I've been wanting to review 40 Oz to Freedom for a long time now, as it is one of my favorite pieces of recorded music that I have found on this planet in my 28+ years of life and passionate appreciation of good music. In the likely event that my review gets excessively long here, I will state my major point early. This album is incredibily and DECEPTIVELY sophisticated. Sure, it is a rebellious, trend sparking album bubbling with attitude and venom and many many kids, teens and social outcasts love it. Sometimes kids like very very good things. One should really take notice!

Musicianship: Scrape away all you know about the drugs, death, drama and turmoil surrounding Sublime and focus exclusively on their music... the notes, the melodies, the transitions, the accents, the basslines, the song structures and most importantly the incredibily meticulous attention to detail cleverly hidden under a "punk rock guise" here. This group was remarkably talented. I urge anyone with a hint of music background to give this record a spin and put an intelligent ear to some of what lurks in this album. Sublime alone was a ferrocious three piece unit, but they are fearless and absolutely bullet proof when they are joined by their friends, recording engineers, Djs, guest horn players, extra percussions, guitars, toasters etc. etc. This was a "super-nova" recording. The odds of these specific people coming together in this complex arrangement and creating this collection of sound waves is remarkable. The only recent musical statement I can mildly compare it to in this regard is the under-appreciated Paul's Boutique by the Beastie Boys from 1989. An intelligent sensitive ear will sense the white hot energy in these grooves. This album flirts with danger like a stuntman. It has teeth too. It has sharp wit, street cred and a biting sense of humor. 40 oz. burns with frightening raw power. It hits nerves in the stomach the way Guns and Roses did with Sweet Child O'Mine. It revisits the rush kids get from shoplifting a candybar or lighting a fire or discovering your Dad's Playboy stash for the first time. It is that good.

Brad is the crazed captain of this ship. You wonder if he can promise a safe return, let alone the delusion of treasure, spices and women. He is the Alpha Male who can pound his chest, boast bi-lingual croons, scat thick reggae and play guitar like a prophet. I am serious here. The dangerous level of charisma Brad possessed is glowing on this recording. The cat could sing. He was unapologetic and sexist and indulgent at times and could make the most vulgar slum laden vocal sound angelic. There are moments of pure beauty, pure love, pure joy here. It's visibile in the fade in to Badfish. It's dominant in Scarlet Bagonias. It's even laced in there on "Dj's" with the caution of a caucasion Grandmaster Flash. On the flipside there is then wicked and rampant paranoia captured in such "deceptively" simple brush strokes... the initial feedback on their Decendents cover of Hope, the engine of New Thrash, the scat line to Scarlet Bagonias.

Eric is the gentle giant. His bass parts are patient, reserved and spaceous. He has no desire to compete with Brad or Bud for the spotlight (why would a sane person even dare?). He plays the bass as bass was intended and should be commended for his abilities here. His touch is subtle and supportive and contains an elephant back framework capable of holding the whole chaotic mess together. He shines quietly in the background with consistancy and yet his bass lines are still intriguing and demand investigation.

Bud is Brad's toxic twin, an intense personality that delivers the second knock-out punch. He is certainly second to Brad but he gets his jabs in real good. Listen to this guy's snare drum snap. He can play simple reggae beats spiked with the snarl of the best punk rock and when his absence is filled in with sampled James Brown funk the results are still captivating.

In the early to mid 90's NOBODY was making music like this. NOBODY was sampling Eazy E next to the Specials, Bad Religion, Jimmy Cliff, Kurtis Blow and the Minutemen (to name a few!). This sort of thing was the work of lunatic bravery which could have easily failed miserably. This is a painting that uses ALL the paint tubes and stays together by miracle.This album could easily have fallen HARD off it's track and burned up before anyone outside of LBC even took notice.

Sublime pulled this off and it is a truly SACRED recording.

40 Oz. To Freedom is the only album that I have 5 copies of, one for my house, one for my car, one for the office, and two imports with extra songs.

The most precious cd I own is a copy of 40 Oz. that was part of the initial Skunk Records release, before the record was re-released by MCA. That cd has a hidden track named "Get Out" and a bonus cover of the old tv show tune "Rawhide" after their famous song "Date Rape". I've had people offer me $50 just for that one cd, and I wouldn't take $500 for it.

