Spring Break
CD Review: Cute is what they aimed for, and well, they missed
Greg Shumchenia
Issue date: 2/7/07 Section: Entertainment
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02/07/07 - If you're audacious enough to name your band Cute Is What We Aim For, you need to be looking like Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer during the volleyball scene in Top Gun. I realize I just described an unattainable beauty, but at least have the wherewithal to clean yourself up to the standards of Anthony "Goose" Edwards.
These guys missed the bull's eye by about 10 feet. Sorry CIWWAF, but your "glamour" shot got you off to a bad start in my book - or article.
Lip rings and emo haircuts aside, let's open the album and start listening to some music.
I'd like to think that somewhere out there in the magical word of music is an intangible line that separates witty self-awareness and simply trying too hard to be clever. If this band's name and album title, The Same Old Blood Rush With A New Touch, didn't tip you off, then its songs leave no doubt that they fall within the confines of the latter.
The Buffalo-based quartet's debut album is at best a tasteless result of the MySpace generation, where the only prerequisites for a record deal and a polished album seem to be hip self-assurance and catchy hooks with sweet melodies. CIWWAF most assuredly has nothing meaningful to say through this blinding, glossy shine.
The entire album seems so manufactured and mindless that any intermittent moment of cheap catchiness is quickly overshadowed with cheesy irony and nauseating banter.
The most disconcerting of all this is wondering whether or not the band actually enjoys its attempts at crude sarcasm or if they genuinely find themselves charismatic. Take, for example, lines like, "He said it was a one night stand / But the alcohol didn't let her understand," from the song "The Fourth Drink Instinct."
First off, don't rhyme "stand" with "stand" - my 4-year-old cousin can do that. Also, evidently not only are you guys a bunch of whores, but lightweight whores. Four drinks? My grandmother had four drinks with her omelet this morning and still managed to knit me a wonderful sweater afterwards.
CIWWAF might get pleasure in stringing along fans with lyrics that often poke fun at their own vanity and superficiality ("I spend more time in front of mirrors than any gent should / Because let's face it / One on one is more fun anyway"), but it quickly gets annoying.
This album is the musical equivalent of those stupid, semi-ironic trucker hats; just because it catches on and appeals to most people for a while, that doesn't make it right, or good.
These guys missed the bull's eye by about 10 feet. Sorry CIWWAF, but your "glamour" shot got you off to a bad start in my book - or article.
Lip rings and emo haircuts aside, let's open the album and start listening to some music.
I'd like to think that somewhere out there in the magical word of music is an intangible line that separates witty self-awareness and simply trying too hard to be clever. If this band's name and album title, The Same Old Blood Rush With A New Touch, didn't tip you off, then its songs leave no doubt that they fall within the confines of the latter.
The Buffalo-based quartet's debut album is at best a tasteless result of the MySpace generation, where the only prerequisites for a record deal and a polished album seem to be hip self-assurance and catchy hooks with sweet melodies. CIWWAF most assuredly has nothing meaningful to say through this blinding, glossy shine.
The entire album seems so manufactured and mindless that any intermittent moment of cheap catchiness is quickly overshadowed with cheesy irony and nauseating banter.
The most disconcerting of all this is wondering whether or not the band actually enjoys its attempts at crude sarcasm or if they genuinely find themselves charismatic. Take, for example, lines like, "He said it was a one night stand / But the alcohol didn't let her understand," from the song "The Fourth Drink Instinct."
First off, don't rhyme "stand" with "stand" - my 4-year-old cousin can do that. Also, evidently not only are you guys a bunch of whores, but lightweight whores. Four drinks? My grandmother had four drinks with her omelet this morning and still managed to knit me a wonderful sweater afterwards.
CIWWAF might get pleasure in stringing along fans with lyrics that often poke fun at their own vanity and superficiality ("I spend more time in front of mirrors than any gent should / Because let's face it / One on one is more fun anyway"), but it quickly gets annoying.
This album is the musical equivalent of those stupid, semi-ironic trucker hats; just because it catches on and appeals to most people for a while, that doesn't make it right, or good.
