BTMI! in Tampa, Florida, 2012
I'm checking out, I'm fucking done
Kiss my fat ass, I'm giving up
Eat shit and die, I'm taking off
Have a nice life, have a nice death
Kiss my fat ass, I'm giving up
Eat shit and die, I'm taking off
Have a nice life, have a nice death
— "Sweet Home Cananada"
In 2004, Jeff Rosenstock was faced with a conundrum. He wanted to record a song, but his band, The Arrogant Sons Of Bitches, was taking a break. He eventually used his laptop to record it in the bedroom of his parents' house, uploaded it to the internet, and credited to Bomb the Music Industry!. After TASOB broke up, Bomb the Music Industry! became Jeff's main musical focus.
By 2008, BtMI! had become more of a musical collective, featuring a slightly different lineup for every song on Scrambles. Over the next three years, the collective trimmed itself down to five more-or-less consistent members with a lot of guests. However, it would only last for two more years, and Bomb the Music Industry! called an indefinite hiatus after their final show on January 19th, 2014, later admitting that there was an "absolute zero" chance of any kind of reunion.
They remain surprisingly influential and well known for their DIY ethic which included homemade T-shirts, forming their own record label, and giving away their records for free.
In 2017, Jeff composed the music for the Cartoon Network series Craig of the Creek.
Discography
- Album Minus Band.
(2005) - To Leave Or Die In Long Island (2005)
- Goodbye Cool World! (2006) (originally titled Clap Your Hands Say Shut the Fuck Up)
- Get Warmer (2007)
- Split With O Pioneers!!! (2007)
- Scrambles (2008)
- Others! Others! Volume 1 (2009) (compilation of B-Sides, demos, and other unreleased material from 2005-2008)
- Split With Laura And The Cans (2009)
- Adults!!!... Smart!!! Shithammered!!! And Excited By Nothing!!!!!! (2010)
- Vacation (2011)
- Respond and Rebuild (2012) (charity single for "Big Kisses")
Tropes found in their music include:
- Album Intro Track: Many albums by BTMI! feature intro tracks.
- Album Minus Band. has "Blow Your Brains Out on Live TV!!!"
- Goodbye Cool World! has "Old and Unprofessional"
- Get Warmer has "Jobs Schmobs"
- and Scrambles has "Cold Chillin' Cold Chillin'"
- Anti-Love Song: "I Don't Love You Anymore" is disguised as one, but it's actually about quitting drinking. "Sweet Home Cananada" and "Future 86" are straighter examples.
- Book Ends: Their 2011 album, Vacation, begins with an alternating key piano arrangement on the first track, "Campaign for a Better Next Weekend." Then, at the end of the last track (aside from the hidden tracks), "Felt Just Like Vacation," the same pattern can be heard in a slightly higher key and on guitar.
- Continuity Nod: The doodle on the cover of Get Warmer reappears in a few shots of the music video for "Everybody That You Love".
- The third song on Scrambles, "It Shits!!!", is about using "shits" instead of "sucks". The second to last song on Scrambles, "Saddr Weirdr" contains the line "That's gonna shit".
- Christmas Songs: They planned to release a Christmas song EP, but it got delayed until February and changed to a President's Day EP, leading to lines like "My family will be excited when they look under the Presidents' Day tree."
- Concept Album: Get Warmer is a concept album about moving, being broke, and being unhappy in general. Surprisingly, it's quite happy.
- Epic Rocking: The title track to Get Warmer is their longest song, at 6:50. A few other songs also break the six minute mark.
- They generally try to stay away from this. The explanation for "Syke! Life Is Awesome!" includes this quote: "if a song is longer than four minutes it better HAVE to be longer than four minutes."
- Fake-Out Fade-Out: "Wednesday Night Drinkball" and "$2,400,000" both have unexpected codas that last for a few bars after the song seems to end.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: There's a "brief but accurate" timeline of their supposed "selling out" onscreen for a few seconds in the music video for "Everybody That You Love".
- Genre Mashup: They started out as a ska-punk band with an indie rock influence and heavy use of synthesizers and Chiptune elements, but the indie part of them slowly became more and more pronounced, while the ska part faded.
- Hidden Track: After none on their previous albums, Vacation includes two. The first is a ballad nicknamed "(Don't Destroy Yourself)" (which is found by putting the needle a bit past the last song on side 2) while the other is simple stage banter.
- I Am the Band: Jeff, who writes all the songs and, for the first two or three albums, played almost all the instruments.
- Instrumentals: "Big Ending", a brief synthesizer arpeggio that leads into "The First Time I Met Sanawon". There's also "Sponge Board/Baby Waves", a short interlude with wordless chorus vocals after "Everybody That You Love".
- Lyrical Dissonance: A lot. One example is "Everybody That You Love", a peppy, energetic song about slowly realizing how you've disappointed people.
- Miniscule Rocking: They have a few songs that are under a minute in length, but "4 Inches!", "Big Ending," and "Fuck the Fans" are their shortest at under half a minute.
- Motor Mouth: Jeff can sing fast when he wants to, "(Shut) Up The Punx!!!" and the later half of "I Don't Love You Anymore" being good examples.
- Step Up to the Microphone: Kepi Ghoulie sings a few lines to "It Shits!!!" and Laura Stevenson duets with Jeff on "All Ages Shows" and "Sort of Like Being Pumped."
- Studio Chatter: "Jobs Shmobs" ends with Jeff saying "Yeah, why not? Why not?". "Stuff That I Like" ends with a clip of someone laughing and saying "I'll scream it better, I fucked up the beginning."
- Take That!: At least two songs per album, with the exception of Vacation.
- That Man Is Dead: "Bomb The Music Industry! (And Action Action) (And Refused) (And Born Against) Are Fucking Dead."
- Three Chords and the Truth: A few tracks feature this, but overall, Jeff Rosenstock's songwriting uses more complex chord progressions in line with the Beach Boys influence.
