Caught between pop rock and a hard place

Pop rock is homogenous. It’s safe as milk. A comparison: psychedelic rock or jazz fusion may be your hip, angelheaded uncle who hitchhikes across his own psyche with the aid of pills, Kubrick flicks and Beat literature, but pop rock is your friendly simpleton of a neighbor who does silly things like sit on the crapper without closing the door or wear shirts that say ATTAPULGITE, and has the bent of mumbling something so obvious, something so damn self-evident that it takes on an air of profundity.

Pop rock is ubiquitous. It’s everywhere. These days, try turning the radio dial and you’re bound to stumble into a pop rock ditty from the Goo Goo Dolls or Matchbox Twenty, slugging it out with angry anthems from fashionable nü-metal acts. Even when punk was king of the counter-cultural heap in the Eighties, pop rock bands like REO Speedwagon, Journey and Styx still grabbed a share of the airwaves. The same thing during the height of the psychedelic era, disco inferno days or that mad flannel season called grunge.

A digression: As I got older, I found mainstream rock more and more unenthralling and unexciting, so I gravitated toward other genres that offer a brave new aural world such as jazz fusion (Weather Report, Return to Forever), bebop (Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk), progressive rock (Yes, Pink Floyd), spoken word (Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs), and some avant-garde stuff that easily slips away from strangling categories (John Cage, John Zorn, Frank Zappa). My friends say I’ve become a musical snob. Perhaps. But what they don’t know is during nights when vodka and beer spin their strange sorcery inside my head and belly, I listen to pop rock classics from the Eagles, Foreigner, 38 Special, Heart, Steve Perry, Survivor, etc. Alcohol mixes well with I Can’t Tell You Why, The Search is Over and Waiting for a Girl like You.

One needs an occasional dose of old familiar grooves, dirty, distorted guitars, and guttural voices that sing of love, loss and sweet whatevers.

Bands like the Train, Puddle of Mudd, The Calling and Nickelback purvey the usual pop rock formula: heavy on the guitars and the sentimentality but light in terms of image and rockstar posturing.

Puddle of Mudd was the first act that signed up under Fred Durst’s label, Flawless Records. But Wesley Scantlin (vocals), Doug Ardito (bass), Paul Phillips (guitars) and Greg Upchurch (drums) do not drink from the same wellspring as Limp Bizkit. (Hotdog-flavored water and rap metal ain’t for them.) Puddle of Mudd takes inspiration from grunge and pale Seattle rock imitations: put Kurt Cobain, Scott Weiland and Kid Rock in a blender and you’d come up with Scantlin.

"Come Clean," Puddle of Mudd’s debut, is an "alternative" (note the sarcastic use of the word) to what Durst and the graduates of the Aerosmith/Run DMC School of Music are churning out these days.

Listeners will love the scorching numbers such as Control and Blurry, both shown in infinite number of times on videoke channels (including the new and unimproved MYX) along with pop biggies M2M, Destiny’s Child and Linkin Park.

My favorite track is Nobody Told Me with its exotic-sounding minor scale riff and "Same old shit, different day" bridge that recalls Nirvana’s Serve the Servants (which incidentally is my favorite song in "In Utero"). Wes sounds like a hurt and self-abusive Kurt on this particular track. The oddball of the bunch is She Hates Me which sounds like a Blink 182 or Offspring outtake. Stupid lyrics. Great wah-wah solo.

If you like Bush’s "Sixteen Stone" and can’t get enough of Blurry, go ahead and buy "Come Clean." A caveat: Fred Durst is the visionary, let him say why a Nirvana-dopelganger deserves a record deal in the first place.

Rating: 2 1/2

Hoobastank is more like it. The members (Doug Robb on vocals, Dann Estrin on guitars, Markuu Lappalainene on bass, and Chris Hesse on drums) come from the same L. A. suburb that spawned Incubus. Even if Robb sounds a tad like Brandon Boyd (and Green Day's Billie Joe in spurts), comparing the two bands is unfair: Hoobastank purveys its own mesh of jagged guitars and sledgehammer rhythms, and Incubus is practically in its own cosmos.

