I'm not one to use the terms like "sellout," and the band has been very forward about tapping into their pop side – so why do I feel so unsatisfied? Listening to Overexposed makes me long for the band I knew and loved. Don't get me wrong, I adore when bands mess around with their sound and try new things, but when I saw them play live last August in Nashville, I left Bridgestone Arena thinking, "For a band literally 'selling out' 10,000-seat concerts, these guys rock freakin' hard!" We get a taste of that musicianship in the track "Kiss," a cover of the song by Prince, but for the most part Overexposed makes me wonder (pun intended): did those same guys make this new album?
I'm sure their lives have changed dramatically since the now infamous Jane, and of course there have been some personnel changes (how many tweets have I seen asking, "Who's the black guy??"). So I have to ask, who is writing the new lyrics? In asking this, I don't just mean the name attached – that information is easy enough to find. But I wonder what's going on with these guys. The beautiful subtlety and sly suggestiveness from Jane, which we still saw in snippets on Soon Before Long (and in traces on Hands All Over), is completely missing from this one. The melodies and musical phrases are hooky as ever, but they're lackluster, half-hearted, formulaic. There's a certain musicality that these songs don't have. I'm not going to fall in love to the songs on this album, and for that reason, I'm not going to fall in love with them either. And on an unrelated note, where are the bass-hugging riffs that captured a faithful audience and set their songs apart since the beginning? Even the ridiculous Jackson 5 ripoff "Misery" had a catchy bass line - and I liked the song for it, in spite of myself.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, on the first listen to Overexposed my gut reaction is, "Wtf is this?" But I like the band, a lot. I'll give it another listen.
Have you heard the new album? What did you think?
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