Remember sitting through talent shows in high school, listening to one generic sounding rock band after another? Remember how their songs were composed of relatively blas laments, or ridiculous little anecdotes for lyrics? Meet Everclear?s new album: Songs From An American Movie, Good Time For A Bad Attitude.
It?s not fair to say that the CD is particularly bad, nor is it very easy to pinpoint exactly what?s wrong with it. There?s just nothing interesting about it, nothing to make it stand out.
There are a few specific problems with it, however, that take away from the experience of listening to the album. One of the general problems with the whole CD is that the balance between treble and bass sounds off. A lack of bass could certainly be part of the style that the band was going for. However, it makes the music feel empty. Blame it on Neal Avron, the person behind the mixing, the producer, co-producer, the executive producer or the other executive producer, but it still takes away from the music.
So the sound quality isn?t great. There are plenty of opportunities for Everclear to redeem themselves.
First, how about lyrics? Well, they didn?t pull through there, unless you really want to hear all about Spike and how he?s a pretty cool guy who?s in love with a girl who has a lot of tattoos in ?Babytalk? or how the Everclear crew just wants to be rock stars and get laid, as they explain in ?Rock Star.?
If you want, you can even hear about how they got ?hammered on the beach, right down by the water? in ?Slide.? These lyrics follow all the trends of the album.
They?re not bad ? they?re just not all that interesting.
If the sound quality isn?t terrific, and the lyrics don?t exactly enthrall me, what else could be an uplifting point? How about the music itself? Well, the first song, ?When It All Goes Wrong Again? really isn?t so bad. It?s kind of cute ? sort of clever until you realize that the second song isn?t much different, neither is the third, nor the fourth song for that matter.
I?m sure the concert Thursday night will prove to be an enjoyable experience. The music has to have more life and energy when it is performed live than it does on the CD. It seems to have a lot of potential that just doesn?t come through on the recording. Besides, as sophomore Stephen Daly puts it, ?I?m sure their music isn?t bad ? when you?re trashed.?
