Oh
it’s so easy to laugh at Simple Plan. Rightfully so
they fall foul to the
butt of jokes from the majority of the cooler than thou
music fans. If I was
the righteous type I may strike up a mighty pose and take
the bullet for
Simple Plan but when the music is this dire I’d really
rather join in.
If their was an award for ‘Most Cliches in an Album’
Simple Plan would win
hands down. It’s as if the vocalist hasn’t
got a creative cell in his brain
to come up with something of interest and merit to utter
and instead it
comes out along the lines of “Shut Up, Shut Up,
Shut Up”. It was bad enough
when Linkin Park used them words but when Simple Plan
sing, it just sounds
like a petulant 10 year old having a tantrum because they’ve
been sent to
bed early. The sorry thing is he’s singing what
these kids want to hear and
especially in the good ‘ol U.S of A that’s
big business. If you haven't
heard Simple Plans sound yet (well done. can I buy you
a drink?) it really
is the lowest form of punk rock, the bottom rung of the
punk ladder, Rose
and Strummer must be rolling in their respective graves
having this referred
to as punk in some circles. Granted pop-punk is its official
stance, 99.9%
pop, 0.1% punk of course. As if Good Charlottes Madden
Brothers couldn’t
become more of a figure of hate it was their responsibility
for launching
these 20-somethings who should really know better on to
us a few years back
and as of going to press I’m yet to witness debut
album ‘No Pads, No
Helmets... Just Balls’ and (touch wood) I never
will but its hard to see how
on earth the lyrics could have progressed in a more mature
direction since
then. It really is amateur stuff.
Setting off as it means to go on, first single ‘Shut
Up’ is just pitiful,
It’s not often I can’t bare to listen to a
modern rock song but this flirts
with crossing the line between me flinging something of
significant weight
in the direction of the CD player and just considering
puncturing my own
eardrums. For gods sake man, take your own advice.
But then as if someone with a teaspoon full of talent
entered the studio and
for the sake of mankind forced the spoon down the vocalists
throat a sparkle
of light emerges. 2nd and 3rd tracks A-ok *checks* yep,
eardrums have
stopped bleeding... They even approach the realms of being
worthy to be
etched on CD, ‘Perfect World’ for example
sounds like a Green cast-off as do
1-2 others despite the mass of cliches and borrowed guitar
parts from
brothers in arms GC and Blink 182. The most comedy metal
guitar solo in the
world ever welcomes potential album highlight ‘Me
Against The World’ but
then just like a candle in the wind the glimmer of light
is extinguished.
‘Jump’ (“Don’t want to think about
my sorrow, I just want to jump”, just
make sure you’re on a hideously tall building when
you do that please mate),
“Thank You“, “Promise” all add
to the overall feeling that Simple Plan
should not be allowed to play music in any context. However
closer
‘Untitled’ (Look they’ve even run out
of ideas for song titles!) does show
signs of maturity with a string section, piano and attempts
to sing as if he
isn’t pre-pubescent. It’s a nice note to end
on but it doesn’t hide the fact
Simple Plan are thoroughly poor. The kids will love them,
your little
brother will love this but for everyone else it’s
just not relevant and
“Still Not Getting Any” does nothing to change
the opinions of the
naysayers, and so, and still, rightfully so Simple Fan
deserve any abuse
that comes their way.
2/10
Ramz_
