Once-beloved, and once anarchist punk band Against Me! have taken a lot of flak over the years, from completely obnoxious “fans” who use the term “major label” like it’s a profanity and they’re suffering from Tourette’s. These pierced, squatting, unwashed masses cry like infants or put on the airs of royalty with a dead peasant stuck to each shoe, with each non-laundromat show that Against Me! plays. Despite bandleader Tom Gabel recently pointing out that he played a show in ONE laundromat like 12 years ago, you assholes, these people continue to self righteously slash the band’s tires and then sob over their copies of “Reinventing Axel Rose” each night, banging their heads against the walls and screaming “Why, Tom?! Why couldn't you make this album over and over and over again!?” to the heavens.
While all these principled sheep continued to bleat about how no good album was ever released on a label run by more than three people, Actual Music Fans pointed out that “As the Eternal Cowboy” is a very solid album, and if the lyrics in “Searching for a Former Clarity” were a little weak, the instrumentals were totally awesome, in spite of the shocking inclusion of drums that were not just plastic buckets and some spoons. They also pointed out that nobody with a life cares about labels, you fucking losers. So, when Against Me! announced that they were signing to SIRE, that branch of Warner Brothers which once had the Replacements and the Ramones, Actual Music Fans continued to assume that the good quality of the band would continue.
Sadly, the tattooed dudes and dreadlocked ladies were vindicated in September 2007, when Against Me! released a stunningly mediocre and overproduced album. What went wrong? Drummer Warren Oakes still has the world’s best beard, Tom Gabel still has an awesome, soulful voice …Their producer, Butch Vig, worked on “Nevermind” and other albums that were actually notable for being new and exciting. Yet, “New Wave” is pretty much Against Me! embracing the Nickelback spirit of smooth, bland rock within. The album is full of big, loud, generic rock songs, with hilariously verbose and pretentious lyrics. Maybe half a song is memorable. Tom Gabel’s duet with one of those lesbian Canadian twins (Tegan or possibly Sara) who are now famous thanks to “Gray’s Anatomy” is one of the most awkwardly notable songs, because it’s so…awkward. The rest of the album pretty much glides on by. I actually forget what most of the album sounds like.
MTV recently declared “New Wave” to be the greatest Album of the Year, and Rollingstone declared Against Me! an outstanding emo band. This would be hilarious things if the album wasn’t actually lame. We want it both ways; the annoying anarchists should be annoyed, and the sweet sounds of rock and roll should be ringing in the ears of Actual Music Fans.
The point is, do you really want to vindicate the people who steal your demos, slash your tires, and then try to ask where the love and community went? People who think that anything beyond Mountain Ghosts-level production values is going corporate? People who just won’t take off that Municipal Waste T-shirt, not matter how ripped and dirty, and smelling like a dumpster, it may be? You don’t, Against Me! Embrace your new major label status, sleep with some groupies, vote Republican, shake hands with Axel Rose, anything reprehensible to your former scene. Just please don’t make any more mediocre albums. Let the Actual Music Fans win.
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