Review Summary: It's actually not nearly as bad as you've been led to believe. Album's title says it all.
Let's set the record straight. brokeNCYDE is derided as being one of the worst musical acts ever, with a lot of people thinking they're rich white dudes who had enough cash to mess around in the studio and release an awful album out of vanity, a la Rebecca Black. Truth be told, nothing could be further from the truth. The guys in BC13 (the band's nickname) are actually Mexicans who have been pretty poor most of their lives. In their own words, they released their album so that teens could party and have fun and enjoy their lives. Not a bad goal indeed.
Their music has been derided as an atrocious mix of crunk and "screamo" (inb4 Alex Bigman comes over and kicks my ass for calling it screamo!) with juvenile lyrics. Truth be told, when you actually play their songs, it's hard to understand why the band has received as much hate as they have. Most of this album consists of some surprisingly solid party jams. The beats aren't half bad and the lyrics, while dumb, aren't particularly offensive, especially when we consider the time that this came out in.
True, none of the songs truly stand out as top-notch party jams, but that's perfectly understandable given that they don't have any big name producer backing them up. Given that a lot of this album was written by the band with little major label support, it's actually pretty impressive that tracks like "Booty Call" could definitely slip into an official club party list and nobody would be any wiser. If anything, it shows the talent these dudes have. Yeah, I said it. They're talented. These guys came from nothing to being one of the top scene bands in 2007. That takes something man.
Admittedly the screamo aspects to their songs kinda suck. The screaming is pretty bad and in my opinion just detracts from teh songs. I understand that they were trying to appeal the crunk scene to scene kids but it's just not well done. They do have the screaming in the right parts though, which tells me they have the dynamics of a good party jam down, but hey, the screaming still blows.
At any rate, the screaming did its job. The interesting part is that their skits reveal the band's background. These dudes have very little in common with Metro Station or even Blink-182, despite what it may first seem. Sometimes you really can't judge a book by its cover.
Honestly, as far as it goes, this album accomplishes what it set out to do and it does have party potential. It isn't targeted towards my demographic and its time is past, but even now it doesn't really offend my ears. I've heard much worse and offensive blasts of noise from bands like Merzbow (Pulse Demon, anyone?). The hate is largely unwarranted, especially given how nice these dudes are in person. It'd make a lot more sense of the vitriolic hate they received was targeted towards really awful people who make atrocious music, like that racist scumbag Varg from Burzum. But hey, who ever expected rationality from the music critics?
I'm certainly not much of a fan, but the kids did love it. Solid album, if nothing stands out.