And No One Else Wanted to Play

Album Review

SNFU's 1984 full-length debut quickly established them as one of the most talented and unique participants of the burgeoning early-'80s hardcore scene. And No One Else Wanted to Play set the tone for SNFU's career on several levels. While many hardcore bands of the period dealt strictly in anger and rebellion, SNFU meshed these elements with a wry sense of humor and warped but goofy subject matter. Songs like "Cannibal Café" and "She's Not on the Menu reveal Mr. Chi Pig's penchant for dark humor and witty wordplay. While a strong current of humor runs throughout this as well as their later releases, SNFU is not a novelty act, and their debut aptly establishes this fact. Classic hardcore bile surfaces on several songs throughout. "Seeing Life Through the Bottom of a Bottle" and "Money Matters" revel in traditional punk-rock themes of angst and disenfranchisement from mainstream society. These ideas may seem a bit overplayed today, but SNFU was at the forefront of the genre and set the standards that persisted through the hardcore scene of the '80s and '90s. The production of And No One Else Wanted to Play tends to date this release somewhat, but it also provides a document of the hardcore scene in its purely independent phase, long before the major-label punk rock feeding frenzy of the early to mid-'90s. For the trivia file, this release also marks the origin of the continuing SNFU tradition of seven-word album titles. And No One Else Wanted to Play is classic early-'80s hardcore at its best and brightest. The ever-present wit of Mr. Chi Pig combined with the frenzied but skillful guitar attack of brothers Brent and Marc Belke creates a unique style that many hardcore bands continue to draw from but never quite duplicate. A must for devoted fans of the genre and a worthy introduction to early-'80s hardcore for the uninitiated.