5 cent posterior

Their songs all sound the same! This was my cheif complaint about Nickelback, who is the current frontrunner for the most number of times a band has used the phrase "paperback novel" in their music, but not any more.

I picked up their new album the other day, mostly because I cant get enough of the new single "Gotta Be Somebody". It has a brilliant, driving, positive beat to it that is just totally amazing and the lyrics are pretty cool too. It makes me feel good which is always a good thing. There was also something strangely familiar about it, almost nostalgic. As Candace and I sat and listened to it last night (we do that from time to time, actually listen to an album while doing nothing else but just listening) a strange and familiar pattern began to emerge. The music sounded like Nickelback but it also sounded... Candace said it first I must admit. She said, "This song sounds like Def Leppard!" which made no sense and perfect sense at the same time, the sound was definitely similar, the harmonies and percussion very familiar. On another tune Candace said, "This one done differently could be a country tune." and again I was thinking that exact thing and then a thought came over Candace and I simultaneously and she looked at me and said, "What if this album was produced by Mutt Lange?"

In the late 80's Bryan Adams released Waking Up the Neighbors, a kickass return to some real rock n roll. Every song had these crazy catchy hooks and that album had like 400 singles despite only having 18 songs on it. Around the same time, like within a year or so, Def Leppard released their album, Adrenalize and I simply could not stop listening to it. I had it on tape and actually had to buy it again six months later because I literally wore it out. I too was your average ordinary everyday dude, although I was not driving with my baby which was good because I wasnt sure what kind of mood to get her into. I loooved both albums and one day I listened to them back to back and discovered something odd. The songs sounded exactly the same! The harmonies, the percussion, the riffs. Some of the songs could have been interchanged. Something about these bands was connected. I read the jackets on both of the tapes and made my discovery... produced by Mutt Lange.

So it turns out we werent crazy for thinking of Def Leppard listening to Nickelback, but what struck is how attuned my ear is now to recognizing Mutt Lange's stuff. For years he has been producing Shania's stuff and therefore been generally out of the rock scene but no that they've split he is branching out again and into mainstream rock and the result is amazing. They sound like Nickelback, although paperbacks are now safely in the second hand book store where they belong, and they sound like Mutt Lange, which means it is a sound that is brand new and yet wonderfully familiar. I enjoy every song on the album and can only hope that this is the first of a couple of albums they'll do together. Just good stuff if you really dig driving rock and roll and tight harmonies.

The best part for me was something I said as we were listening through a couple of songs and before we talked about Def Leppard specifically, and that was, "I havent had a real instant attachment to an album like I feel right now since I bought Adrenalize way back when." Turns out there is a reason why!