Review Summary: The kings and queens of this new broken scene's debut. Oh, boy.
Simply unbelievable. Or maybe pretty believable since it's been almost 2 years this came out for the entire world to "grace" their ears into. The subject in question is 5 Seconds Of Summer's intriguing debut self titled. And why is it so intriguing? Well, it can be due to how unoriginal it is, and how much of a lack of coherence was done in the album's recording.
It can't be surprising that these guys were making a huge buzz much before its release, due to they already having releasing singles, and an EP back in 2012. But what made them get a fanbase were their covers on YouTube, and as said in a previous review of mine, it is massively unsurprising, like, how many people made success in music because of YouTube? Rhetoric question. Anyways, what we got here is a generic pop rock album.
Don't call it pop punk. Seriously.
The first glimpse of this album was made with their most famous song, "She Looks So Perfect", which is how Luke and Calum (who sing the song) like to see girls wearing their underwear... Yep, that's it. And while some of their songs break the generic songwriting here and there, the lyrics are abysmal. The already mentioned song has this particular phrase that is chuckle-inducing: "She looks so perfect standing there, in my New Apparel underwear". Don't worry, I know that if you didn't laugh, you either facepalmed or sighed at how bad this line is. And this is the general problem with the band and album; they don't seem to risk to talk about most anything, except girls. (One of the songs is called "Good Girls")
The guitars at least help to distinguish themselves from other pop and boy bands, although that if you take them off, they pretty much sound like every boy band out there, making the "pop punk" genre given to them to be highly hit or miss. Mostly a miss, because pop punk was made to be radio friendly, that's sure, but it still had the fast paced song structures that made it still have an appeal. 5SOS just put more effort in making them being this:
"POP... Oops, and punk!"
So finishing, 5SOS' debut does nothing new to help them to have some credibility in the musical space. Although they have some good riffs here and there, they are pretty unoriginal, the lyrics are laughable, the vocals are... well, okay, but nothing that is worth to be of praise. Unless you surprisingly really like this band, their self titled is dull enough to make you depressed at how of a downfall the music industry is suffering. Peace.
Pros:
- Some themes that break from the usual girl-loving. "Amnesia", as an example. (written by the Madden brothers, the guys from Good Charlotte. I don't need anything else to say.)
- Pretty good riffs here and there.
- The vocals are pretty okay.
- They kinda distinguish themselves from other boy bands for playing your typical rock instrumentation.
Cons:
- Lyrical content is laughable.
- Unoriginality plagues the album.
- Inaudible bass.
- Who thought "She Looks So Perfect" was a good idea?
