Gym Class Heroes - As Cruel As School Children
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Artist: Gym Class HeroesBrand: Fueled By Ramen
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
CD Release Date: 2006-11-04
Music Label: Fueled By Ramen
Soundtracks:
- 1st period: The Queen and I
- 2nd period: Shoot Down the Stars
- 3rd Period: New Friend Request
- 4th period: Clothes Off!!
- Lunch: Sloppy Love Jingle Pt. 1
- 6th period: Viva La White
- 7th Period: 7 Weeks
- 8th period: It's Ok, But Just This Once!
- Study Hall: Sloppy Love Jingle Pt. 2
- 10th Period: Biters Block
- Yearbook Club: Boys In Bands Interlude
- 12th period: Scandalous Scholastics
- 13th period: On My Own Time (Write On!)
- Intramurals: Cupid's Chokehold
- Detention: Sloppy Love Jingle Pt. 3
Music reviews of As Cruel As School Children
Music Review: Good radio rap never hurt anyone???
Rating: 4 Stars
Trading on their live status and their need to bring back the fun element of hip-hop which has indefinately been missing, this is like being stuck in a wacky-coloured room with four hyperactive but unimaginative goons desperate for you to like them. "Hey cheer up! It might never happen! Watch me bust a move," were the last words they uttered as I clubbed them unconscious with Public Enemy albums...but hey I really like Public Enemy for the record..
Smoothed out and mellow is the modus operandi of this four man crew from Geneva, New York. For those who are seeking a hip hop revival like Common's "Be" last year or the wonderful delight that helped pioneered MF Doom's to greater heights (I'm talking 2004's brilliant Madvillain - Madvillainy) you might want to look elsewhere. Friends this is hip hop for the Hollister/Abercrombie/Lacoste crowd.
To put it into a pop cultural perspective, this is the type of rap you'd expect to catch Dawson or one of the Gilmore Girls listening to, or if we still even cared about him, Seth from the OC. You'd never hear it bumping out of the trunk of any of the thugs on The Shield, that's for sure.
But before you get this impression that I am totally dismissing this album, let me preface back and say that I actually very much so like this work. The Queen And I tells of a drunk girlfriend who's 'only one more swallow from being oh so hollow' (and you're complaining?) over an acoustic strum and a 'hey-hey' chorus. Shoot Down The Stars contrasts a grim verse with a positive chorus of sunshine harmonies.
Their one track which could be redeeming, the of-its-moment track New Friend Request, plays on the desperate need to be liked on the MySpace website, is actually quite clever even if the pieces are a bit taken from Jurassic 5. I mean really the lyrics can appeal to anyone who has used Myspace - 'I didn't take it personal when you ignored my request to be your friend. I spilled my guts and hit send; I waited two weeks for a response and got nothing. Honestly, it only made me want you more.'
Particularly nasty are covers of Jermaine Jackson's We Don't Have to Take Our Clothes Off (To Have a Good Time) which ticks a smug '80s referencing box with no tongue in no cheek.
Talking of musical cross-pollination, Gym Class Heroes may apparently be able to 'put the f u back into fun' but on this evidence they could put something into country music (without the r). Putting the fun back into hip-hop isn't too challenging, but their need to show the breadth of their musical styles when they can't even master one isn't ambition, its truly arrested development.
As Cruel as School Children is a great feel good summer album but with quirky tunes and tongue-in-cheek raps which possibly border a little too much on pop culture, I can't see it surviving much past this year when the scene and pop culture take a new shape in 2008. Still regardless I have to say again I think it's a really fun RAP album to listen to care free, and really in a genre bending so much over hos, bling and pimpin' rides it's a nice diversion from the norm.
Description of As Cruel As School Children
This upstate NY 4-piece hip-hop band fuse crisp guitar rhythms, deep melodic bass lines, head cracking beats, and conscious lyrics to create a sound truly their own. Their debut full-length, "The Papercut Chronicles", has sold over 32,000 copies, converting anyone within ear shot into fans. This, their follow-up, is surely going to launch the band to the next level.The Roots aren't the only hip-hop group to build their sound around live instrumentation. Yet this Upstate New York quartet doesn't sound much like Philly's finest. Further, As Cruel as School Children is more radio-ready than previous efforts, especially "Cupid's Chokehold," which appropriates Supertramp's "Breakfast in America" to fine effect, i.e. "Take a look at my girlfriend / She's the only one I got." (A different mix appears on The Papercut Chronicles.) Not many indie-pop artists can freestyle, though, as frontman Travis McCoy proves on "Sloppy Love Jingle, Pts. 1-3," a trio of a cappella raps. Aside from dividing these tracks into "periods," "study halls," and the like, in fitting with the high school theme, McCoy's narratives touch on teachers, cheerleaders, and lunch room chatter. Guests include William Beckett (The Academy Is...) on "7 Weeks" and Speech (Arrested Development) on "Biter's Block." Cruel as School Children was co-produced by Patrick Stump (Fall Out Boy) and released by band mate Pete Wentz's Decaydance imprint. Stump, who pops up in the "Cupid" video, also provides programming and backing vocals. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
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