Every year, we are bombarded by “Best Of” lists including my own submitted here on the East Portland Blog. However in hindsight, as much as the best of the 2011 albums (sorry, I still call them that) made me very happy and satisfied, I need to warn you of the bottom-of-the-barrel, waste of plastic, what-were-they-thinking…Crap (there I said it) releases of the year. To hate them is to assure myself that I still have respect for rock n roll.
1) Sunrise Avenue – Out of Style
This Finnish band is the pits. It’s by far the worst thing I’ve heard in 2011. Flaccid Nickelback-styled rock with lyrics so sweet and trite, that you want to bust your eardrums with a sharp pencil (#2 pencils preferred). Songs “Sweet Symphony” and the banjo-plucking mid-tempo “Kiss Goodbye” are both cursed with the most awful overblown hair metal solos and suggest the band is stuck in a mid-’80s time warp.
2) Steven Tyler – (It) Feels So Good [Single]
If anyone should have known better, it is Steven Tyler. “(It) Feels So Good” uses an Aerosmith-style guitar riff and some chintzy synth drums, but he can’t shape them into anything resembling an Aerosmith song – it sounds more like late-period Genesis, circa “I Can’t Dance.” Even when he honks a harmonica, it’s impossible not to notice how offensively wussy the guitars are. “(It) Feels So Good” ends up sounding like a cry for help. Where’s Joe Perry when you need him?
3) Dream Diary – You Are the Beat
This Brooklyn trio’s blend of retro shoegaze, twee-pop, and indie rock owes much to Britpop. That is the only plus of this CD. It is so poorly executed, the production sounds like it was recorded in Wayne and Garth’s basement using a Playskool plastic microphone. The vocal are so atrocious and makes one want to reach for their earplugs. Yikes!
4) Beady Eye – Different Gear, Still Speeding
This is Oasis without Noel Gallagher. What a letdown! After listening to this CD, one can easy hear why Noel was the soul of Oasis. The songs here are retreads of bits and pieces of Badfinger, Blur, XTC and others of that sort. This is typical uninspired lad rock and roll where people in pubs, pissed up, might sing along to this album’s wannabe stadium rock ‘anthems.’ Soon to be in a cut-out bin near you.
5) Asian Dub Foundation – A History of Now
Asian Dub Foundation was a powerhouse of political fury at their height. They made wildly inventive, thrilling music. Here ADF sounds bloated and lazy. The lyrics lack the scathing bite of the past and the beats seemed to be recycled samples from a Beats-for-Dummies CD. I really tried to like this CD, but in the end, it wasn’t worth it. It’s sad really, at a time with all the political and economic upheaval going on, it seems the ADF has lost its fire and has abandoned the good fight. They are sorely needed and missing in action.
6) Bush – The Sound of Winter [Single]
It’s been 10 years since Bush released any new music. So I was very curious of what Bush would bring to the table on their new album. “The Sound of Winter’ was released as the lead single from the CD and upon pressing the play> button, I was immediately disenchanted. Not that is a terrible song per se; it’s that it sounded as if it lifted from the sessions of their first CD. Nothing new, it’s just more of the post-grunge that they were cranking out a decade ago. No new tricks, no new insights. What a downer!
7) Ben Harper – Give Till It’s Gone
I love Ben Harper. I was happy to see this release at the store. I snatched it up. Boo-yah! Horror! “Give Till It’s Gone” is dissonant, ragged and woolly, and drenched in noisy, blown-out production. The production is so bad that smartly written songs like ‘Don’t Give Up on Me Now’, ‘Get There from Here’ and ‘Pray That Our Love Sees the Dawn’ are turn into specters of what they could have been. This a major disappoint from a usually reliable artist.
8) Pearl Jam – Olé [Single]
I can’t put my finger on what’s wrong with this single. It’s not terrible and at least it isn’t overlong and some guitar parts are OK, but it really sounds like a forced attempt to prove they still can rock out. Also there is something about the ‘Olés’ that are really awkward in the context of a Pearl Jam song. It’s far from their best.
9) The Horrible Crowes – Elsie [Picture]
I don’t like the bands that have decided that they are Bruce Springsteen’s heirs (in much the same way as way too many people decided they could be Dylan’s heirs decades ago). Now we get some really bizarre “I wish I was the Boss” lyrics matched with music that is… well, tedious. I love how there are all these kids who are mining 80s music but they are mining the pop rock of the 80s, rather than the interesting music of the 80s. The more I know about the extensive interest of Springsteen and U2, the more I despair for mankind. Stick with Gaslight Anthem for your Springsteen/Mellencamp/Bono fix.
10) Evanescence – Evanescence
After a long hiatus, Evanescence returns and comes up with a self-titled album that is NOT a debut. If they’re that lazy when it comes to album names, imagine how I felt when I bothered listening to this watered-down alt-rock for Goth posers (as if there were any left from the early 2000s). *YAWN* Very repetitive music. Amy Lee’s vocals are the only thing worth anything in this band but as a whole this is a mediocre album. If you want a good pop-rock album, there are a lot of other options out there. Skip this one, it is a disappointment.
Dishonorable Mentions: Buffalo Tom – Skins; Chris Isaak – Beyond the Sun; Lou Reed & Metallica – Lulu
