“I used to set my alarm clock when I was a bike messenger to 6 o’clock in the morning, and when the alarm clock would go off, the first word out of my mouth was always ‘Goddamnit!’” — Matt Skiba
Is this a classic? I can’t say. Alkaline Trio released Goddamnit! in 1998, the year in which I would blissfully acquire Backstreet’s Back and the Godzilla soundtrack on cassette. Max Martin, Jimmy Page, and Puff Daddy were my heroes then, not this emo stuff. But anyone growing up (or not) around the turn of the millennium would have a hard time denying the influence of these pop punk rockers on sad, angsty kids all across America. On “San Francisco”, Skiba sings his own version of what it’s like to leave their heart in the city by the Bay, only to have to return to a grueling bike messenger grind back in Chicago.
Coincidentally, Goddamnit! was the first of two albums released by Alkaline Trio on Asian Man Records, a small record label still active in San Jose.
