Review Summary: The Enemy finally live up to their name
"God is dead and we have killed him"
Last Record Store Day, I was standing outside in the cold November air, waiting in line. As the line trudged on at a painfully slow pace, I spotted a young woman with red hair walk by. She was wearing a shirt saying 'The Enemy: 2006-2016'. For a moment, I didn't know what to think. I raised an eyebrow. Then I stifled a laugh. I'm not trying to be pretentious here, I mean yeah people can listen to what they want that's fine, but it was the shirt itself. The Enemy had started off as a critically lauded indie rock band from Coventry. They'd achieved chart success with their debut record 'We Live and Die In These Streets' and were pretty damn popular. Naturally, the success went to their heads, mainly front man Tom Clarke who soon proclaimed that The Enemy were the saviours of British music. Oasis were similar, but the thing is they made great music. The Enemy were simply decent. Never the less, the group took to the studios to record their follow up.
'Music For The People' is the second album from The Enemy and debatably the worst album ever made. Is that an exaggeration? Maybe. I'm sure there are far worse pieces of tripe out there more deserving of the title but to me Music for The People represents nothing but hatred for me, write down to its stupid title. Not only is it pretentious as ***, it's also wrong. A more accurate title would be say 'Ripoffs for the people'. This Whole record is doused in self importance and arrogance. Tom Clarke was 24 when he made this record yet seems to assume he and his shite band are spokes people for a generation. With lyrics about rising up with the working class and Margaret Thatcher (who hadn't been in power for almost two decades at this point), everything is seeping with pretentiousness . But that's not the album's worst offence. From the very first track, the unusually named 'Elephant Song', the plagiarism is evident. The harmonica backed blaring feedback opening is strikingly similar to Oasis concert opener 'The Swamp Song', and the booming string laden Blues riffs sound s̶i̶m̶i̶l̶a̶r̶ IDENTICAL to 'Kashmir' by Led Zeppelin. Even Clarke's shrill echo laden vocals sound uncannily similar to Robert Plant. The second track 'No Time For Tears' kicks in with painfully cheesy piano chords with lyrics about 'the revolution' and similar politics like that. This seemed to tie in with the album's title. Not only are the boys making music for the working class, they also fancy themselves political revolutionaries as well. However, they're no Rage Against The Machine. The lyrics here are laughably plain and the faux-anthem chorus is about as rousing as dry paint.
51st State continues with the record's political themes with a ***e version of 'Rock The Casbah' by The Clash (they'll pop up again later). The piano, the vaguely groovy beat, even down to Clarke's vocals are ripped from the Clash's dance hit. However they sound more like Cut The Crap era Clash so you know. 'Sing When You're In Love' is another dismal anthem with lyrics that sound more like cheap imitation Pulp than anything original and a chorus that knocks off 'I Want To Break Free' by Queen. 'Last Goodbye' is a dreadful pastiche of The Verve, acoustics and strings included with a tune which sounds like a crummy version of 'Sonnet'.
One of the worst plagiarism offences comes next with 'Nation Of Checkout Girls'. It's literally just 'Common People' by Pulp. Right to the thumping opening (this time played on a guitar instead of a keyboard) and a vocal melody identical to the Cocker classic. It's actually dreadful. Like shockingly bad. The record's sole decent moment is 'Be Somebody', a mediocre but tolerable Green Day sounding rip off which the group appears to have wrote as a sequel to XTC's 'Making Plans For Nigel'. While that alone is a laughable idea, given how it would obviously stack up to the original, it's stomachable. Same can't be said for the next song, the absolutely horrid 'Don't Break The Red Tape', arguably the most blatant rip off on the album. The verses are note for note just 'London Calling' by The Clash. It's more like a wank karaoke cover instead of an actual song. The lyrics are more political Ramblings about some ***e I don't care honestly.
'Keep Losing' is another string laden Verve knock off which is as dull as staring at a wall for 8 hours and the last song 'Silver Spoon' is an aggravatingly crummy faux psychedelic song, almost like they were trying to do something like Pretty. Odd. By Panic! At the Disco only without any fun or charm. After that ***heap ends, there's a few moments of silence before a hidden track, a sparse admittedly nice sounding piano piece begins. Then Tom starts singing about how the band will return and ***, like he knew that this would be a big triumphant statement with more to come. Well it wasn't,
Their follow up record 'Streets In The Sky' while only slightly better, was still a boring bland mess and was critically panned (so much so it's considered one of the worst albums ever made). They pretty much ***ed off forever after that, bar another record which no one cares about. Tom stated that apparently people didn't like 'Music For The People' because it was "too political". Maybe. More so because it's a boring, unoriginal mess which relies on cheap knock offs of much better songs to stand on its own. Maybe it's hypocritical for me to praise Oasis when they also ripped off songs, only they paired that with quality playing, emotion and writing. The Enemy have none of that. You'd think even after getting critically destroyed and losing all credibility, they'd just fade away, but apparently they still had the nerve to put out shirts commemorating themselves before they gracefully broke up. Hopefully for good. Tom, take your last goodbye and shove it up your arse.
Standout songs:
Be Somebody (sort of)
