The Album Review Club - Week #128 - (page 1587) - Pretty Vicious - The Struts

Black&White&BlueMoon Town said:
If you have to ask... then you probably were not.

I do not question... I was not, and that's a shame, though I did see them play the entire album from start to finish in concert, so I will always have THAT! ;-)
Click to expand...
Yeah, well much of last year is a bit of a blur to me. Believe me.
Saw them here in Dublin too. Great performance. Great band.

Anyway back to the task in hand…..
Hmmmm. I’m already conflicted.
I’ve never heard any of The Struts stuff before.
I was two songs in and thinking, this is very pleasant, what a contrast to being two songs in on first listen of The Oasis album.
However, what am I listening to? In terms of the pop/rock/glam/whatever debate that was ongoing last week, well damned if I know.
One thing I do know is, that the further into the album that I got, the more I characterised it as , “generic”.
The guy can sing. The band can play. The songs are pleasant.
His voice is not distinctive. The playing is fairly standard. The tunes are background music.

I spent a lot of time running Noel’s vocals down, but one thing nobody can deny is that they are very distinctive. You couldn’t mistake them to belong to anyone else but ‘Oasis’.
First listen, but I’m not getting that from Spiller. There is no doubt he has a much better singing voice, but he doesn’t sound like a rock singer and the band aren’t exactly playing pop. So what are they?
It’s only first listen and I’m taking the same approach of saying how I feel now, rather than storing it up for the end of the week.

I quite enjoyed, the first listen, but I see it as a mixture of maybe three or four other bands possibly more, across a few genres and very safe background music in this household.
The conflict arises, out of my thoughts on scoring, already. I’ve given two 7’s to the last two albums. I don’t know where I go with this, but we’ll see by the end of the week.

So first impressions; Generic.
 
Last edited:
mancity2012_eamo said:
The conflict arises, out of my thoughts on scoring, already. I’ve given two 7’s to the last two albums. I don’t know where I go with this, but we’ll see by the end of the week.
Click to expand...

Lol, I thought about the scoring when I joined the thread, and concluded, that whatever I scored the first album...I could end up with scoring loads of 8/9's or 1/2's.
So decided what I thought was 'bang average' would be a 5.......kept to it, I think my scoring has been slightly lower than others on that scale, but it's consistent to them all (except The Streets, who would have been 0, if allowed!).....not that the scoring matters, it's the chance of finding albums/bands that I like, that I'd otherwise never have heard ;)
Pleasant is good word for this one.
 
Rambly review so to save on time it's a 5. now go do something else instead

The Elephant and the Rider is an analogy popularised by the author Jonathan Haidt to help us understand how many of us think. The elephant represents the intuitive non rational process. The rider is the rational. Most of us assume the rider is in control. We make rational decisions (the rider) that instructs and controls the emotional (the elephant) but the reality is the elephant does what it wants. We make decisions mainly based on intuition and emotions and the rider comes up with rational justification for the things we did. The elephant tramps through the jungle and the rider pretends this is the way he intended to go anyway.

This is relevant because just based on the name of the band and album title I already decided I hate this before I'd even heard a note. Keep that in mind and discount everything I say. It's going to be long and boring and not make sense so you should give up now anyway.

It is interesting that this album and band comes in the wake of Oasis. There are many similarities. Oasis could be the Struts if you put them in skinny jeans and burnt their anoraks. How OB1 describes how he enjoys the album is beautiful and the perfect way to enjoy Oasis - singing along with someone else. The Struts are often lauded for their live act which is by nature communal so perhaps listening to this by myself when i'm feeling like crap is not the best way to judge this album. Like Oasis the Struts sing about and live the rock star life style - how I feel about them singing about it probably says more about me than them.

Oasis are deliberately provocative whereas the Struts are trying to hard to make me like them. I can't rationalise this. I don't like Oasis but they aren't bothered so that's ok. I don't like the Struts and they aren't bothered because they don't think I'm cool. In my judgement of them is a judgement of myself that even if i wore eye liner and was heroin skinny i couldn’t escape. I'm not even judging this album I'm judging myself and I'm just not cool so screw you the Struts.

