My Amazon Reviews: Boys Like Girls "Love Drunk"

Hungover
3 Out Of 5 Stars

In the span of time from their debut to their second album, "Love Drunk," Boys Like Girls jump from punk-pop emo band to all out boy band power pop. This is not a completely bad thing, as the super sugar choruses and duet with Taylor Swift show. But the evolution is not without some speed bumps.

First off, the good stuff. The lead off track, "Heart Heart Heartbreak" is pure adrenaline hormonal rush. The repetitive title kills it in the chorus, making for a great little earworm. Then the title track revisits the zing of their debut. Then comes the head scratcher. "Two Is Better Than One" is a ballad, but strip some of the electricity out of it and factor in Taylor Swift, and you have a country tune that would have fit just as nicely on one of Swift's albums than it does here. It also shows that lead singer/guitarist Martin Johnson can work his way around a sappy ballad with the best of them. It's the hookier tunes that play to the band's punkier roots, like "Contagious" that work the best.

That's where things go somewhat awry. Propulsive emo-pop and power pop are great for the guys that need girls and the girls that break their hearts. But the new addition of strings and syrup (like the closer, "Go," which limps the album to its end) make for the kind of song the band isn't quite up to yet. Add a southern accent and ditch the auto-tune, and these would be country ballads. While they make this country pop hybrid work much better on the follow-up, "Crazy World," it's a tough sell on "Love Drunk." It's as if Boys Like Girls suddenly took on a split personality and couldn't decide it they wanted to stay true to their Boston Emo roots or just pack up the cats and relocate to Nashville.

That's the issue with "Love Drunk." You get two distinct bands on this album, the whiz-bang pop of the debut, and the country-pop that would dominate the next album. Boys Like Girls were in transition, and while "Love Drunk" did debut in the top ten, their three albums are essentially the work in progress of differing mindsets. There's plenty to like on the album. What there isn't? Consistency. Hence the solid C grade.

     

Passings: James "Jim" Woland

Throwback Thursday or Flashback Friday: I was deeply saddened today to hear of the passing of my High School Drama Coach Jim Woland. There were only a few teachers in High School that I ever thought changed me for the better, and Mr Woland was one of them. I auditioned for my first play in 1976 and was subsequently cast in several others, including a lead and several major supporting roles, plus a few ensemble casts. He was one of the reasons I had a Communications and Theater Arts major when I shipped off to college.

He demanded nothing less than the best of his students, be it in class, the HS Newspaper (where I was a staffer) or on stage. He had many friends in NYC who worked on Broadway and often incorporated their techniques into our performances at PHS. Most of us who worked under him (and many of those who just knew the man) felt he was worthy of Broadway work, yet he was content to work with students and then theater organizations in the Harrisburg area to the delight of all who had the opportunity to work with him.

He also had the uncanny ability to create terrific sets using the bare minimum of supplies that were offered in a High School setting. He took to my father's junk yard for old auto parts once to have rusted mufflers along the stage for a performance of Hamlet, and stage crews could also be seen painting over flats that has seen years and years of cutting, nailing and pasting. He even had me once write some original lyrics for a song used in one of his productions, something that I am proud of to this day. Like I said earlier, he could draw the best work from the barest of bones, and we all loved him for it.

Unfortunately, like many of my High School acquaintances, I didn't keep up with him. I met him once at a random event and came out to him. He was not surprised. The picture of me is from one of Mr Woland's directorial efforts, a production of Story Theater, where I was part of the ensemble, and also sang. Sophomore year, 1977.

My Amazon Reviews: Eagles "The Long Run"

Did you do it for love? Did you do it for money?
3 Out Of 5 Stars

The last Eagles album of their initial run was also their weakest. Coming off the triumph of "Hotel California," the same pitfalls that they sang about on that album now befell the band. Drugs, dissent and an impossible to meet demand kind of doomed "The Long Run" before it was even released, but then the weakness of the bulk of the album didn't help the situation, either. "The Long Run" is the first album since their debut to feature obvious filler, and some of it was even desperate sounding.

The two initial singles, "Heartache Tonight" and the title song did do the band proud. Don Henley employs his jaded sense into "The Long Run," asking his lady friend if she measures up to her expectations, while teasing that "all the debutantes in Houston, baby, couldn't hold a candle to you." Heartache Tonight" is a chant along number from Glenn Frey and rocks out pretty well.

But then you start getting to the questionable material. "In The City" was already a modest solo hit for Joe Walsh, so there was not much point to adding it here in an Eagle-fied version other than to fill up time. "Teenage Jail/The Greeks Don't Want No Freaks" are kind of goofy, but they'd gone to great lengths on both "Hotel California" and "One of These Nights" proving that they could fill an album without penning songs that ventured into an approximation of self-parody.

That not withstanding, there are three other songs that keep "The Long Run" from being a total dud. Timothy B Schmidt rises to the occasion with his R'n'B inflected "I Can't Tell You Why" while Don Felder and Walsh do a slinky twin talk-box guitar riff on "Those Shoes." Then there's another masterstroke from Henley, who penned what sounds like it could've been an outtake from "Hotel California," the melancholy "The Sad Cafe." Once again, he ruminates on the loss of Californian innocence and wonders where all the good times have gone. After all, Eagles themselves could have been one of those fledgling bands to use the likes of a "Sad Cafe" to get their start. It's kind of ironic that a song lamenting humble beginnings closed out an album that was the sound of Eagles' imminent collapse.

"The Long Run" was basically that. Once they squeaked this album out, the infamous Long Beach incident took place and the band would stay apart until, as Henely oft put it, "Hell Freezes Over." But "The Long Run" was the end of a band that went out, not with a bang but a whimper.