Bob Mould
District Line
Beggars
I've got to give this a fair trial because Bob Mould deserves it - having been a founder member of the massively influential and raw Husker Du, and then exorcising his pop demons and songwriting chops with Sugar, Mould has plenty of credit in the bank of cool. However, just taking things at face value, this album is a collection of promising but ultimately dull rock songs for grown-ups. Take the first track for example - Stupid Now - it starts out all Nirvana-in-quiet-mode with that good ol' Seattle tuning on the guitar, it has a nice modern feel to the production and Bob's voice sounds great... then along comes the chorus and the whiff of cheese becomes overwhelming; it honestly sounds like Linda Perry wrote this for a P!nk's new rockin' rekkid - it's that anthemic.
By rights, of course, no-one should deny Mould his payday. This is every bit as good as the aforementioned crafted crowd-pleasers peddled by America's one-woman tin pan alley, but somehow I don't think our Bob will get as much MTV airtime as P!nk. I hope that the ever-strong influence of FM radio in the US will help make this a success as it reaches out to middle America at drive-time, but for me personally I feel that this is rather like Francis Bacon deciding to paint like Jack Vettriano in order to have a wider appeal.
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5th Feb 2008 - Tumblr
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