Save Ferris - It Means Everything

Released in September 1997 on Epic, It Means Everything is the debut from Orange County's Save Ferris, and it somehow took until 2026 for anyone to press it on vinyl. Nearly thirty years of third-wave ska nostalgia and this one sat there, CD only, while lesser records got deluxe box sets.

Monique Powell's voice is the engine. She had a genuine belt, more Broadway than punk, and she sat it on top of a seven-piece horn-driven band that could actually play their parts. Peter Collins produced. The Dexys Midnight Runners cover "Come On Eileen" is what got them on alternative radio and into what feels like every late-nineties teen movie, and the album peaked at 75 on the Billboard pop chart on the back of it. But the covers were never the point. "The World Is New," "Superspy" and the deeply, proudly silly "Spam" are why people kept the record. "Everything I Want To Be" closes it out with strings, which by any reasonable standard should not work on a ska album and absolutely does.

The scene it came out of collapsed almost immediately afterward, which has meant a lot of these records get remembered as period pieces. This one holds up because the songs are good and the band is tight, and because Powell was too distinctive a singer to be a genre footnote.

First-ever vinyl pressing, mastered by Stephen Marcussen. On Parting Gift Records.