''Greatest Hits'' is the fourth studio album by American
rock band
Waterparks
A water park (or waterpark, water world) is an amusement park that features water play areas such as swimming pools, water slides, splash pads, water playgrounds, and lazy rivers, as well as areas for floating, bathing, swimming, and other baref ...
. It is the band's only album with the label
300 Entertainment
Theory Entertainment LLC, doing business as 300 Entertainment, is an American record label founded by Lyor Cohen, Kevin Liles, Todd Moscowitz, and Roger Gold. The label's roster includes acts across multiple genres such as hip hop, rock, pop, ele ...
and was released on May 21, 2021.
Release
The album's lead single, "Lowkey as Hell", was released on September 25, 2020, with the simultaneous announcement of their label transition.
The second single, "Snow Globe", debuted on February 26, 2021.
A few weeks later, the band posted a cryptic URL which allowed users to unscramble the word "NUMB," and would receive a musical snippet upon doing so. The third single of the same name was released on March 29. The website trend would continue, this time featuring a peephole with a forwards counter above it. The fourth single, "You'd Be Paranoid Too (If Everyone Was Out To Get You)", was released on April 28, 2021, sharing its title with an
autobiography
An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life.
It is a form of biography.
Definition
The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...
written by vocalist and rhythm guitarist Awsten Knight. The fifth single, "Just Kidding", was released on May 12, 2021. The sixth single, "Violet!", was released May 18, 2021. A music video was released for the song on May 26, 2021.
Despite heavy involvement with the
production of previous releases, ''Greatest Hits'' is the first Waterparks album for which Knight is explicitly credited as a producer.
The album's cover art was shot by British photographer Phil Knott.
Composition
''Greatest Hits'' has been mainly described as
pop punk,
,
pop
Pop or POP may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* Pop music, a musical genre Artists
* POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade
* Pop!, a UK pop group
* Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band
Albums
* ''Pop'' (G ...
,
,
,
alternative rock,
and contains elements of
drum and bass
Drum and bass (also written as drum & bass or drum'n'bass and commonly abbreviated as D&B, DnB, or D'n'B) is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by fast breakbeats (typically 165–185 beats per minute) with heavy bass and sub-ba ...
,
,
grunge
Grunge (sometimes referred to as the Seattle sound) is an alternative rock genre and subculture that emerged during the in the American Pacific Northwest state of Washington, particularly in Seattle and nearby towns. Grunge fuses elements of p ...
,
,
,
,
and
lo-fi.
Reception
''Greatest Hits'' received critical acclaim. At
Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 82 out of 100 based on 4 reviews, indicating "critical acclaim".
Matt Collar of
AllMusic was positive and considered to songs on Greatest Hits to be "stadium-sized singalong anthems".
Stevie Blackburn of ''Dead Press!'' praised the album and stated that "
he album's
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
seventeen tracks completely deliver...
ndwith the talent that Waterparks possess they have an extremely long and bright career ahead of them."
Sarah Jamieson of ''
DIY'' praised the band's experimentation with various genres stating that it "make
''Greatest Hits'' feel like a whirlwind of genres that far exceed the "pop rock" label that's been placed on them."
Writing for ''
Dork
Dork is a pejorative term for a person (compare with " dweeb" and "fool").
Dork may also refer to: People
* Dork Sahagian, Armenian-American climate scientist
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Dork'' (EP), an album by AFI
* ''Dork'' (magaz ...
'', Jamie MacMillan called the album "great" and stated that the album was "full of hits".
Emily Carter of ''
Kerrang!'' praised the songwriting on the album stating, "Waterparks have genuinely done everything; not so much simply just opening the metaphorical artistic door to give listeners a peek at their sky-high songwriting aspirations, but truly throwing all they have into 17 songs of pure chaotic – but carefully-crafted, don’t forget that – brilliance."
Ali Shutler of ''
NME'' called the album a "bold step into sprawling new territory".
Writing for ''Upset'', Stephen Ackroyd described the album's sound by stating, "never anything but in your face, it switches from pop-punk to full-on hyper-pop banger at will."
''Wall of Sound'' praised the album and considered the album to have a "different vibe to it" than their 2019 album, ''
Fandom''.
Track listing
Notes
* "See You in in the Future" was originally titled without the duplicate "in". It was changed in early November 2021 in response to a misspelt fan tattoo.
Personnel
Credits adapted from
Tidal.
Waterparks
* Awsten Knight – lead vocals, guitar, bass, additional programming, artwork, layout, percussion (track 3), keyboards (track 3)
* Geoff Wigington – guitar, vocals
* Otto Wood – drums, vocals
Additional musicians
*
Zakk Cervini
Zakk Cervini is an American record producer, vocal producer, songwriter, and mixing engineer. He was born in Monroe, Connecticut on June 2, 1993. Cervini's work includes collaborations with Simple Plan, Limp Bizkit, Blink-182, All Time Low, Mach ...
– keyboards (track 3)
* Jared Poythress – keyboards (track 3)
* Lucy Landry - vocal (track 4)
*
Andrew Goldstein – piano (track 3)
*
Mikey Way – bass (track 10)
*
Chris Carrabba
Christopher Ender Carrabba (born April 10, 1975) is the lead singer and guitarist of the band Dashboard Confessional, lead singer of the band Further Seems Forever, and is the vocalist for the folk band Twin Forks.
Early life and education
Born ...
– vocals (track 10)
* De'Wayne – vocals (track 10)
*
Dallon Weekes
Dallon James Weekes (born May 4, 1981) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. He is best known as a member of Panic! at the Disco from 2009 to 2017, performing in the band as a bassist, keyboardist, backing vocalist, ...
– vocals (track 11)
* Zeph – vocals (track 15)
Production
* Awsten Knight – production
* Zakk Cervini – production, engineering, mastering, mixing
* Jared Poythress – additional production (tracks 5, 7, and 13)
* Chris Gehringer – mastering
* Jeff Fenster – A&R Direction
Charts
References
{{Waterparks (band)
2021 albums
Waterparks (band) albums