Jeff Rosenstock surprise-released his album No Dream last year, and it ended up being one of 2020’s better rock projects. Now, he’s gone ahead and taken the album to a different level by releasing Ska Dream, which is, as the title not-so-subtly indicates, a ska version of the album.
Aside from shifting the arrangements, Rosenstock also reworked some of the song titles; “No Time” becomes “No Time To Skank,” “…BNB” becomes “…SKA,” and so on. Rosenstock says of the album:
“The very good idea to make this record came together when, like many other bands throughout this pandemic that refused to participate in super spreading events, we were trying to find a fun way to make some music together to share with people. Otherwise we were just spending our evenings texting the group chat in dread about the collapsing world around us. Not the most fun band activity.
As with most things ska in my life, what started out as a fun goof with friends eventually morphed into ‘Hey, what if we tried to make it good though?’ All of us have a pretty deep history playing and touring the country in punk/ska bands. We all understand the stigma that comes along with ska, we’ve all dealt with the pitfalls of it, and we’ve all kept on truckin’ regardless. If you are one of those people who loves music as long as it isn’t ska, that’s cool, we see you. This record isn’t for you and you don’t have to listen to it. Byeeee.
Okay, everyone else, we see you too, we love you and check it out, SKA DREAM is real.”
Rosenstock also compared the process of making the album to how The Postal Service made Give Up, writing, “We live in different cities and don’t see each other a lot. This record was arranged through file-sharing, as Ska Dream is the obvious 2021 analogue to The Postal Service’s Give Up.”
Stream Ska Dream below.