MattA75's Full Review: Drunk Enough to Dance by Bowling for Soup
Apologies in advance if that title offends you
Over the past couple of months, I've seen some people express surprise that Bowling For Soup had not broken through more than they already had with a pair of minor hits that got tepid top 40 airplay, and they played the main stage at this past summer's Warped Tour. But if one just sits and thinks for a second, it's easy to see why this band hasn't broken through, and talent isn't even number one on the list.
In the past couple of years, radio has gotten behind Blink 182, Sum 41, New Found Glory, Good Charlotte, and most recently, Simple Plan, all pop punk bands of varying skill and likability. This alone could be the reason radio has been tepid to embrace this quartet who seem determined to be the next immature pop punk band to be big, following in the footsteps of the two number bands mentioned above.
So what is there to like about Bowling For Soup? Very, very little. Unfortunately for the band, the two best songs on the record are the two they've already released to radio.
Girl All The Bad Guys Want, which had one of the best videos of the year (the band lampooned videos by bands such as Staind and Limp Bizkit, among others), is a bit more clever than it's sound would let on at first. The title says it all, as the band sings a song about a girl who all those bad boys want, because after all, "she's watching wrestling...listening to rap metal" and her "CD changer's full of singers that are mad at their dad." It IS a witty song, even if musically, it sounds extremely similar to most every other pop punk band out there.
The second single, Punk Rock 101, can simply tell you how bad this album is, in not one, but two ways. First of all, this track is a "special bonus track," meaning that nothing on the rest of the CD really qualified as a good choice for a single. But you see, Punk Rock 101 isn't just a bonus track, it's a "special bonus track," which I guess means it's more of a bonus than Greatest Day, which is just a bonus track, but not as much of a bonus as either the band's cover of Flock of SeagullsI Ran (So Far Away) (which is tabbed an "extra special bonus track"), or the album closing Star Song (which is tabbed as a "super extra special bonus track"). If only the band worked more on their songs and their sound than trying to come up with coy little names for bonus tracks, I might not have to rip on this CD; then again, if Metallica had actually spent a dime on production, then maybe St.Anger would've been a halfway decent album, but I digress.
Punk Rock 101 even lampoons all of the bands Bowling For Soup seemingly emanates ("same song, different chorus"), and then it goes on to lampoon Bon Jovi, a bit of a cheap shot given the artistic growth that band has gone through since their late 80s commercial peak.
So that leaves 18 tracks (there is a hidden acoustic number that comes up as track 28 on your CD player) that could at least show the band is a bit more diverse than their brethren, but it's not to be.
Let's start with the aforementioned Flock of Seagulls cover. Listening to this made me realize that the whole current punk fad of covering some 80s new wave song, or 90s pop song, in punk fashion is just f*cking stupid, and it has run its course. OK, so it was kick a*s when Reel Big Fish did Take On Me, because they actually stuck very close to the original while giving it an added kick. Hell, even Zebrahead doing the Spice Girls wasn't bad. But it seems like every band does this now (Goldfinger is known to cover 99 Luftballoons in concert, among others). It's old, let it go and write a decent original song.
But that might be asking too much of Bowling For Soup. The band desparately tries to show some sort of sensitive side on Where To Begin, which may as well be a rip off of Simple Plan's current single, Perfect (a song that also bites the big one, might I add). To make matters worse, lead singer Jaret Von Erich puts in a rhyme scheme using the words "ocean," "motion," and "notion." Yes, it is as bad as it sounds.
To make matters worse, on the opening track I Don't Wanna Rock (insert joke here), there's this little drum breakdown that makes me think "when did pop punk go progressive?" And then I thought, "wait a minute, pop punk never went progressive, these guys are just morons." And all seemed right in the world.
Further on down the line, Scaring Myself comes into play, where the band jokes about getting STDs. Luckily, that just may be the lowest of the low points on this disc, although on the whole, the songwriting on this disc makes even Simple Plan look like seasoned and hardened writers. Hell, this makes Simple Plan's songs look downright MATURE.
There was a time when pop punk was a genre with a little bit of life in it. From Green Day to the Offspring, from Rancid to yes, even Blink 182, pop punk was a genre that seemed to have some creative juice behind it. But just when you thought things couldn't POSSIBLY get worse than Good Charlotte or Simple Plan, you're proven wrong by 4 a*s clowns who yes, have less talent in all their bodies (and the lead guitarist is pretty f*cking big) than I have in my left nut.
In conclusion, f*ck Bowling For Soup. F*ck them right in the ear! (Props to Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the greatest put down ever.)
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