Review Summary: Better-than-average Teen Pop
At first listen, it's difficult not to spot the similarities between Skye Sweetnam and Avril Lavigne: they're both teenage grrrls, they both manage to make young adulthood sound like an exercise in frustration and heartbreak, and they both sound destined for Radio Disney... or the bargain bin at a secondhand music store. But Sweetnam's debut isn't quite as bad as it sounds like it should be, and she's not quite as similar to Lavigne as many critics made her out to be. She appears to fully recognize the flimsiness of teen pop, her lyrics are sometimes amusing, and she often seems more self-aware than Lavigne.
The title might lead one to expect that the record would have a rough, un-processed sound, as if it were actually made by in her basement with a guitar and a tape recorder, like Liz Phair's "Girlysounds." In fact, there's enough processing and pop sheen on the record to alienate about 90% of rock fans right off the bat - if one wants an acoustic guitar or some lo-fidelity, he or she'll be hard-pressed to find it here. But the processing and sheen doesn't exactly spell disaster. Radio hit "Tangled Up In Me," for example, is an exercise in what teen pop should sound like: Sweetnam describes herself as "the girl who's kicking the coke machine," and doesn't make any attempt at trying to sound profound or angst-ridden. Instead, it sounds as if she's having the time of her life as she warns her potential partner that she loves playing hard-to-get.
That's really what saves "Noise at the Basement" - it sounds like she's having the time of her life bemoaning the little struggles in her life, and she usually seems to fully recognize how insignificant they really are. On "Hypocrite," in which she mocks herself, she calls herself an "ultra brat" and "Avril-lite," before growing even franker and admitting that "some will look at me and vomit but I will look how I want to," with a sort of self-awareness that hearkens back to Liz Phair's early work. Would Avril Lavigne or Ashlee Simpson ever be that blunt?
It's when she gives into the melodrama of teen pop that her songs grow problematic. "I Don't Care" and "I Don't Really Like You," back-to-back tracks that find Sweetnam telling off wannabe lovers, have the sort of lyrics you'd expect from a teen pop record: "You and your friends are dens/You don't make any sense," "as the world tilts, milk is spilt but I'm not gonna cry". The songs' guitars are so nondescript (save for the pseudo-hard rock ones on "Like You") that it seems a bit of a stretch to even call them "rock," making the album sometimes sound more like rock music for the Gwen Stefani-loving tween.
But her self-awareness almost always wins out, and she's sometimes charming even when she gets her brattiness on. "Billy S," in which she shrugs off Shakespeare and plans a full-on teenage rebellion, is goofy but entertaining. True, a rebellion against school is less noble than a rebellion against apartheid or segregation, but the song reminds us how trivial today's teenagers' worries really are. Sweetnam's biggest worry seems to be her rock-star alternate personality, which she sings about on the hidden track "Split Personality."
Sweetnam's debut is best-enjoyed when one sees it more as a testament to what's on an average teenager's mind. The record seems a bit more candid than much teen pop, and though there's occasional melodrama, "Noise from the Basement" is more self-aware than your average teen-pop album.