It's hard to categorize Sublime's music without stepping on somebody's toes, but I would say that it's a mix of ska, punk, and reggae with a little bit of surfer lifestyle mixed in for good measure. It has great covers of some amazing songs, including Toots and The Maytals' "54-46 That's My Number". You can see that Sublime is a true ska band because of all the different references to classic ska and reggae cuts coupled with references to Jamaican culture as well. Most of my cd collection is classic ska and reggae from the '60s and '70s, but I honestly believe that this is one of the top ten ska albums of all time, inclusive of any time period or genre, be it two-tone music from the Specials, to the third wave bands like The Toasters, to ska/punk like Skankin Pickle, or classic roots ska artists like Desmond Dekker and Derrick Morgan.

There really is no way to do this cd justice, from it's cover art to it's closing credits (instead of being printed inside the cd case, they're the last track on the cd, spoken over some great music that can be best described as a mix of dub and ska).

This cd has been playing during some of the best and worst moments of my life, and it has practically become the soundtrack to my life, providing great music and lyrics that I can shout out my car window as I drive by frightened pedestrians, and that's why I think it's one of the best ska cds of all time. ;-)

I can't describe how perfect album this is and will be forever. It is an independent release, that should be considered as one of the best releases of any genre ever. That brings us to an interesting topic: What genre is Sublime? The answer is simple, many say ska, reggae, punk... I say feel good music. Bradley Knowell did not write or play music for those who wanted to cry in their beers...to the sublime guys that would be wrong. 40 oz. is the best Sublime release by far, don't be fooled by the self titled album, although great, it doesnt have the feeling of 40 oz. has through all of it's songs. My personal favorites inlcude Krs-One a tribute to the great freestyle rapper and also We're Only Gonna Die From Our Arrogance, a punk inspired cover of bad religions classic. I truly cant believe I've only warn out one cd so far. I treat my 40 oz cd like gold though...because you can't destroy something so beautiful. No summer party or any party should go by without this cd being played in its rotation. Just pick the cd up soon...it'll be worth it for a long long time. Bradley RIP

This CD is more than an hour of the greatest music I have in my entire collection. It is not the same Sublime that released the self entitled album "Sublime, it's a more instrument-based band with better song writings and less emphasis put on the scum of life. "Example: "Wrong Way" from "Sublime" One of my favorite tracks on this CD was taken from the Grateful Dead entitled "Scarlet Begonias." It's a spruced up, wonderful edition of the Dead's hit. Don't get me wrong though, they don't take everything from other bands. Bradley Nowell's lyrics are very touching and his lead guitar and vocalists are very nice. The only thing I don't like about Sublime is that Brad Nowell died early, imagine how many awesome albums they could have made. Well no use wishing for something that's not gonna happen. But--I didn't even get to see them live. Well, I got a few words to sum up this whole CD. "Awesome" "Click the Add To Shopping Cart Button" NOW!

40 Oz'es to freedom summarizes a generation of the effects of the slacker generation and post "Future Shock" generation of youth distorted by the blinding distraction of a world grafitti'ed with too much information and choices.

The 80s and 90s represent the boiling point of information shock. How excess commercialism has forced society into a group attention deficit disorder eclecticized misfits of kids mocked by the baby boomers generation as being weak, unoriginal, and undisciplined.

In this album, Sublime takes these distractions and turns it into musical form that takes ubiquitous, eclectic sounds and glues them together into something total new.

With the distraction of information such as fast food commercials, interrupting news reports, the constant shift of music genres, Sublime, a band from Long Beach, just a few miles from Hollywood, where American culture is sculpted in movies, commericals, and televisions, have created a sound embedded with "sublime" music, subliminal undertones, and infectious ideas.

The sound is eclectic. One moment, you'll hear hyper ska in songs like "Date Rape" and then, a moment later, you'll hear slow punk/psychedelic rock sounds in tunes like "40 Oz to Freedom", and then you'll here hard core madness such as "We only died for....."

The music is beautiful, intense, and one hypnotic expression that can easily be listened from start to finish even though there are about 19 songs on this album!

40 Oz to Freedom seems to be a message that with all the stresses from life, we're just a bottle of alcohol from running away from it. It's a sad testimony that holds a lot of truth. The singer died of an overdose from drugs after "running away from everything" just a bit too far. He never did come back. But, his music lives on for at least my eternity and as long as fans don't forgot.

If you like Fishbone, Bob Marley, Social Distortion, The Mighty Bosstones, The Uptones, The English Beat, The Clash, Rancid, etc., you'll end up loving Sublime and probably already do.

This album is as good as any.

Favorite tracks are: 40 Oz to Freedom, We only died....