Do you remember the last third of 2001? You know, all those articles about how The Strokes were going to be the ones to save rock and roll from it's monotonous self and reinvigorate the genre the way Nirvana did in 1991? To be sure, the Strokes are a decent band, but it turns out the music press was wrong about who was going to save rock and roll. They were only a couple of months early to their own party, which isn't bad. Ladies and gentleman, I give you Andrew W.K..
OK, so arguing that Mr. W.K. is going to save rock and roll is ludicrous because the whole argument is ludicrous. But that doesn't mean that I Get Wet, for all intents and purposes his debut album, isn't a cosmic piece of rock and roll, a blast from the past that not only sounds good, but yet, somehow original as well.
Andrew W.K. has a bit of the bombast of The Who in him, he has a bit of the theatrical quality of Meatloaf in him, and let's face it, there's more than a little hair metal (think Poison but much cooler) and even some early Beastie Boys. Indeed, this disc has been called "the best party album since Licensed to Ill." I don't know if I'm one to argue with that point, given some of the titles (It's Time to Party, Party Hard, Party Til You Puke).
That mix probably sounds sick and disgusting to you; it did to me at first when I read about him in the Boston Phoenix last week. The only reason I even cared about the article was because another Epinions' writer who shall remain nameless mentioned him to me a couple of weeks ago.
But there's something magical in the stew that W.K. has cooked up here. To be sure it's derivative of all those styles and even more, but more than anything it's a fist pumping rock record, and well, let's be honest here: there hasn't been a fist pumping rock record this good since Motley Crue'sDr. Feelgood.
You may have heard Party Hard in promos for MTV's drug movie Wasted. If you didn't like the song then, you won't like this album now. Party Hard in many ways is the most true representation of what this album is: party anthems played loud, sung loud, and meant to be blasted loud. Sure, to me music is something more important, but sometimes, you just gotta break the rules.
There will surely be writers who attack the song I Love NYC as a cheesy, pretentious post September 11th tribute to a city that has already had enough cheesy and pretentious post September 11th tributes. Note to those reviewers: it was written long before September 11th.
W.K. also has a heavy new-wave influence found throughout the album. Most of the time, this is laid down in simple synthesizer tracks in the background of the tracks, but it's effective. More than anything though, it's the three pronged guitar attack (read: three guitarists) that give this album it's power and it's appeal. In many ways, one could compare it to the "wall of sound" approach used by Phil Spector in the 1960s: 3 guitars playing the same thing creates a very cool and very loud effect.
The title track sounds like it's straight out of a punk version of Phantom of the Opera. But then again, everything else sounds like it's straight out of some other band's book, except done better.
No song on here lasts very long, in fact the longest track is the epic-like 3:54 length that makes up Got to Do It. But if you just want a quick blast of that old time charisma and rock and roll energy, there might not be an album to come along in the next five years that can match this. It's cheap too: most places have it on sale this week for seven or eight bucks. You can't go wrong with this disc. It might not be as uplifting as Creed (snicker), or as angry as Limp Bizkit (double snicker), but rather it is something bands like those could never be: un-pretentious.
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