The content of this review was originally posted on the online music and popular culture magazine I See Sound on 22 Jan 2006.
Release Date: 10 January 2006 (Capitol Records)
John walked into Used Discs with one CD in his hand. Once you get over 600 CDs, as John did about 3 years ago, you need to occasionally go through the collection and trade back a few. There are some albums you never listen to again. So John usually carries a small stack, 5 to 10 discs, into Used Discs because he’s purged his collection.
In his hand he had Morningwood’s self-titled disc.
Tom, the owner of Used Discs, welcomed John to the store. He was a little excited. If John was carrying only one disc that usually meant that he had discovered something new that Tom needed to hear. That would not be case today.
“What album is that?” Tom asked.
“A piece of crap,” replied John. “I don’t care if you won’t give me a cent for this album. I need to get rid of it. I was going to throw it away, but I figured you might give me something for it. I hate it, but I could see how someone might like it if they don’t care about good lyrics, like overly repetitive music, and enjoy bands that seem like they were packaged to make people think they’re more about getting laid than playing good music.”
“Wow. It’s that bad, huh?” Tom took the disc in his hand and was shocked by the shot of the band in sexed up prep school outfits.
“Yeah. First, their name is Morningwood. And they have songs like ‘Take Off Your Clothes’ and ‘Everybody Rocks.’ I could just see the A&R guy at Capitol who signed this band thinking, ‘Man, this band mixes the universal ignorance of 80’s cock rock with the danceability of modern bands like Franz Ferdinand. And there’s a hot chick singing about how she wants to get laid. Every kid in America is going to love this band.’ But I say that’s a combination of everything I hate about music. ‘Babysitter’ is a song about how ‘your momma, momma, momma shouldn’t let be babysit’ because ‘You gotta start sometime/Show me yours I’ll show you mine.’”
“That’s horrible. Can I listen to it?”
“It’s your grave.”
They put the disc into the speakers throughout Used Discs, mainly because no one else was in the store. The first song, “Nu Rock” repeated “come get over it/come get into it” 8 times (which sounds like it’s repeated 16 times because that line is really a repetition of itself), “all you little kids that love the rock ‘n roll” 5 times, and “you sure got the style but you ain’t got no soul!” (which is an appropriate way to describe this band) 7 times. And it only has about 15 other lines in the song and they’re pretty repetitive as well.
The second track, “Televisor” came on. It repeats a chorus of “And I want it/And I need it/And I love it/Cause it’s mine all mine” a few times before repeating “It’s my night time and I want it/It’s my night time and I need it/It’s my night time and love it” over and over again.
That’s when Tom commented, “When they find a catchy chorus, they repeat it more than Michael Stipe [of R.E.M.] does. It kills the beguiling phrase.”
“And they do that in almost every song on the album,” John added. He had given the whole album a listen. He tried to like it. But he couldn’t. “Whether or not she’s trying to be kitschy, I think Chantel Claret says it best in ‘Televisor’ when she says ‘Too bad I can’t think outside the box.’ And don’t get me started on these songs titles. They think they’re witty, but mixing the word television with visor to create the title ‘Televisor’ is just dumb.”
After listening to the nonsense of “Nth Degree,” “Jetsetter” and “Take Your Clothes Off,” they skipped through the rest of the album. They’d both heard enough.
Tom declared, “They sound like they’re all great musicians. I mean, her voice is damn good. And the instrumentation is obviously played by a band that knows how to play.”
“They are good musicians,” John interrupted. “The bass player has played drums with The Wallflowers and Natalie Merchant. And the drummer used to be in Cibo Matto.”
“But the songs are horrible,” said Tom. “These are some of the worst lyrics I heard in a long time. They’re worse then Scott Stapp’s [of Creed].”
“Did you ever hear the way David Cross described Stapp’s lyrics?”
“You mean on It’s Not Funny [Cross’s 2004 comedy album on Sub Pop]?”
“Yeah. He said, ‘I swear to God that guy hangs out at junior high locker rooms, outside the girl’s locker room, writing down poetry he overhears. What? I’ll take you higher. Yeah, okay, good.’”
“I don’t even think Scott Stapp would ever use lyrics as bad as the ones on this album,” was Tom’s final comment on the album.
“CDs like this have to be one of the 2 reasons stores like yours still stay open.”
“What’s the other?”
“I assume it’s smackheads selling the good CDs that they either owned or stole so they can score.”
“Yeah, there’s some of that. But you’re forgetting about the best customers I have.”
“Who are they?”
“Guys like you that have 1000 CDs and need to purge their collection every now and then to get something new. But there aren’t as many guys like you anymore. You bought this album because you were interested. Most people, if they’re interested in an album, just download it. If they really like it, they might buy it then. So the guys like you that buy a lot of music are a dying breed.”
“Yeah. My obsession to good music may be worse than the heroin addicts dependence on their drug.”
“At least both keep my day interesting.”
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