Wednesday, January 09, 2002
Well, I listened to the entire of Rock Steady yesterday. There are a few more good parts than I had first thought... Track 3, 'Making Out' is alright, maybe even *gasp!* good... And the jury's still out on 'Waiting Room', which is produced, co-written and features backing vocals from Prince/Symbol/The Artist Formerly Known as Prince/whatever-name-he-happens-to-be-going-by-currently it's-hard-to-keep track.
Also not sure abou the title track 'Rock Steady', it's ok. Though I forgot to mention that the Intro is bearable.
I think the main problem with this album is that No Doubt are trying to do some sort of modern reggae thing in a lot of the tracks, despite the fact that the last time they did this on an album was 'World Go Round' on Tragic Kingdom, and that is a song that they hate, and wouldn't even play when they went on tour.
So why did they try and base a whole album on that plus some stupid-sounding rapping refrains?
It's a mystery.
Monday, January 07, 2002
I can't help but be surprised when people say that they didn't know about ska being related to punk.
'Tis more visible in new school punk, and especially bands like Pennywise.
I'm definitely going to have to check out that site, methinks, as I have difficulty in labelling musical genres!
~~~
Seeing as Phoe Phoe has been busy, I'd better get my arse in gear...
Well... I'm sorry to say that recently I've been disillusioned with the music world...
I bought 'Rock Steady' by No Doubt.
I listened to it... and wished I hadn't.
Admittedly I haven't listened to it all - I got up to about track 8, then had to go, and haven't had the heart to listen to more - but what I heard was horribly disappointing.
I'll admit, I'm a big No Doubt fan. Before I listened to 'Rock Steady' I had only heard brief snippets of 'Hey Baby' on adverts, and nothing else from this album.
Admittedly, I wasn't expecting this to be a brilliant album, as, in my opinion, No Doubt's older albums ('Beacon St.Collection' & 'Tragic Kingdom', anyone?) are better than more recent work, like 'Return of Saturn'.
Why, oh why, oh why does 'Hey Baby' have that annoying, stupid rapping?!
It's unneccessary and just plain dumb.
One gem of the album that I've listened to so far is 'Hella Good'.
What a spanktastically brilliant disco track!
This is definitely a song to move to.
Sure, it's not like their 'usual' style, and none of this album is, but that's what I've always loved about No Doubt - they experiment and as they all have had so many and such eclectic musical influences, their music benefits from this and takes something from everything. See, I don't just not like this album as a whole because it's not "No Doubt". I dislike it because it's not "good".
... which is a shame, because I've been looking forward to new music from No Doubt, even if I wasn't expecting anything brilliant... I just wasn't expecting anything awful.
I've been sorely disappointed.
And yes, I will write more about this album when I manage to stomach listening to the whole thing and have given it more of a chance... these are just initial thoughts.
