Reel Big Fish - Cheer Up

About "Cheer Up"

Cheer Up! is the fourth studio album by American rock band Reel Big Fish. Released on June 25, 2002, the album was the band's first after the turn of the new millennium, following the release of 1998's Why Do They Rock So Hard? With the advent of the 2000s, and following the band's mainstream success during the third wave of ska, the marketability of and interest in ska waned; despite this, Reel Big Fish continued to tour successfully and maintain a significant fan base while recording Cheer Up! across a number of different recording studios in California. Val Garay produced the majority of the tracks, with frontman Aaron Barrett, trumpeter Scott Klopfenstein and Gordie Johnson producing select songs.

Cheer Up! received generally favorable reviews from critics, some of which praised the inclusion of other styles and genres into the band's sound. It reached number 115 in the United States, number 46 in Australia and number 96 in the United Kingdom; "Where Have You Been?" peaked at number 76 in the UK. Cheer Up! has been described as belonging to the pop-punk and power pop genres, and tackles the theme of heartbreak. "Where Have You Been?" was released as the album's lead single in May 2002, which was promoted with an appeared on that year's Warped Tour. They continued to tour across the US, as well as Australia and Japan until the end of the year; 2003 saw the band visit Europe and play a variety of US festivals, prior to a North American headlining tour.