Best Off (album)

Best Off^[1] (stylised as tism.bestoff.) is a compilation album by the Australian alternative rock band TISM, released on 29 July 2002.^[2] The album peaked at No. 44 on the ARIA Charts.^[3]

Best Off
Compilation album by TISM
Released	29 July 2002 (2002-07-29)
Recorded	1985–2000
Genre	Alternative rock
Length	61:00
Label	genre b.goode /FMR
Producer	TISM
TISM chronology
De RigueurMortis (2001) Best Off (2002) The White Albun (2004)

Reception

Bronius Zumeris from Beat magazine opined that "Offbeat wit and profanity litter their work" while "Cynics argue that they are a puerile, one joke band trying to flog a dying horse" and the collection "is not a flawless appraisal of their 15 odd years of cultural/musical terror. But it does collate much of the essential TISM for the consumer society."^[4]

Track listing

Best Off

No.	Title	Album	Length
1.	"Defecate on My Face"	Defecate on My Face 7"	4:50
2.	"Death, Death, Death"	Machines Against the Rage	3:16
3.	"Saturday Night Palsy"	Great Truckin' Songs of the Renaissance	2:54
4.	"I'm Interested in Apathy"	Great Truckin' Songs of the Renaissance	2:50
5.	"I Drive a Truck"	Great Truckin' Songs of the Renaissance	3:02
6.	"40 Years - Then Death"	Great Truckin' Songs of the Renaissance	3:41
7.	"The History of Western Civilisation"	Hot Dogma	3:00
8.	"I'll 'Ave Ya"	Hot Dogma	2:14
9.	"Get Thee to a Nunnery"	The Beasts of Suburban	2:41
10.	"Lillee Caught Dilley Bowled Milli Vanilli"	Machines Against the Rage	2:54
11.	"(He'll Never Be An) Ol' Man River"	Machiavelli and the Four Seasons	2:24
12.	"Greg! The Stop Sign!!"	Machiavelli and the Four Seasons	3:28
13.	"All Homeboys Are Dickheads"	Machiavelli and the Four Seasons	3:07
14.	"Whatareya?"	www.tism.wanker.com	3:38
15.	"Five Yards"	De Rigueurmortis	3:14
16.	"Sid Viscous"	Previously unreleased	3:33
17.	"The Phillip Ruddock Blues"	Previously unreleased	7:13
18.	"Defecate on My Face" (MGF Remix, Sydney 2002)	Previously unreleased	3:33

Bonus disc

Initial copies of the album came with a bonus disc, This Is Serious Mum: A Collection of Bedroom Recordings 1982-1992, containing 25 unreleased bedroom demos spanning TISM's first ten years.

This Is Serious Mum: A Collection of Bedroom Recordings 1982-1992

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Eckermann is Very Silly"	2:58
2.	"The Ballad of the Semitic Nazi"	3:30
3.	"Yassa Ara-Thin-A-Go-Go"	4:57
4.	"I Go to Werribee"	3:01
5.	"Ladies and Gentlemen: The Judeo - Christian Ethic"	2:26
6.	"Ezra Pound, Axe-King Part 1: The Ballad of J. Arthur White Australia Policy Part 2: The Petty Bourgeois Revolution Part 3: Art, Religion and the Neo-Classical Dialectic Part 4: The Hairy Diadem"	3:21
7.	"The English-Speaking Peoples"	0:51
8.	"Doug Parkinson Sings Christie Allen"	2:59
9.	"I Await the Coming of the Scottish Third Reich"	2:40
10.	"A Tale of Two Faeces"	0:21
11.	"Almost Blue by Ian Curtis"	2:04
12.	"The Back Upon Which Jezza Jumped"	3:09
13.	"Jumpin' Jivin' Jimmy "The Ghost" Joyce"	3:21
14.	"Unknown, Unacknowledged, Unforgettable, Underpants"	3:20
15.	"Life is Fairly Silly, Really"	1:43
16.	"Landscape, Seascape, Escape"	2:27
17.	"I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Whittle Away My Furniture"	2:26
18.	Untitled (titled "(Somewhere in This School...)" on the iTunes release)	3:46
19.	"How to End All Suffering"	2:34
20.	"Frenzy"	1:13
21.	"I'm Gonna Treat Ya to a Neitszche Double Feature"	2:17
22.	"You're Only as Good as Your Fans"	2:18
23.	"My Geronation"	2:23
24.	"This Morning I Had Work to Do"	2:56
25.	"Tu e La Tua Razza fa'un Culo"	1:13

• "The Ballad of the Semitic Nazi" and "Doug Parkinson Sings Christie Allen" previously appeared in excerpt form on Great Truckin' Songs of the Renaissance.
• The full version of "Unknown, Unacknowledged, Unforgettable, Underpants" would later appear as a hidden track on the 2021 remastered reissue of This Is Serious Mum, the band's 1984 demo tape.
• "You're Only as Good as Your Fans", "My Gerontation", "This Morning I Had Work to Do" and "Tu e La Tua Razza fa'un Culo" all reappeared on the 2025 boxset reissue of Australia the Lucky Cunt ("Tu e La Tua Razza..." as a vinyl-exclusive hidden track). The tracks were listed only as being recorded "sometime between 1990-92" on the original release of Best Off, but the boxset placed those recordings in November 1992.
  • The phrase tu e la tua razza vaffanculo, which "Tu e La Tua Razza..." alludes to, was first uttered in October 1991 on a demo recording of "Aussiemandias", which itself was included as a bonus track on the iTunes version of the band's 1992 EP The Beasts of Suburban and the 2023 box set of that album.
  • Lyrics from "My Gerontation" reappeared in the Australia the Lucky Cunt song "Jesus Pots the White Ball".

Charts

Chart (2002)	Peak position
Australian Albums (ARIA)[5]	44

Release history

Release history and formats for Best Off

Region	Date	Format(s)	Edition	Label	Catalogue
Australia	July 2002	CD	Standard	genre b.goode	TISM010
		2×CD	Limited edition (with A Collection of Bedroom Recordings 1982-1992)		TISM009
	October 2009	Re-issue	Digital download		—