Unpopular opinions time!

[exsequar]

I feel like I'm the only one not freaking out about Pretty. Odd. In either a positive or negative sense. I don't love it; I don't hate it. It certainly didn't make me want to cry. I'm irritated with their claims to aiming for a more stripped down, natural sound actually turning out to yield an album just as overproduced as the first, just with a lot of strings instead of synths. Some of the songs are lovely and pleasing - my favorite is Northern Downpour, and I love That Green Gentlemen, except for the word salad lyrics. I haven't listened to it enough to pick out other favorites (I've been out all day with the fam). I tend to agree with the critics on Folkin' Around - that is, I don't like it. The one that has the lyric "You remind me of my famous friends" just makes me facepalm.

I think it's a very pretentious album, and while sometimes that can be cute and adorable in interviews or whatever, in an entire album it's a little hard to swallow. It feels like they're tugging at our hands and going "Look! Look! I've been listening to new music! Aren't you PROUD?" It's entirely too derivative in places, and while I think there's a lot of talent backing it up (they do write some damn catchy melodies!) I really really want them to find their own sound. I guess I was hoping for an MCR-style sophomore effort. Three Cheers is 100% MCR for me, with many and various influences subtly and brilliantly interwoven into something that is entirely their own, greater than the sum of its parts.

They're still really young. They have a lot a lot of potential, and I am certainly not giving up on them. Hopefully this album will grow on me too, because hi, I paid 70 freaking dollars for the deluxe version (what was I thinking???). I still think they're preciouses, and I love Ryan singing (most of the time - he still makes me cringe a couple times here), and I will continute to giggle fondly over their shenanigans, but I've been sorta sensing this direction in my feelings for them for a while - sort of more "aw, how cute" than all emotionally involved, or declaring their music GEEENYUS! I do still think Brendon is ridiculously talented, and the way they've really become a band is wonderful, so I have high hopes for those kids. For kids they are, and kids they will not always be.

Comments

[fallingfortruth.livejournal.com]

To be fair, Three Cheers was in many ways analogous to Fever, in that it was the first album from each band on a major label with real money behind it. Bullets is awesome, and very My Chem, but it was also recorded in eight days in some dude's mom's basement. It has more in common with the demos that Brendon and Ryan worked up in their garage than it does with a multi-platinum selling, massively produced album.

And if you make the parallels between Pretty. Odd. and TBP, I think that there's a lot more to see- They're both trying to prove themselves, and they're going about doing so in ways that are very much true to the bands they are- Even on their second major release (Decaydance is an indie but the kind of distribution and promotion that they got for Fever was as enthusiastic as the promo for any first release by a baby band that I have ever seen, major or indie) Ryan is still, what, the same age that Mikeyway was when they started My Chem? They've got a lot of growing up to do, sure, but I don't necessarily think that comparing P.O. with Three Cheers is necessarily accurate, leaving off the question of whether or not it's fair.

(Full disclosure: I've heard the B-sides but I haven't downloaded the album yet, given that it's raining out and I'm getting roughly 4k/s download speeds right now. Hopefully I'll have it by tomorrow.)