Review Summary: Hollywood Undead try on a 2017 jacket, but I just don't think it's going to fit.
I've often wondered why Hollywood Undead aren't bigger. They're big, for sure, but I mean really big. Arena big. I suppose I just have to concede that I don't really understand 'the mainstream'. I can never call what exactly is going to be a hit with those people. The most mindless, repetitive drivel can be #1 in the charts and feature a grand total of about two vocal lines about some arsehole in a club who spots a girl and he wants to get freaky with her... Their words not mine. At this point it may not shock you to learn that I don't listen to an awful lot of mainstream pop music. I do however, listen to Hollywood Undead. Call them a guilty pleasure if you must, I like them. They're daft, obnoxious and in my eyes, everything that your 'run-of-the-mill' pop music is but with trimmings of talent. Big choruses, catchy verses and varied songwriting. They can write angry songs, sad songs and party songs. Now these songs can of course vary in quality but at least thematically they don't feel the need to follow a trend.
Until now.
Now I'm not saying that every song on the spectacularly titled 'Five' (this is their fifth album ladies and gentlemen) sounds the same, far from it. They still have that variation that I praised them for mere sentences ago. However, the musical decisions on this album have disappointed me somewhat. Hollywood Undead seem desperate to follow the trends of the pop artists that you'll hear in shopping centres (or malls, I live in the UK) and that to me is what has always set them apart from that rubbish. I will at this point say, I still think they're better than that lot. But a song like 'Riot' for example. I refuse to believe that that song would make it onto any of the first three HU records. That horrible, robotic, computerised sounding vocal that opens the song that I swear I've heard in the very shopping centres I referred to earlier is a prime example of this band going after that trend despite being so much better than it. That song by the way, goes on to be awful.
Now if you're a fan don't panic; there is enough of the band you love here to grab on to. 'California Dreaming' for example is exactly what I want from Hollywood Undead. A massive, soaring chorus following an aggressive verse of J-Dog and Funny Man trading off one another. There's even a rather chunky riff to begin the proceedings. Lovely stuff. 'Ghost Beach' is precisely the kind of slower Hollywood Undead song I like. Even the story the song tells is worth a mention. One of a city that's had it's identity altered by people chasing some sort of dream. There are good songs on this record, make no mistake. But when it's bad...
The second half of the album is where it becomes very suspect. 'Nobody's Watching' has that oh-so-irritating layered chipmunk-y style vocal that seems to have come up a lot in this year's pop music. 'Broken Record' sounds less like an emotional HU song and more like an Avril Lavigne B-side. 'Pray' has a dubstep-style intro which I don't mind so much for what it is but within the context of the album I can't help but raise an eyebrow of suspicion. Are Hollywood Undead...selling out?
Now of course these small things I have mentioned are not enough to condemn a band in such a way but when you couple that with the main issue I have with this album I think it's justified. And that problem is - the songs just aren't as good. There's an edge that's missing. A youthfulness that's nowhere to be found. It all just sounds simpler. Not necessarily from a technical point of view, there's actually a lot of new ideas on this record but it all just seems a little bit more vanilla, and a little bit more like all of that mainstream radio rubbish. The flavours have gone from this band so that even when you have the various themes (angry/sad/party) they all just taste them same now. Maybe that's because the world is just done with Hollywood Undead. Maybe after five albums I've just had my fill of their music...but I don't think it is that. I think it all comes back to the original point...
I've never understood why this band aren't bigger and perhaps they don't understand that either. Perhaps they feel they simply needed to sound a bit 'nicer' just to get the credit they deserve. But as we all know, because there have been a million and one examples over the years, bands need to be careful with that mindset. There's a fine line between speculating to accumulate and leaving behind the fans that have given you the opportunity to do that in the first place. I guess time will tell which side of that line Hollywood Undead are on. Because maybe it's the former...and I've just been talking a load of rubbish.
