Sorry For Partyin'

Along with their perpetual penchant for binge drinking anthems (like the instantly enjoyable “Hooray For Beer”), Bowling for Soup still make memorably punky power pop on their seventh studio album. Though now pushing 40, singer Jaret Reddick muses on less sexually themed adult situations. In the opening “A Really Cool Dance Song” he sings that the only way he’ll be able to pay the mortgage is by riding shotgun on the dance song bandwagon (the tune itself makes fun of Lady GaGa-styled dance-pop with cartoonish synthesizer sounds and an exaggerated disco beat). Of course the band still plays their signature style of juvenile joke-rock as heard on the work-dodging number, “No Hablo Inglés” and the phallically metaphoric “My Wena.” They take a detour on “Me With No You,” an actual heartfelt ballad that unveils enough honestly lovelorn sentiment for someone like Taylor Swift to cover — which is strategic on Reddick’s part because after all this partying, it may take a break-up/make-up song to get him out of the doghouse.

Punky power pop pranksters Bowling for Soup have made a career out of matching catchy, unusually well-crafted pop music with clever, humorous lyrics suggesting that the band was eternally stuck in high school.