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Blow Up Hollywood, "Fake"
Blow Up Hollywood
The melodies might be vibrant and the arrangements lush, but nothingcan fix the feeling that there's a lot of counterfeit sentiment beingtossed around this album. I'd like to say I felt something whilelistening to this record, but the vocal delivery and the sappy,over-romantic instrumentation simply sounded too much like a bad radiodrama to be interesting. Fakeopens up with the seven minute creeper, "Born." The vocalist soundslike he is trying hard to say something that is emotionally drainingand utterly important, but he comes across sounding like a 10 year oldboy convinced that he's in love. Speaking of 10 year old boys, thelyrics sound as though they're meant to convey all sorts of meanings(it's the delivery of the singer that makes them sound so important)but I'm not sure I understand what he's singing about on "Born." I'mnot sure I know what's going on in any of these ten songs to tell thetruth. Blow Up Hollywood are obviously reaching for some lofty conceptthat will lift them up above other bands and into the realms of"important" and "socially conscious;" one look at their website and itseems like they've got this grand Zen-influenced statement to make.This teenager-symptom (self-importance?) ruins what talent the bandhas. That self-importance isn't just in the singer's head, though,otherwise I might have been able to enjoy the album for its music. Themusic sounds like a half-assed attempt at mixing the grandeur oforchestral music with the glossy sheen of popular rock n' roll radio.There's absolutely no grit anywhere on the record, that's what makes it sound so damned self-important and phony.There's absolutely no sign of anger, no sign of confusion, or any hintthat maybe pain could take part in these sappy meanderings. That slickand prosthetic production accounts for 90% of what's wrong with themusic. There might be room for this somewhere in a bad movie where theboy finds the girl and they fall in love all over again despite thefact that, while she was away, he was busy with about 10 other girls.Right, suddenly jackass is in love and everything's going to be okayand in the end there's going to be a white picket fence, little cryingbastards everywhere, and a dog attacking the mailman in the front yard.Forgive me for being so angry, but when a mediocre album entitled Fakecrosses my path and then tries to play itself off as ananti-establishment or somehow spiritually fulfilling record thateschews all pretense, I tend towards a complete lack of faith in thehonestly rebellious spirit and begin to think that maybe the last 10years of federally sponsored media mergers has completely killed anyreal chance of music inspiring righteous indignation and civildisobedience ever again.-
The melodies might be vibrant and the arrangements lush, but nothingcan fix the feeling that there's a lot of counterfeit sentiment beingtossed around this album. I'd like to say I felt something whilelistening to this record, but the vocal delivery and the sappy,over-romantic instrumentation simply sounded too much like a bad radiodrama to be interesting. Fakeopens up with the seven minute creeper, "Born." The vocalist soundslike he is trying hard to say something that is emotionally drainingand utterly important, but he comes across sounding like a 10 year oldboy convinced that he's in love. Speaking of 10 year old boys, thelyrics sound as though they're meant to convey all sorts of meanings(it's the delivery of the singer that makes them sound so important)but I'm not sure I understand what he's singing about on "Born." I'mnot sure I know what's going on in any of these ten songs to tell thetruth. Blow Up Hollywood are obviously reaching for some lofty conceptthat will lift them up above other bands and into the realms of"important" and "socially conscious;" one look at their website and itseems like they've got this grand Zen-influenced statement to make.This teenager-symptom (self-importance?) ruins what talent the bandhas. That self-importance isn't just in the singer's head, though,otherwise I might have been able to enjoy the album for its music. Themusic sounds like a half-assed attempt at mixing the grandeur oforchestral music with the glossy sheen of popular rock n' roll radio.There's absolutely no grit anywhere on the record, that's what makes it sound so damned self-important and phony.There's absolutely no sign of anger, no sign of confusion, or any hintthat maybe pain could take part in these sappy meanderings. That slickand prosthetic production accounts for 90% of what's wrong with themusic. There might be room for this somewhere in a bad movie where theboy finds the girl and they fall in love all over again despite thefact that, while she was away, he was busy with about 10 other girls.Right, suddenly jackass is in love and everything's going to be okayand in the end there's going to be a white picket fence, little cryingbastards everywhere, and a dog attacking the mailman in the front yard.Forgive me for being so angry, but when a mediocre album entitled Fakecrosses my path and then tries to play itself off as ananti-establishment or somehow spiritually fulfilling record thateschews all pretense, I tend towards a complete lack of faith in thehonestly rebellious spirit and begin to think that maybe the last 10years of federally sponsored media mergers has completely killed anyreal chance of music inspiring righteous indignation and civildisobedience ever again.-
