Tuesday, February 22, 2011

The Aquabats- Hi-Five Soup!

Okay so, I fucking love the Aquabats- not gonna lie. I could listen to Fury or Return for hours, and being a completely immature dork, I will laugh. Every single damn time. In fact, MOST stuff (we all know they've had their off-albums) they've made- I will laugh at. That's because I don't consider them music I listen to for music-reasons... They're like comedy with bad music in the background. I enjoy them in that respect. HOWEVER, let's be honest you guys. They're gold-digging hoes. Between yo gabba gabba, their increasing horrible-ness, and a few stories I've heard, I ain't saying Christian Jacobs is a gold digger, but he ain't messin with no broke... yeah. You get the idea. I think what his life lacks in caffeine, alcohol, drugs, and monogamy, he gains in fucking people over and selling out. For instance, Matt Wixson (of whom some of you might know/know of) is a good friend of Idle, while I just creep on his music/occasionally make comments on his facebook... Anyway, he was playing a show with Mustard Plug, We Are The Union, and The Aquabats. The Aquabats took off with 11,000 dollars... The others got nothing. As Matt put it in a song, "You must be batshit if you think you'll be forgiven after that shit."
So I guess to put it in short, I love the Aquabats as comedians and showmen, could care less about them as musicians, and very much dislike them as people.
It was truly painful to have to listen to this album enough to give a full review- they really did go from great to horrible. NOTE: I'm leaving all exclamation points out of this review. Fuck exclamation points.
"The Shark Fighter"... This isn't even funny. The Aquabats are usually the kind of ridiculous where it's humorous-  but this isn't. Combined with their usual generic music, weird background opera vocals, and the lack of funny, this song sucks. 
"B.F.F" sounds like it was written for yo gabba gabba and it didn't make the cut for an episode, so they just put it on this album. (PS this happens a lot.) Big friends forever? seriously? Is that the most creative thing that they could come up with? What the heck. Idle is pretty tall, but I don't sit around writing fucking AUTO TUNE songs about how he's my BFF. Stop it.
"The Legend is True" starts off with the kind of sounds I make when I'm playing with sound circuit boards and connecting random wires. I don't like your fangs, guys. Sorry. What's up with the auto tune, btw? That's bullshit. I guess that comes along with selling out, though. Jacobs said in an interview that this album was definitely going to be directed at children, and it was meshing his yo gabba gabba music and the Aquabats music- but guess what? I want to listen to the old sexual innuendos, social commentaries, and TALENT of the Aquabats. There's a reason I don't watch Yo Gabba Gabba- I'm not a kid. When your fans aren't 7, don't write your music for 7 year olds.
"Radio Down" is just... confusing. Between the random Biz Markie rap, requests for dance, I don't even know what to say about this song.
"Poppin' A Wheelie" is very clearly directed strictly at children, and their parents that hate their lives during this album. "Hey Homies!" is about 99.9% Yo Gabba Gabba and .1% Aquabats... I'm a big fan of hugs, and thugs, but I am not a fan of this song. It's the same 10 seconds of music repeated over and over and over and over again.... BTW, they make up hugs in this song. The robot hug doesn't exist. I don't want a hug from these guys anymore. It's extremely repetitive, I suppose so children can learn it faster.
"In My Dreams" was a little better than the rest of the album- mostly because I love the ska side of the Aquabats. This song wasn't that bad at all. It's pretty cute, it's kid appropriate but not ridiculous, and it actually has something I would classify as music in the background.
"Just Can't Lose" is similar to "In My Dreams" in the way where it isn't about hugs or worms or any of that shit. The sad thing about this album is I don't even have much to say about the two songs that I like- I just think they're alright. I like them, but I can't really rave about them or say anything specific about them.
"All My Money" is just hilarious, considering how money-obsessed these guys are. This song is any 11 year old's anthem... So yeah.
"Pink Pants" = what? Listen to the lyrics. I don't even know what these lyrics mean... It talks about pink pants, and dreaming, and trends, and feeling left out, and talking about things, and dentistry... Oh, but Strongbad has a part in it, and that makes me really happy. If you don't know who Strongbad is, stop reading this and go kill yourself.
"Food Fight On The Moon" had music that literally hurt my ears. Go listen to it. It's like they set their synthesizers on 'dog whistle.' 
And last, not least, and most certainly boring, "Luck Dragon Lady" is... completely average.


OVERALL: Before I get tons of people bitching at me, I recognize that the Aquabats can't be taken seriously, and one is to expect this. I came into this review with love for the music, an open mind, and expecting children's music. But I work with toddlers that wouldn't even listen to this. It's like they didn't fully make the transition into kid-appropriate music (they changed the subject matter, but not the style) and still left their old style. I guess they just totally lost their ability to make me love them in the past 6 years they haven't been recording.
This was like silly without the fun for me. I bet they still rock live, and I'll still listen to their older stuff... I'll just hold a grudge for this album.. And you know, being a prostitute of the music industry.
Thanks for reading all of my run-on sentences... I'm a pro at them.

-Bear

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