Review Summary: An annoying, whiney 25 year old acts like an annoying, whiney 12 year old and gets the characterisation just right.
When I was 12 years old I was bullied a lot, hated at school, and generally hated most of the world around me (i.e the usual “my life sucks” pre-teen stuff). I found comfort in a song, “Welcome To My Life” by Simple Plan. I could relate well to its lyrics and its catchy chorus had me hooked from the beginning. I was 12 then, now I’m 15 and relatively happy with my life. I look back on those days and remember how much I’ve changed and grown.
The reason I mention this?
It’s one of two reasons why I’m giving this a 1.5 instead of a 1. The first is the fact that the musicians aren’t horrible, they’re competent enough and can play their parts well enough to please me (I reserve my 1’s for artists like Soulja Boy, who clearly has no discernible talent whatsoever). The second is nostalgia; that little emotional bastard that can bring tears to the eye and make us do crazy things, like spend $3 buying this album from a second-hand shop just for the laughs.
My main gripe here is the lead singer, Pierre Bouvier, and his atrocious lyrics. He comes across as a man who failed to accept the changes puberty offered and stayed exactly the same as when he was 12 (side note: he once stated in an interview that he wanted to be taken more seriously. I laughed, hard). A majority of the lyrics are concerned with bitchy friends (
Thank You), personal tragedy (
Perfect World,
Untitled) or just general pre-adolescent depression (
Welcome To My Life). All the while embodying the kind of teens you can imagine loving this crap. The one moment (and I stress the only moment) where his lyrics aren’t about the subjects mentioned above is
Crazy, where he talks of what’s wrong with the world. Don’t be mistaken though, there’s nothing there you haven’t realized already. Think of all the things you think a 12 year old would think are wrong with the world in general (we’re talking, poverty, inequality etc.) and you know precisely what the song is about. It’s juvenile and pathetic for a 25 year old man, and by the end of the album I actually felt some kind of pity for him.
The rest of the musicians within Simple Plan are competent and likable enough, nothing special (particularly the drums, who remain unremarkable for the entire album) but they produce what they are supposed to, catchy and fun pop-punk riffs and licks. If it wasn’t for Pierre they might be a mediocre band instead of a terrible one, but they’re forced to conform to him and as such get shoved in with the rest of the talentless pop-punk idiots that dominate the genre, though I admit it’s not
that far from the truth.
And now the main issue arises: repetitiveness.
If you hated or, God forbid, loved any of the singles, then expect the album to elicit the same feelings within you, except tenfold. Almost all the songs sound exactly the same. They all follow the same formula (catchy chorus, fun “punk” riff, and relatable lyrics) and the same basic structure (verse - chorus - verse - chorus - soft bridge - chorus). The only song that deviates from this in any way is
Untitled (side note: the name is an annoying gimmick, the song itself is quite easy to name, you most probably know it by the moniker everybody else has given it
How Could This Happen To Me?)
Untitled features a depressing piano line (think Evanescence’s
My Immortal) and an admittedly well disguised synthesized string section (believe me, if you listen to it carefully enough you can tell it’s artificial). Unfortunately this eliminates the only thing keeping Pierre within safe levels of teen-angst (because he was within them before?), and he uses the opportunity with gusto, sounding twice as pathetic, but now twice as sappy as well, as he does on the other songs. Not even the cheesy guitar solo partway through can save the song from being an overly self-centered and depressing affair that is a strong contender for worst song on the album (it’s a close race I can tell you).
In the end I only wish Pierre Bouvier would just shut up (pun intended) because he drags the entire Simple Plan troupe down to new lows.