In Hoobastank’s major label debut (the follow-up to "They Sure Don’t Make Basketball Shorts Like They Used To" self-released in ‘98), the band serves up a platter of short, hook-laden and terribly infectious numbers.

For me, the highlights are "Running Away," the poignant "Too Little Too Late," and the radio hit "Crawling in the Dark."

Too bad the songs seem to have a three-minute minimum.

Rating: 3

The Calling and Lifehouse –– it's hard to tell the difference. What to make of "Camino Palmero," the band’s debut album? It seems vocalist Alex Band, guitarist Aaron Kamin and the rest of the Calling closely studied Strunk and White’s Elements of Pop Rock Stylings too closely. The album comes across as terribly safe and generic.

Fast forward to the lilting, self-confessional track called Wherever You Will Go. (Great cut). Skip Adrienne and Stigmatized. (Trust me, you ain’t missing a thing; unless you love cheesy rock).

A final note: Puddle of Mudd is to Nirvana what the Calling is to Pearl Jam.

Whoopee.

Rating: 2 1/2

Nickelback’s album "Silver Side Up" is rawer and edgier –– compared to outputs from other pop rock outfits.

First of all, I absolutely adore How You Remind Me. The song which can slug it out with MTV staples like Blurry and Wherever You Will Go, has a cleverly-written line: Never made it as a wise man/I couldn’t cut it as a poor man stealin’/This is how you remind me... Another favorite is Good Times Gone with its cookin’ outro. Great Zeppelinesque slide guitar from Ryan Peake. Reminds me of Bron-Y-Aur Stomp.

But there are certain moments wherein Nickelback sounds like a cross between Black Sabbath and Bush –– which is good and bad at the same time. Hollywood and Where Do I Hide have dirgey riffs straight from Tony Iommi’s big black book of bludgeoning riffs. Too Bad has the same lackluster feel as Come Down.

Rating: 3

Goo Goo Dolls’ "Gutterflower" is the best of the bunch. Back in college, I listened to the Replacements –– the Rolling Stones of my generation. (For me I’ll Be You is in the same stratosphere as Jagger and Richards’ Beast of Burden.) When I heard the Goo Goo Dolls and their song Name with its poetic lyrics and weirdly tuned guitar, I dug the group instantly. Like Paul Westerberg-penned songs, Goo Goo Doll tunes are characterized by jangly guitars and no B.S. lyrics.

The band has changed very little since its breakthrough album, "A Boy Named Goo." It got "pop-ier" with "Dizzy Up The Girl" and a little "gooey" with Iris, a huge hit. (Yes, yes, it’s the unabashedly sentimental song in the unabashedly syrupy City of Angels movie.) "Gutterflower" contains more of the same.

The first cut hits you right in the gut with its opening lines (Ecstasy is all you need/living in the big machine) and big, ballsy chorus punctuated by swirling guitars (I’m torn in pieces/I’m blind and waiting for you). The instantly memorable Here is Gone is another standout track.

I think John Rzeznick (who penned Name, Iris and Black Balloon) is an underrated songwriter. Remember Broadway with its immortal line: "See the young man in the old man’s bar, waiting for his turn to die"? Because of Rzeznick’s exceptional songwriting, the new album is well worth the obscene amount of money one shells out for CDs these days.

Rating: 3

A disclaimer: The record companies who generously sent CDs (BMG, Warner, MCA Universal, etc.) might get offended by some of the straightforward, vitriolic statements made about albums from their artists. Bear in mind that an album review is not as exact as rocket science since music is ineffable, as mysterious as mist, and is a matter of taste. Opinions inevitably rule music articles from the majestic Melody Maker to the raggedy Songhits. In the end, it’s up to you, YS readers, to determine whether an album deserves a slot beside your "Nevermind," "Badmotorfinger" and "OK Computer" discs or left inside dark drawers along with your David Hasselhoff or Milli Vanilli tapes and your secrets. But don’t say you haven’t been forewarned by someone who always wanted to be that blessed gnat, that enlightened heckler, of all people –– a music critic.

My editor always tells me to "write with your heart, and the record companies will respect you more for it." I’d like to hold on to this piece of Disney wisdom in this bleak, dystopian, David Lynchian world we live in.

* * *

For comments, suggestions, curses and invocations, e-mail iganja@hotmail.com.