But here is the issue - i dont think the Struts are cool even though i think they may be considered cool by people who think they are cool. They are beautiful men performing and singing like you'd expect cool rock stars but there is something fundamentally establishment about them that leaves me annoyed. I say this knowing full well that Oasis were establishment cool back in the Cool Brittania day and dated IT girls and models and stuff but i was indifferent when they did it. When the Struts do it it actually makes me angry at the artifice of it. They sing about Gucci, OK Magazine and Kim Kardashian and Ray K. The references are out of date and they don't represent the streets - it's referencing a world i don't exist in and think is stupid.

In 1968 Jimi Hendrix released Electric Ladyland. The album cover featured a bunch of naked women which Hendrix hated but was purely designed to get it banned and cause controversy. We are still trying the same old tired tricks and our image of a rockstar hasn't changed in 60 years. It's not on this album but their song Could Have Been Me has a video featuring a young pretty lady with no top on BUT because it's on youtube her nipples are blurred out. How progressive. How edgy. How very rock and roll.

By adopting the persona of the rock star they are doing what is expected. It's no longer rebellious it's now establishment. Like Taylor Swift getting plaudits for singing F The Patriarchy with Prince William in the audience as if he is about to have her beheaded. This is the album you play to pretend your edgy. Prince Harry in his Nazi Uniform taking a dump in his grandfathers french horn whilst heehaws smack up on heroin they bought from Selfridges. Bad Bois for lyfe.

This isn't even the fault of the band. They are good. Luke Spiller is a fine front man - probably the closest we have to Freddie Mercury and the band are all beautiful cheekbones and eyeliner. They seem to work hard and they can write catchy tunes you can sing along to. I get why people like them i just hate what they aspire to be. The rock band playing the royal variety performance.

I've spent more time writing about the band than the album because the elephant is stamping on my keyboard. It is interesting to me though that wikipedia mentions that frontman Luke Spiller grow up in a Christian home. When I first heard I Won't Run (before I knew this fact) I thought the lyrics, melody and drums could easily have been written by a Christian band in the late 90's early 2000's. It's a niche reference but I can definitely imagine as Spiller grow up and started listening to secular music that his mum and dad went to the local Christian bookstore and picked up the latest "cool" album recommended by the young shop assistant in a desperate attempt to stop their son slipping into a hopeless cliche.

Every song on this album is fine but it's cliche and could have been written by Razorlight or Robbie Williams BUT at least be honest about it. I can't believe I'm going to give Oasis some credit here but they are band. The Struts are artists. I can't rationalise why that is significant and makes sense to me. Hands On Me actually makes me doubt if Spiller has ever even had a break up or just seem them in a Richard Curtis film. When I was listening to Somebody Someday my wife thought it was some kind of joke song. Remember The Name is probably the best song because it kind of sounds like Primal Scream but contains the Kim K line and every rock band cliché you can imagine.
 
mrbelfry said:
Rambly review so to save on time it's a 5. now go do something else instead

The Elephant and the Rider is an analogy popularised by the author Jonathan Haidt to help us understand how many of us think. The elephant represents the intuitive non rational process. The rider is the rational. Most of us assume the rider is in control. We make rational decisions (the rider) that instructs and controls the emotional (the elephant) but the reality is the elephant does what it wants. We make decisions mainly based on intuition and emotions and the rider comes up with rational justification for the things we did. The elephant tramps through the jungle and the rider pretends this is the way he intended to go anyway.

This is relevant because just based on the name of the band and album title I already decided I hate this before I'd even heard a note. Keep that in mind and discount everything I say. It's going to be long and boring and not make sense so you should give up now anyway.

It is interesting that this album and band comes in the wake of Oasis. There are many similarities. Oasis could be the Struts if you put them in skinny jeans and burnt their anoraks. How OB1 describes how he enjoys the album is beautiful and the perfect way to enjoy Oasis - singing along with someone else. The Struts are often lauded for their live act which is by nature communal so perhaps listening to this by myself when i'm feeling like crap is not the best way to judge this album. Like Oasis the Struts sing about and live the rock star life style - how I feel about them singing about it probably says more about me than them.

