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Enemy of the System

album by The Toasters

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionDec 7, 2025
Entity authorityQ5376803 ↗
Source-derived summary

Enemy of the System is a studio album by the ska band the Toasters, released in 2002. The album was the first Toasters release on Asian Man Records; their long standing label Moon Ska Records became defunct in 2000. It was released 5 years after Don't Let the Bastards Grind You Down, due to the demise of ska label Moon Ska and, also, the decrease of third wave ska's mainstream popularity that saw the disappearance of a lot of ska bands some years before. The band supported the album with a North American tour. "Dog Eat Dog" is about the music business and the band's label struggles.

Critical reception

Exclaim! noted that "there is nothing new here; the music is poppy ska mixed with rock, blasting horns and Bucket's trademarked vocals." Trouser Press opined that "the music is consistently upbeat, but the playing is even more restrained and predictable than it was on Don't Let the Bastards Grind You Down.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Enemy of the System” is album by The Toasters. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Enemy, System and album, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2002, 2000—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2002. For this dossier, Enemy, System and album is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “album by The Toasters” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 7, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5376803. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2002 and 2000.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Enemy of the System”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Enemy of the System primary sources, Enemy of the System archive and Enemy research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Enemy of the System”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Enemy of the System” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.