"
Time for some soul searching.
"
"
Time for some soul searching.
"
If you can think of a more dreary, lame, overplayed, tiresome, nauseating piece of worthless pish than ‘Give a Little Bit’ by Supertramp, I’ll give you quid. OK I’ll take that back cos Liz has just reminded me of ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ by R Kelly……………………….. And ‘Achy Breaky Heart’ by that tosser.
I’ll start again.
Although there are quite a few more dreary, lame, overplayed, tiresome, nauseating pieces of worthless pish, ‘Give a Little Bit’ by Supertramp still makes my blood boil with it’s nicey, licey, spayed, goody-two-shoes, arse-wipe, twee bollocks.
If Supertramp offered to come to my house and play a gig for free and bring all the beer I would tell them to sling their hook, and I would buy a bazooka just in case they hadn’t got the message.
Imagine my dismay then, when I got settled into Granpappy’s ol’ rockin’ chair and sat down to take an objective listen to The Goo’s latest offering, only to hear that twatty acoustic, jangalanging in to the intro of the aforementioned song that shall no longer be named.
Oh dear.
I don’t want to go on about it, but a little jaggedy, thunder-drum middle-eight is not going to lift this rotting cadaver from it’s dreamless slumber.
The Goo’s have sold about a zillion records, they’ve been nominated for Grammies and are apparently only slightly less popular than breathing in their native U.S. As we know only too well that is not necessarily a good sign.
The live album begins (after ‘that’ song comes to a merciful end), with ‘Big Machine’, I find it hard to get too excited about it, but it’s a blessed relief. The temptation to just put the CD in the toaster is diminished further by Naked, which is a classic, modern, freeway rocker, all goatee and pick-up truck. I don my spiritual baseball cap, peak to the front where it belongs.
It’s the sort of music that brings back memories for me, of driving for endless miles across Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana in a shirt and tie, after I’d got too far away from Atlanta with it’s fantastic radio station that played songs I’d never heard before, hour after hour. I can’t remember it’s name but if anyone does know, drop me a line, I think it was a college thing.
‘Slide’ is up next and that’s got a touch of The Wonderstuff about it, perhaps lacking the wit, a bit serious maybe. I kind of like it, not wishing to be too vague, but it’s a bit raaaawk for my snobbish Limey palate. My taste buds are tickled a little later by ‘Smash’ and more notably ‘Tucked Away’ which has a strangely Stiff Little Fingers feel about it, but there’s always a but.
I’m trying hard to get enthusiastic about something here, but it just isn’t happening. ‘Name’, their U.S. radio smash, is here, but it doesn’t float my boat. There are a couple of decent tracks on the album but much of it is drivel. Goo Goo Doll’s fans and those present in Buffalo on the 4th of July will love it but I’m not and I wasn’t. I want to persevere and get to the end of the record but the last song is a live version of ‘that’ song.
Just before ‘that’ though, there is ‘Iris’ and I realise that this is exactly the sort of music I was listening to in my hired Ford Taurus, driving hastily past a Mississippi billboard saying "Go to church or the Devil will get you".
The most disturbing thing about all of this, is that the sort of predictable chord progressions they use and their vocal melodies remind me of songs that I write, and I’m never going to listen to this album again.
Time for some artistic soul searching for both me and The Goo Goo Dolls