Oasis are deliberately provocative whereas the Struts are trying to hard to make me like them. I can't rationalise this. I don't like Oasis but they aren't bothered so that's ok. I don't like the Struts and they aren't bothered because they don't think I'm cool. In my judgement of them is a judgement of myself that even if i wore eye liner and was heroin skinny i couldn’t escape. I'm not even judging this album I'm judging myself and I'm just not cool so screw you the Struts.

But here is the issue - i dont think the Struts are cool even though i think they may be considered cool by people who think they are cool. They are beautiful men performing and singing like you'd expect cool rock stars but there is something fundamentally establishment about them that leaves me annoyed. I say this knowing full well that Oasis were establishment cool back in the Cool Brittania day and dated IT girls and models and stuff but i was indifferent when they did it. When the Struts do it it actually makes me angry at the artifice of it. They sing about Gucci, OK Magazine and Kim Kardashian and Ray K. The references are out of date and they don't represent the streets - it's referencing a world i don't exist in and think is stupid.

In 1968 Jimi Hendrix released Electric Ladyland. The album cover featured a bunch of naked women which Hendrix hated but was purely designed to get it banned and cause controversy. We are still trying the same old tired tricks and our image of a rockstar hasn't changed in 60 years. It's not on this album but their song Could Have Been Me has a video featuring a young pretty lady with no top on BUT because it's on youtube her nipples are blurred out. How progressive. How edgy. How very rock and roll.

By adopting the persona of the rock star they are doing what is expected. It's no longer rebellious it's now establishment. Like Taylor Swift getting plaudits for singing F The Patriarchy with Prince William in the audience as if he is about to have her beheaded. This is the album you play to pretend your edgy. Prince Harry in his Nazi Uniform taking a dump in his grandfathers french horn whilst heehaws smack up on heroin they bought from Selfridges. Bad Bois for lyfe.

This isn't even the fault of the band. They are good. Luke Spiller is a fine front man - probably the closest we have to Freddie Mercury and the band are all beautiful cheekbones and eyeliner. They seem to work hard and they can write catchy tunes you can sing along to. I get why people like them i just hate what they aspire to be. The rock band playing the royal variety performance.

I've spent more time writing about the band than the album because the elephant is stamping on my keyboard. It is interesting to me though that wikipedia mentions that frontman Luke Spiller grow up in a Christian home. When I first heard I Won't Run (before I knew this fact) I thought the lyrics, melody and drums could easily have been written by a Christian band in the late 90's early 2000's. It's a niche reference but I can definitely imagine as Spiller grow up and started listening to secular music that his mum and dad went to the local Christian bookstore and picked up the latest "cool" album recommended by the young shop assistant in a desperate attempt to stop their son slipping into a hopeless cliche.

Every song on this album is fine but it's cliche and could have been written by Razorlight or Robbie Williams BUT at least be honest about it. I can't believe I'm going to give Oasis some credit here but they are band. The Struts are artists. I can't rationalise why that is significant and makes sense to me. Hands On Me actually makes me doubt if Spiller has ever even had a break up or just seem them in a Richard Curtis film. When I was listening to Somebody Someday my wife thought it was some kind of joke song. Remember The Name is probably the best song because it kind of sounds like Primal Scream but contains the Kim K line and every rock band cliché you can imagine.
Click to expand...
Always with the negative waves @mrbelfry always with the negative waves. ;-)
 
mrbelfry said:
I think they are good at what they do but Hitler also made the trains run on time so I'm not sure if that amounts to a net benefit
Click to expand...
I’ll take in my second listen later.
My first impression was, pleasant but generic.
I get what you wrote. I was never really into ‘glam’ rock. I found I could stomach glam pop a lot better. Into which category I’d put early Bowie.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top
✖
  AdBlock Detected
Bluemoon relies on advertising to pay our hosting fees. Please support the site by disabling your ad blocking software to help keep the forum sustainable. Thanks.