Hinder: The Worst Band in the World (And I'm Not Being Facetious)
Written: Nov 05 '06
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Product Rating:
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Pros: such a word doesn't apply to an album or band like this
Cons: everything
The Bottom Line: Extreme Behavior would make a great Weird Al album, if only it wasn't supposed to be taken seriously.
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| MattA75's Full Review: Extreme Behavior [PA] by Hinder |
Hinder could be forgiven if they were just bad. Hell, bad bands are littered across the country in every small town and in every major metropolis.
But Hinder is not just bad. They are, without question, the worst band my ears have ever heard. I'd consider them a parody of Nickelback, if they hadn't toured with them earlier this year. The band's debut album, Extreme Behavior, is one of the ten best selling albums in the country at the moment, thanks mostly to the top 40 crossover hit Lips of an Angel. Somewhere, there's gotta be a joke about how well this album is selling in red states (the band is from Oklahoma City).
It's not just that Hinder comes across as a Nickelback tribute band. After all, plenty of bands in the last five years have tried to ride that craptacular joke of success. It's that they actually make Nickelback look poignant and provocative lyrically, which would be like me making Chingy look like a socially conscious rapper.
Many fans have called this band "grunge." Now, if I may indulge you for a moment, everyone on this site knows I hate that term. However, if you take the music of that time frame, there is nothing remotely similar between the bands of the early 90s and Hinder. Hinder has a deeply misogynistic tone in just about every song, while many of the bands of the early 90s fought for women's rights and causes (look up Mia Zapata for the best example). Meanwhile, Hinder's sound is watered down, with nothing to set it apart. The riffs are warmed over, the solos are basic, and the vocals aren't especially inspiring or passionate. It's rock for dumbasses, another band for those too lazy to advance past what radio plays.
The album opens with the first single, Get Stoned, which scored airplay on rock stations but failed to make any sort of crossover impact. Not surprising with lines like "let's go home and get stoned, cause the sex is so much better when you're mad at me...we could end up makin love instead of misery" and "the break up is worth the make up sex you're givin me."
The subject of sour relationships is repeated ad nauseum from front to back on this record. How Long is full of long used lyrical cliches ("why'd you go and break what's already broken, I try to take a breath but I'm already choking") over a bed of power chords and no real discernible riff. Hey, if it "worked" for Get Stoned, why fix what ain't broken, right? At least the song is good for a laugh with lines like "she said she's sorry with one finger, I said f*ck that!"
Taking their cues from Nickelback, Extreme Behavior is littered with mid tempo power ballads no doubt meant to get the band on top 40 radio. Most obvious is Lips of an Angel, which sounds like the crappy song that Jack Black's character's former band plays in the movie School of Rock. The one thing this group has on Nickelback is that Chad Kroeger and company have never tried so hard to sound castrated as Hinder does here on the line "and I never wanna say goodbye."
Of course this band's idea of romantic ideals is lines like "I really miss your hair in my face, and the way your innocence tastes (found in the song Better Than Me)." I'm sure it's really flattering for a girl to have a song written about how her p*ssy tastes. With lines like that, it becomes obvious what I mean by this being a parody of Nickelback that isn't really a parody. By The Way continues the use of the songwriter's overused cliche handbook, with a melody cribbed from every adult top 40 rock ballad of the last 5 years and lines like "speechless and frozen...battered and bruised...I'm in the middle of a breakdown."
The one spot that could be considered anywhere near bright is on Homecoming Queen, which finds the band at least re-writing Guns N Roses instead of Nickelback. Of course, the song is so similar in vocal line and melody to Sweet Child O'Mine that you may as well listen to the original and save yourself the $13 on the worst and most unoriginal CD of the year.
Being unoriginal isn't a crime. Most bands crib from influences. The difference is having a band that can play their instruments, having a frontman that can write something other than tired cliches, and being able to deliver the goods live. Being misogynistic isn't a crime, but if you're going to be misogynistic, you had at least better have something to take the focus off of those lyrics. Van Halen did, GNR did and so on.
Hinder lacks anything worthy of listening to. Their lyrics are tired and laughable. Their music is like a 4th derivative of early Stone Temple Pilots, with no really interesting riffs or musical competency behind it. In other words, buying a Hinder CD is like voting for George W Bush. Despite everything you know tells you not to, you do it anyway.
0 stars (rounded up because 0 stars is not an option).
Recommended:
No
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MattA75
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Member: Matt Aucoin
Location: Plainville, MA
Reviews written: 1159
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