Album
Review
Dave
Matthews Band
"Busted Stuff"
by: Anthony Bromberg
|
It's always a risky move to give your album a title that
can easily be twisted into negative connotations, because
then analytical little fucks like me will use it against
you. Take for instance the new Dave Matthews Band album,
entitled "Busted Stuff" The impotence and stale playing
metaphor possibilities are nearly endless.
That stated, "Busted Stuff," is not a bad album. The Dave
Matthews Band do not make bad albums, and Dave Matthews
does not write bad songs. It's just not a BAD band.
The group has proven this by making a number of fan pleasing
albums that don't stray too far from the beaten path. And
they're so good at this, in fact, that "Busted Stuff" manages
to be just about the same exact thing as everything that
came before it.
Dave sings his emotional lyrics in his passionate lazy
voice, and his band fills up his songs with a bunch of inoffensively
semi-pleasing sounds. This creates a boring, but pleasant,
drone for upwards of ten songs, and will no doubt sell millions
of copies.
And for his teeny bopper fans, this is a great thing. They'll
keep on smoking dope (it does seem that DMB enjoyment and
green clouds have a strong correlation, not that Publicity
Whore would ever recommend illicit drug use, of course)
and be happy as clams through eternity as long as their
soft rock prophet keeps churning out more of the same.
And me, do I approve of this well-spring of monotony?
Why, certainly. It's not like while I'm writing here at
Publicity Whore I would want to shake anything up,
or subvert anybody's expectations, or approve of anything
that wasn't inoffensive. No, I'm a full supporter of the
same old, same old. I like to be suckered into spending
my money on totally unoriginal things while I'm high. I
like mellow boring soulless-
Oh, wait, fuck me, that's not what I meant at all. Maybe,
it goes something more like this:
At a time when everyone else in the world is so preoccupied
with safety, wouldn't it be nice to have the artists at
least grow some balls and give us something to be excited
about? I mean this is supposed to be rock n' fuckin' roll
I'm talking about, not a polite yenta tea party. Maybe we
could use a little musical terrorism to shock us out of
this stagnant state in popular music when the supposed biggest
acts in rock can get away with recycling old shit and shoving
it down our throats. Yeah, I think that's more along the
lines of how I feel. I mean can't anyone in rock compete
with Eminem for Christ's sake?
Anyway, the Dave Matthews Band won't get back to when they
were good until Dave ditches the rest of the band, and finds
the meat of his pretty good songs (check out his live sessions
with Tim Reynolds and no band accompaniment - his songs
actually have heart and energy).
As long as they keep going without any major change though,
Dave's musical phallus is going to remain as limp (I told
you I'd get it in there) as it is on "Busted Stuff."
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