All the Pain Money Can Buy

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Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[5]
Chicago Tribune	[6]
Entertainment Weekly	A−[7]
NME	5/10[8]
Pitchfork	5.1/10[9]
Q	[10]
Rolling Stone	[11]
The Times	8/10[12]
Uncut	[13]
The Village Voice	C+[14]

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The members of Fastball still had side jobs as late as January 1998. Tony Scalzo worked the graveyard shift at The Bagel Manufactory in Austin. He, Joey Shuffield, and Miles Zuniga would be on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Late Night with Conan O'Brien just four months later. Fastball's second album, All the Pain Money Can Buy, was released on Hollywood Records. Within just six months, it had sold more than a million copies.^{[citation needed]}

The single "The Way" stayed on top of Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart for seven weeks, and was a top-five hit on Billboard's Top 40 Mainstream chart. Scalzo was inspired to write the song in 1997 after reading a news article about Lela and Raymond Howard, an elderly couple who had disappeared in Texas. Though Lela had Alzheimer's and Raymond was recovering from brain surgery, the couple had been driving to a local festival. They were discovered two weeks later, dead, at the bottom of a ravine near Hot Springs, Arkansas, hundreds of miles off their intended route.^[15] Scalzo chose to imagine that they began reminiscing and decided to become ethereal beings on a permanent romantic trip, the answer to the song's question, "Where were they going without ever knowing the way?"^[16]

Fastball followed up "The Way" with a second single, "Fire Escape", and a third single, "Out of My Head", which reached the top ten on Billboard's Top 40 Mainstream chart and was a top ten hit on the Adult Top 40 chart for 29 weeks. The album's promotional tour featured Marcy Playground and Everclear, after which Fastball moved to the H.O.R.D.E. tour.

In 1999, Fastball received two Grammy Award nominations as a result of All the Pain Money Can Buy. One was for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for "The Way", and the other was for Best Long Form Music Video. They also received an MTV Video Music Award nomination for Best New Artist.

Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.^[17]

Fastball

• Tony Scalzo – vocals (lead on 1, 3, 6, 8, 12), bass guitar, keyboards
• Miles Zuniga – vocals (lead on 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13), guitar
• Joey Shuffield – drums, percussion

Additional musicians

• Kim Bullard – organ, keyboards, programming
• Bennett Salvay – electric piano, horn arrangement
• Poe – vocals on "Which Way to the Top?"
• Walt Vincent – piano on "Sooner or Later"
• Guy Fantasy – background vocals on "Sooner or Later"
• Dennis Farias – trumpet on "G.O.D. (Good Old Days)"
• Rick Braun – trumpet on "G.O.D. (Good Old Days)"
• Nick Lane – trombone on "G.O.D. (Good Old Days)"
• Doug Norwine – tenor sax on "G.O.D. (Good Old Days)"
• Greg Smith – baritone sax on "G.O.D. (Good Old Days)"
• Erika Duke-Kirkpatrick – cello on "Charlie, the Methadone Man"

Production

• Joe Barresi – engineer
• Chris Lord-Alge – mixing