Simple Plan - Still Not Getting Any…
Knowing Simple Plan's rags-to-riches situation makes Still Not Getting Any… even less believable.
Simple Plan's new release comes with a DVD featuring audio of all the same songs from the album, except you can listen to them on your DVD player while staring at a picture of the band on the screen. I'm still not sure why bands do this, unless there really are thousands of people out there who prefer to listen to music on their DVD player. I guess you could listen to the DVD in 5.1, but I have a feeling Simple Plan in surround sound would be thoroughly disappointing.
One section of this supplementary DVD follows the band through part of its recording process. At one point, legendary producer Bob Rock (Metallica, Mötley Crüe, Our Lady Peace) instructs Pierre Bouvier on his vocals: "If the way to describe the style would be 'snotty-sounding,' go maximum snot now… overdo it." That pretty much sums up the album. It's chock-full of insanely catchy, singable melodies, but that doesn't make up for an album full of whiny, overly snotty songs. The album opener, "Shut Up," is a perfect example. The chorus is teen angst at its most trite: "Shut up, shut up, shut up, don't want to hear it / Get out, get out, get out, get out of my way / Step up, step up, step up, you'll never stop me." Like I said, it's catchy, but after the second listen, I'd rather Bouvier follow his own advice.
In the band's first single, "Welcome to My Life," we hear "You don't know what it's like to be like me…." You're right, I don't. I've never had a multiplatinum debut album (No Pads, No Helmets… Just Balls) that put me on the map when before nobody had ever heard of my band. That's gotta be rough, Pierre. In "Me Against the World" he asks, "Why is everything so hard? / I don't think I can deal." Knowing Simple Plan's rags-to-riches situation makes Still Not Getting Any… even less believable. They never offer a possible answer to their plight either, except that when "I'm so frustrated / I just want to jump." Apparently leaping in the air repeatedly will take the edge off.
But, I guess I should give the other side of this argument: Though these Canadian pop-punkers are too brooding for their own good, they're writing for their audience. Who buys these albums? Mostly teens and preteens, and I bet they relate to quite a few of these songs. It doesn't mean the album is any better, but it does mean they know their audience and cater to them well. Rock also does a great job producing, as he always does. The 11-song, 38-minute album is too formulaic, but sonically perfect.
The album closes with "Untitled," a piano power ballad, and not a good one. It's so cliché it hurts: "How could this happen to me?" is the main line of the chorus. I'm not sure, but I don't want to hear about it anymore, especially after an entire album of whining. One last gripe: The title, Still Not Getting Any…, and the artwork on the album, featuring the band members dressed up as Jackass-style octogenarians, doesn't fit the tone of this album. This isn't a playful, "we're so silly" Blink 182 album. It's gloom and doom set to happy tunes. It seems as if at the last second, these guys decided they needed to liven up the album with an unoriginal comedic gimmick. "Jump" is the only song that comes close to being playfully childish and stupid. I could have used more of this kind of immaturity.
(Lava Records)