album and setting up a DVD. During this slight downtime, their long time label, Hopeless Records decided to sift through their five releases and select the best songs and release them as a greatest hits CD: Masterpieces: 1991-2002.

The nineteen track album features all of the band’s most famous songs and really shows why they’ve lasted so long. Whether the songs are from Big Daddy Multitude or Yellow #5, each and everyone is full of toe-tapping ska melodies that never fail to entertain. The songs, which aren’t in chronological order, still are able to paint a vivid picture of the band’s career and growth. That’s not saying their older songs are pulling the album down, because in fact, some of the older ones are the highlights. They are ska-punk songs are the best there can be. Catchy, fist pumping, toe tapping, skank inducing songs that get you shouting the chorus along with the band.

With songs like Beer (Song), Mr. Smilie, Lolita, Go, You, Brain On Ska, Everything Girl, Skank By Numbers, Box and We’re Gunna Take On The World, you know the CD will be great. The only song that would make the album more complete would be their cover of Verve Pipe‘s The Freshman. Although long time fans of the band will love the CD and the little background information about the songs in the booklet, it really doesn’t show anything they’ve haven’t heard before. There isn’t a single unreleased track on here, so chances are they already own most of them. But for casual fans like myself,Masterpieces: 1991-2002 is a gold mine of epic proportions. Any ska fan should pick it up.

Oh, and enhanced CD portion features two music videos for you to watch.