Review Summary: Music for your kid brother.
DISCLAIMER: I know I’m going to get a lot of flak for this review, especially after my ill-advised ANberlin review. Still, those of you who know me and have read my reviews know I’m no newb who started listening to music yesterday. Bottom line:
I know my sh*t.. I’m also not one to bash bands that don’t deserve it, even if I find good bashing hopelessly fun (and oh, do I ever). Now, keeping that in mind, here’s my Simple Plan review.
Review:
I’m not seventeen anymore. Recent thought-provoking experiences have cemented that late-blooming notion in my head once and for all, making me realize that I’m no longer that nerdy college sophomore who posted his first review here at the age of 19. Right now, I’m well into my second year as a working member of society, and about halfway into my Masters degree. I’m a man now.
Where am I going with this? With age, people’s tastes change and mature. And while I’m still a rocker (and will be to the day I die), my taste in music has significantly broadened in recent years. I am now more lenient and receptive towards “mainstream” music, tending to not overbash it like I would have a few years ago. Basically, I just try to listen to music for music’s sake, and when I write a review now, I’m merely putting into words the way that particular artist, band or record made me feel.
Case in point: Simple Plan. When I first heard them, way back when, I joined the legions of bashers that called them ‘annoying’, ‘childish’, ‘lame’ and other such sympathetic terms. The fact that the first mp3 I ever heard from them featured gaggles of screaming, swooning 13-year-old girls didn’t help much, either. But after I had my interest piqued by
Promise, off the Bad News Bears remake, I decided to give another chance, only to realize my feelings toward them have significantly changed.
Simple Plan are one of the most reviled bands of the current pop/rock scene. Along with the likes of Good Charlotte or Aiden, the Canadian five-piece are the butt of endless jokes by music snarkists, and regarded as just plain bad music by those more forgiving. The fact that the band has made it big off their first single
Perfect. and subsequently garnered a huge following in the 10-to-16 market didn’t help much. But are they really that bad? If we take their debut album as evidence, the answer has to be no.
Sure, they are by no means high art; their riffs and song structures are simple, their choruses easy on the ear, and the lyrics of such songs as
Just a Kid or
One Day clearly cater to the tween market. Still, they’re harmless, clean fun, and have the gigantic merit of getting children used to the sound of guitars, thus enabling them to move on to greater – and heavier – things. In a nutshell, they’re perfectly poised to be your kid brother’s first favorite band, and one which your mum will even approve of.
In fact, nearly everything about Pierre Bouvier and Co is clean and parent-friendly. While their lyrics might register as “rebellious” to those who don’t know better, even their take on love is more of the puppy-love variety than of the “she’s so hot I wanna bonk her brains out” school so recurrent in rock’n’roll. Everything about them screams “teen”, from the simple riffs (which any twelve-year-old can easily replicate in his garage) to the fun-loving lyrics and Bouvier’s youthful, plaintive voice. Which isn’t to say that this band is
entirely clean. Like any teenager, Simple Plan have a mischievous streak to them, reflected on a couple of strategically-placed F-bombs and on the rowdy, misleading album cover.
But what of the music itself? Well, for a start, it’s certainly not original. Imagine if Blink-182 gave up dick jokes and party antics, or Bowling For Soup dropped all the 80’s references, and you pretty much have Simple Plan. Add a sprinkle of MxPx (circa
Before Everything and After, and hey presto!
No Helmets, No Pads…Just Balls is born. All the trappings of the style are here: whiney, nasally vocals, percussion-heavy, crescendo bridge sections, harmonies, “na na na” vocals, angsty lyrics and a frontman with dyed hair and piercings.
Still, being unoriginal and shamelessly commercial doesn’t mean it’s bad, and one thing’s for sure: these guys can really write a tune. The choruses on this album are almost all huge, and the band shows a knack for avoiding repetition by adding slower tempos and a few acoustic touches here and there (
Perfect,
Just A Kid,
Meet You There), even if they don’t always work too well.
The album starts off pretty strong, with two good tracks leading the way, but soon the filler starts stacking up, with such drab songs as
You Don’t Mean Anything to Me or
Meet You There clogging up the arteries of an otherwise sane record. Fortunately, the album recovers from these stumbles with fantastic tracks like
Just A Kid (a breath of fresh air after
You Don’t Mean Anything To Me, mainly because of the acoustic start providing something different) or
My Alien. Add this to fairly strong backup tracks like
When I’m With You or
God Must Hate Me and the outcome is undeniably positive.
But now, the time has come for the big questions in everyone’s minds: “what’s the best track on here? What about the worst? Tell us, RtR, we’re dying to know!”. Very well, I shall tell you.
Best song on here? Hands down,
My Alien. Its goofy lyrics about a girl who’s “not your typical girlfriend” and has “four legs to wrap around me” put a smile on your face, and the rocking mid-tempo gets your foot tapping accordingly, making this the highlight of the album. Following close on its heels is
Just A Kid, which boasts a slower, crunching beat, good lyrics and a great chorus. Bringing up the rear, and in a fierce fight for third place, are opener
I’d Do Anything and
One Day, with the latter just edging past the former due to a certain
When I Come Around quality and (again) a great chorus.
As for worst song? Predictably, it’s
Perfect. I just can’t see the appeal of this song, which for me is nothing but a sappy, sugary and extremely lame attempt at a radio-pop tune. Here, for once, the hate being thrown Simple Plan’s way makes sense. Also very weak is
Meet You There, a pathetic attempt at diversifying that falls flat on its ass. Saying that this is a weaker version of Linkin Park’s
Breaking The Habit would be an euphemism, so the less said about this interminable track the better. Just skip straight to track six and be done with it. Still, these are the only two weak points in the regular edition of the album, and not enough to drag it down entirely.
Now, however, comes time to analyze another delicate point in Simple Plan’s music: the lyrics. They’re not awful, at least not on this album, but they have a very defined audience. Whoever identifies with verses like
”one day/I’ll be old enough to do, to do, to do what I want to” or
”hey dad look at me/Think back and talk to me/Did I grow up according to plan?” classifies as Simple Plan’s audience; all those who don’t will scoff. The album is obviously not aimed at jaded, snarky twenty-three-year-old intellectuals…but if that’s so, how come I identify so much with the lyrics to
Just A Kid? Still, lyrics are far from a high point of this album, although they don’t deserve anything stronger than passing disdain, either. As a final added bonus, most of the songs have full, well-constructed sets of lyrics, which you would hardly expect from this type of band and musical style.
All in all, then, this is a perfect record for the audience it’s aimed at. It has bouncy music, angsty lyrics and clean messages.
No Helmets, No Pads…Just Balls won’t change the world, but it can change
someone’s world, provided they’re the right age. Clear your mind and give it a listen. You’ll be surprised.
This album is also sold as a “Special Edition”, featuring three extra tracks, none of which is anything special, and a lot of aural tinkering, with quite a few extra effects added and details changed within the songs. Still, if you have it, stay on until the end to hear them butcher
American Jesus, one of the best songs by Bad Religion.
Recommended Tracks
Just a Kid
My Alien
One Day
