Operation Phoenix (album)
Operation Phoenix is the fourth album by the Santa Cruz, California-based hardcore punk band Good Riddance, released May 4, 1999 through Fat Wreck Chords. It marked a change in recording location and production team for the band: their previous three albums had been recorded in San Francisco with producer and recording engineer Ryan Greene, but for Operation Phoenix the band traveled to Fort Collins, Colorado to record at The Blasting Room with Jason Livermore and Descendents/All members Bill Stevenson and Stephen Egerton. This marked the beginning of a long-term working relationship: Good Riddance would record all of their studio material at The Blasting Room using the same production team until 2003, when the band slipped into inactivity and singer Russ Rankin started Only Crime with Stevenson. Stevenson and Livermore would return to record and produce Good Riddance's final studio album My Republic in 2006, which was recorded in San Francisco. Rankin later commented that working with The Blasting Room team was a major turning point in recording for the band:
We did our first three albums with Ryan Greene and Ryan Greene is a great engineer and a really great guy and we learned a lot about being prepared to record ... his studio know-how was top-notch, his demeanor was top-notch, and we learned a lot, but when we decided we wanted a change, and we went to the Blasting Room, it was like...so different ... they knew what we were trying to do ... Also, the way they recorded...it was completely out of the ordinary...we'd been through the culture where you'd lay down the drums first, then you lay down the bass, then you lay down the guitars, and then you do the vocals...and we get to the Blasting Room and once the drums were done it was like, all bets are off, Chuck [Platt, bassist] would go in for a couple hours, then I would go in, then Luke [Pabich, guitarist] would go in, and we'd just be chipping away at these songs ... it was definitely a new approach for us anyway, we'd never done anything like that before...so I think that those guys really brought out the best in us, they challenged us, but they also, I think, had a really innate sense of knowing what we were trying to get done.[1]
| Operation Phoenix | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | May 4, 1999 | |||
| Recorded | February 1999 at The Blasting Room, Fort Collins, Colorado | |||
| Genre | Hardcore punk, melodic hardcore, punk rock, post-hardcore | |||
| Length | 39:25 | |||
| Label | Fat Wreck Chords (FAT 587) | |||
| Producer | Bill Stevenson, Stephen Egerton, Jason Livermore | |||
| Good Riddance chronology | ||||
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Operation Phoenix was Good Riddance's last album with drummer Sean Sellers until 2006.[2] Following his departure in late 1999, Lagwagon drummer Dave Raun filled in with the band until Dave Wagenschutz of Kid Dynamite joined as a permanent replacement.[2] Sellers would return to Good Riddance in 2006 for My Republic and Remain in Memory: The Final Show.[2]
Reception
Steve Huey of Allmusic gave Operation Phoenix three stars out of five, remarking that the album "doesn't deviate much from Good Riddance's established pattern of stinging melodic punk and raging socially conscious lyrics, but it's a fine, well-executed take on that formula that ranks with the best of their work."[3]
Track listing
All tracks are written by Russ Rankin, except where noted
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Shadows of Defeat" (contains an excerpt from a February 1967 speech given by Martin Luther King Jr.[4]) | 2:12 |
| 2. | "Blueliner" | 1:38 |
| 3. | "The Hardest Part" | 1:43 |
| 4. | "Eighteen Seconds" | 0:30 |
| 5. | "Heresy, Hypocrisy, and Revenge" (lyrics: Rankin; music: Luke Pabich; contains a dialogue excerpt from the film Some Kind of Wonderful) | 2:21 |
| 6. | "Self-Fulfilling Catastrophe" | 2:06 |
| 7. | "Article IV" (contains an excerpt from Mario Savio's "Bodies upon the gears" speech and a quote by Ronald Reagan) | 2:59 |
| 8. | "Indoctrination" | 1:09 |
| 9. | "Shit-Talking Capitalists" | 1:26 |
| 10. | "Letters Home" | 2:22 |
| 11. | "30 Day Wonder" (lyrics: Rankin; music: Pabich) | 1:52 |
| 12. | "Dear Cammi" | 1:04 |
| 13. | "Yesterday Died – Tomorrow Won't Be Born" | 1:38 |
| 14. | "Winning the Hearts and Minds" (contains an excerpt from Noam Chomsky's "Propaganda model in media analysis" speech) | 2:19 |
| 15. | "A Time and a Place" | 1:50 |
| 16. | "Second Coming" (originally performed by Battalion of Saints) | 1:26 |
| 17. | "After the Nightmare" (lyrics: Rankin; music: Pabich) "My War" (hidden track; written by Chuck Dukowski and originally performed by Black Flag) | 10:50 |
| Total length: | 39:25 | |
Personnel
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Additional musicians
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References
- Jain, Sean (2010-06-17). "Interviews: Russ Rankin (Good Riddance, Only Crime)". Punknews.org. Retrieved 2010-09-02.
- Cornelius, David. "Good Riddance Biography". Allmusic. Retrieved 2010-08-31.
- Huey, Steve. "Review: Operation Phoenix". Allmusic. Retrieved 2010-09-02.
- King, Martin Luther Jr. (1967-02-27). Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Racial Segregation (video and text). San Francisco: KPIX-TV. excerpt starts at 0:59. Retrieved 2020-11-11 – via Bay Area Television Archive.
When we look at modern man we have to face the fact...