It has become far too easy these days to jump all over Simple Plan for being too poppy, or too mainstream and therefore utterly unlikable (at least in most social situations). The pensive music aficionado, before listening to Simple Plan's latest self-titled release, should take time to distance himself from the social stigma that has unfortunately been branded upon these pop-punk princesses and try to listen like he'd never heard of them before.
But even after giving the band the benefit of the doubt and attempting to listen with an open mind, the first notes of the Montreal quintet's latest release seem to scream, "For God's sake, kill me! I don't deserve to exist!"
It's not that the album doesn't sound pleasing to the ear; in fact, the tracks are all so pitch-perfect that we wonder if someone replaced squirrelly lead singer Pierre Bouvier with, well, a robot who can actually sing, not simply talk rhythmically.
The album opens with a bouncing beat on the first single "When I'm Gone," which could easily have been taken from an Ashlee Simpson, or worse yet, a Jessica Simpson record. The programmed loop also echoes strangely of late-nineties rap-metal, and somewhere out there, Fred Durst is threatening a comeback at the thought of Simple Plan purloining his beats.
The second track, "Take My Hand," kicks off with a rather rocking sixteenth-note hi-hat pattern from drummer Chuck Comeau and, surprisingly enough, continues the rawking throughout the duration of the song. "What's so wrong with this song then?"asks the intelligent reader.
The problem lies not in the sound of the track itself but in the songwriting and organization of its pieces. Everything about the tune is dumbed down for the lowest common denominator of listener, a fact which, sadly, is better than the alternative. Pierre Bouvier actually wrote schlocky lyrics such as the following in earnest: "Take my hand tonight/ Let's not think about tomorrow/ Take my hand tonight/ We can find some place to go/ Cause our hearts are locked forever/ And our love will never die." Seriously? Seriously.
"Take My Hand" also suffers from the same excruciating overproduction as the rest of the album. In the second verse, the drums drop out and Bouvier's voice is left singing the verse accompanied by a plethora of synth swooshes and delay-affected single guitar notes. A different band - no, check that, the Simple Plan of 2002 - would have found a musically interesting way to add contrast to this verse, but instead the group relies on Pro-Toolery to perk up (and make cliché) an otherwise piteously trite track.
The second single and fifth track from the CD is the equally fouled-up "Your Love Is a Lie." Words cannot fully express how truly agonizing an experience it is listening to this song. The backing drum track for the entire tune is an Usher-esque hand-clapping backbeat, complete with an acoustic guitar riff that is a carbon copy of Madonna's "Don't Tell Me."
Awful journalism it may be, but the rest of the album is not worth listening to, much less reviewing. As previously suggested, it's not that the music is grating on the ears, but rather that there is no point in listening to a string of songs that are catchy but completely devoid of any artistic value. Even if you're searching for something to sing along with, a Fall Out Boy CD will do you much more good.
What should (and hopefully does) irk all pop/punk/rock fans the most is Simple Plan's utter lack of identity.
When the group first rose to popularity in 2002, they were a bunch of Canadian skater-punks raised on Blink 182's potty humor (the title of their first album was "No Pads, No Helmets, Just Balls"(2002)) with a knack for writing pithy youthful anthems that happened to be catchier than a bad case of the clap. In 2008, the band seems to have lost any idea of who it is or ever was.
The issue at hand can be summed up in one swift metaphor. The cover of "No Pads..." found the boys with short spiked hair, bright colored t-shirts and Dickies shorts, caught in the act of something vaguely promiscuous yet childlike involving scantily clad women.
On the front of Simple Plan's new album is, fittingly, a black and white picture of the band members looking surly and unshaven, with Pierre Bouvier's now long and dyed black hair swooshed perfectly over his eyes.
Under his jacket, Pierre hides a full arm sleeve tattoo, his first and only tattoo; the poor kid just wants to fit in.
