2 out of 3 ARE bad

SteveK spots contenders for his “Worst Of 2008″ column

In the few years I’ve been reviewing music for CONFRONT Magazine, I’ve learned a lot about the music business. For instance, the last couple of weeks at the end of one year and the first couple of weeks that begin the next there is a lull in music releases; little-to-nothing comes out, and what does come out isn’t exactly ‘A’ material.

Case in point: Maroon 5′s latest, ‘Call and Response’

This is a remix album; all the popular hits from Maroon 5′s last two albums are collected here and put through Pro Tools and other hunks of sound-engineering software to produce what is supposed to be a fresh take on their music.

If you’re a fan of Maroon 5, there’s a good chance you’ll like this CD. However, if you’re like me and just never really “got” Maroon 5, well, then listening to this one will probably leave you scratching your head and wondering “Why?”

The album opens with a different-sounding “If I Never See Your Face Again” and “Wake Up Call”, but most of the remixes on ‘Call and Response’ are pointless, and in more than one case, really bad. “This Love”, for example is very poorly done. In an attempt to make the song even more up-tempo, the remix team cut the vocals short, meaning almost every word sung ends with the telltale pop of a digital cut. It’s so badly done, in fact, that one wonders how something so amateurish made it onto the disc.

Another question that listening to this disc posed: why are there two versions of “If I Never See Your Face Again”, “Wake Up Call”, “This Love”, and “Little Of Your Time” on this disc? Had they selected the better of each of the two, the album’s lengthy 18 tracks could have been nicely trimmed down to 14, and we wouldn’t have to deal with the obnoxiousness of two back-to-back renditions of “Little Of Your Time” which are, in fact, almost completely indistinguishable from one another.

And, as happens every time I listen to Maroon 5, I have to wonder: why in the hell are these guys so popular? Half the time their lyrics don’t make sense, Adam Levine sounds like James Blunt imitating Jamiroquai, and their songs are as homogenous as a box of Oreos. So, how is it possible that their albums are multi-platinum successes, heaped upon with lavish critical acclaim? I really don’t get the appeal. Frankly, makes the Maroon 5 experience that much more unpleasant.

Maroon 5: Call and Response
A&M
Steve’s Rating: Maroon 5 out of 10

Further scraping the bottom of the barrel, we come to Bullet For My Valentine’s latest release, the deluxe edition of ‘Scream Aim Fire’. Band history tells us that BFMV started off covering Nirvana and Metallica songs. History seems to be repeating itself on this one, because the “deluxe edition” of ‘Scream Aim Fire’ spends much of its time sounding like Metallica-Lite. Every so often they decide they need a musical changeup, so they throw in some down-tempo Nirvana sound-alikes with scream-core choruses.

To be fair, BFMV do cite Metallica and Nirvana among their influences, along with Pantera, Machine Head, Iron Maiden, Slayer, Judas Priest and Megadeth. The problem is they don’t seem to understand that there is a difference between being influenced by other artists and making yourself sound like a second-rate tribute band.

‘Scream Aim Fire’ was originally released at the beginning of the year; this “deluxe edition” release features songs that were cut from the original release. They add time to the album, but not much else. The tracks all sound much the same, and as their style consists of sounding like other, better bands, this album is completely insubstantial.

Bullet For My Valentine: Scream Aim Fire (Deluxe Edition)
Jive
Steve’s Rating: 5/10

One bright spot this week is a discovery I made while using Stumble Upon to channel-surf the Internet. Sometime over the summer, the Noise Floor Crew released ‘Third Floor’, an unauthorized remix of Portishead’s amazing back-from-the-dead album, ‘Third’. Technically this qualifies as a bootleg release, and no doubt the RIAA are having histrionics over it, but the Noise Floor Crew have done an amazing job creating Trance/House remixes of the songs from ‘Third’.

Just for the dark, throbbing and apocalyptic remix of “Machine Gun”, it is worth hunting the Internet to find a download of this one. Noise Floor Crew aren’t merely rip-off artists here; they make Beth Gibbons and the rest of the Portishead crew sound even better than they already are, and the remix is a work of devotion that shows a true love and respect for the trip-hop genius that is Portishead. Hell, they even make “Deep Water”, the one song on ‘Third’ I didn’t like, sound good.

Well worth trawling the Internet to find and download, ‘Third Floor’ is a fantastic companion to Portishead in general and ‘Third’ in particular.

Noise Floor Crew VS Portishead: Third Floor
Downloadable
Steve’s Rating: 10/10