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The Ordinary Boys
- How To Get Everything You Ever Wanted In Ten Easy Steps
(B-Unique)
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| How To Get Everything You Ever Wanted In Ten Easy Steps, the Ordinary Boys’ third album, is apparently a rumination on “celebrity culture and our obsession with fame”. Being, as you are, a massive alternative-rock dork, you have probably never heard of Preston and Chantelle, and thus cannot comprehend just how mind-bogglingly post-modern this all is. |
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Not only that, the album is made up of 10 songs, which are actually labelled Step One, Step Two, and so on. What with this rather wanky central conceit, and the whole Big Brother hoo-ha, and vaguely remembering I didn’t like the first album very much, I was expecting How To Get Everything... to be rubbish. But I was wrong! Against all odds, the Ordinary Boys have pulled out of the bag a fully formed mainstream pop album - and very good it is too, absolutely the equal of (say) Girls Aloud.
Throughout, the songs are relentlessly big and brash, characterised by catchy guitar hooks, ‘80s synth noises and shouty backing vocals, most obviously on tracks like ‘The Great Big Rip-Off’ and ‘Club Chez Moi’. Single ‘Nine2Five’ is perhaps closer to the band’s earlier material, with its indie-ska sound and vocal by Lady Sovereign; even then it manages to reference half a dozen pop hits of yore, including the synonymous Dolly Parton track and TLC’s ‘No Scrubs’. Purportedly a punk rock record, How To Get Everything... has a very tight, sparkly pop finish which, much like the Killers’ Hot Fuss, makes it sound like it was put together largely by producers with computers, with very little involvement by the actual band. This can only be a good thing. (The more live/raw-sounding “bonus track” ‘Who’s That Boy?’ provides an interesting contrast).
By now, you may well think it sounds awful. You could be right. The general feel of the thing wanders dangerously close to Britpop territory - the pointless intermission tracks are vaguely reminiscent of something Parklife-era Blur might have included - while ‘We’ve Got The Best Job Ever’ prompted me to scrawl “ELO?” in my notes. For some reason. The tongue-in-cheek, slightly irritating words, meanwhile, occasionally recall Mr Robbie Williams himself: one song is called ‘Ballad Of An Unrequited Self-Love Affair’.
But despite all that - and I regret this, as it would have been very easy and much more entertaining to write a damning review - I found the whole thing oddly compelling, with my interest only waning during the slightly McFly-ish ‘I Luv U’. It’s also refreshing to hear a pop record on the theme of fame which takes a healthy, pragmatic approach to the whole thing: “Sometimes we don’t get paid for these rampages on these stages / I know that I won’t get jaded, I’m not going back to the minimum wage”.
That is what I have to say about How To Get Everything You Ever Wanted In Ten Easy Steps by the Ordinary Boys. You may have different opinions, and I look forward to hearing them. |
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| Mat Beal - 7/10 |
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Name:
lyle
| Date:
09/03/07 | Reply
their weakest album...
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