Cons: it's derivative, repetitive, and not very interesting lyrically
The Bottom Line: Simple Plan is probably great if you're 14...any older than that though, and you'd do better to find a punk band with actual talent and songwriting skills.
MattA75's Full Review: No Pads, No Helmets...Just Balls by Simple Plan
So I was walking through the library a couple of weeks ago, looking for something I could just tear into. I haven't written a scathing review for a while now, and I was getting sick of reviewing albums and falling into the rut of using the same words to describe how good an album is. After all, I find it much easier to work negative adjectives into reviews. And with me being the sarcastic son of a b*tch I am, negativity works well for me I think.
So I'm in the CD section, and I see my target: Simple Plan. "Ugh, I f*cking hate them, they suck!" My man pacmany2j has already reemed this album six ways from Sunday, but I'll try to outdo him, because it's Saturday morning and I'm bored and have nothing better to do. :)
Simple Plan is a five piece pop punk band from Canada. This album was released about a year ago, and immediately spawned a very minor hit in I'm Just a Kid, a song prominently featured in the movie The New Guy (there's an hour and a half of my life I'll never get back, but I digress). Some months passed and the band went on tour in support of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, among others, and they then went onto score two more minor hits in I'd Do Anything, which featured Blink 182 bassist Mark Hoppus as a guest vocalist, and current single Addicted, which is probably the strongest track on the album musically.
My problems with this album are simple. I guess I should first say that if I hear one of these songs on the radio, I normally leave them on, which is a testament to how un-abrasive and annoying these songs are, as well as an indictment on the state of current radio, in that I highly doubt I'll find anything better on any other station, be it the rap station or the top 40 station or the AAA station.
The album is decidedly, well, simple. Sometimes simple can be a good thing, but with this disc, I don't know, the songs just seem to run into each other after a while. There isn't much that sets each song apart. Many of them have catchy guitar parts, the whiny seventeen year old sounding voice of lead singer Pierre Bouvier, and extremely simple drumming, consisting of an overbearing use of crash cymbals and double stick snare pounds.
The lyrics are decidedly high school, to the point where I'm left pulling my hair out at the ridiculousness of it all. For example, the song My Alien: "I can remember smelling your hair, I'll meet you anywhere," what is THAT? It sounds like something some fourteen year old douchebag would write if he was trying to recapture a girlfriend or something.
Even when the band finds a nice, changed up groove as on the verses of One Day, they completely ruin the vibe with a sugar rush of bounding power chords and drum fills. It's as if they're saying "hey, our audience could never appreciate a song with a nice groove that isn't loud and bombastic, so let's do what we do with every other song," and it's a shame, because that groove is excellent. Of course, the lyrics don't help, with the same tired themes of teenage rebellion ("One day I'll be old enough, to do what I want to"), that ever other pop punk band of the last 6 years has driven into the ground. If I've said it once, I'll say it again: the absolute last time the "teenage rebellion" song worked was with Fat Lip by Sum 41.
I said it before and I'll say it again. This album goes down easily enough, but the songs do run into each other almost ad nauseum, and there are pop punk bands out there who are X times better than this, with stronger lyrics, more diversity, and out and out, more BALLS.
Great Music to Play: If you're 14 and need something really "rebellious" and "cool" to fit in.
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