Review Summary: A band that never had enough hits to fill 15 minutes worth of music has a "Best of..". Really?
While walking through my local record store today, I was flipping through the 'P' section, and out popped ...To Be Loved: The Best of Papa Roach. All I can say is: WTF? This release makes absolutley NO sense whatsoever.
Papa Roach acheived relative fame withe the release of their first single "Last Resort". Teens all over the country were singing its chorus, full of angst and rebellion, clinging to the song because of its catchy hook and the pure fact that it dropped "the f-bomb". Papa Roach was soon grouped into the nu-metal genre, along with bands like Deftones, Slipknot, and Mudvayne. What do any of those bands and Papa Roach have in common? Not a thing. It only gave a poppy, angsty, easily-forgettable band an excuse to call themselves metal.
Papa Roach didn't hit too many high points in the music world until the release of 2004's "Getting Away With Murder", which, while almost identical to everything else they'd released, was undeniably their most comemercially accepted contribution. Once again, Papa Roach's concoction of semi-heavy rock and gothy fashion was posted all over the music scene. MTV, Fuse, and VH1 all held them in high regard for their 15 minutes of fame.
Now, with that being said, Papa Roach didn't have too many singles or even songs that got videos or indcuted into videogame soundtracks, and they contibuted a song here and there to movie soundtracks. So why do they have a "Best of..." compilation? That is the mystery here.
The album itself is chocked full of songs that song identical to the next track, and for anyone except hardcore fans, the entire record seems like it's just one long, annoying, poppy, emotional song. Almost all of the lyrical content is based on the same subject, and the existence of musical difference throughout the songs is well...nonexistent.
Overall, for fans of Papa Roach, this record is a wet dream; for anyone else, it's just another album you'll pick up, feel nostalgic over for about five seconds, and put back down for the next sucker to pick up.
Recommended Tracks:
"Last Resort"
