Reviewed by:
Gerard Way Jr, on may 13, 2009
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Sound: When I initially reviewed The All-American Rejects’s third release, ‘When The World Comes Down,’ I was very much motivated in the writing process to get through a quick, to-the-point review that did its best to deliver the message “I DO NOT LIKE THIS ALBUM MUCH” in as little time as possible. Going back through the review, as I’ve done with quite a few others now, I really did cut corners and didn’t get incredibly in-depth with this record, hence the following rewrite. I hope you’ll find this further justification of my resentment for this record even more deep and engaging than before. Cheers.
Alright, so the sound.
...You see, this is the part where I realize, Oh, I sort of liked that bit. When I wrote my first review, I wasn’t too grumbly about it all, and went with the state-the-obvious-facts route, rather than that of the more helpful state-my-actual-opinion gland. I suppose I should spit it out now and say that I like some (very few) aspects of the “new” sound, but this record is full of huge, gaping holes in the quality.
It was all over press releases building up to the record in 2008 that ‘WTWCD’ was going to be, and I loosely quote, “not as slick [see:good] as Move Along.” Tyson Ritter, a “musical,” pompous fool the likes of which have not been seen since Roger Waters (Roger did everything he did about ten times better, for all of you who, for some reason, missed out on ‘The Wall’ and ‘The Final Cut’), gave us much of this information, including that this record would be a mesh of the sounds of their 2002 self-titled debut and 2005’s much better record, ‘Move Along.’
Now, I have to explain some things before I continue loving on my precious ‘Move Along.’ Everything I say in this review (this album was good, that album was awful) comes from less of a retrospective of all music of the genre, and more of a comparison of the records. ‘MA’ far surpassed ‘TAAR’ on several levels, and is therefore the standard set for a good record when I’m talking about the new one for the time being. I’m sure I’ll compare ‘WTWCD’ to other artists’ work as well. ‘TAAR’ is the standard set for bad music, for the most part.
With all of this in mind, ‘WTWCD’ is nothing if not a mix of their previous work, with some other 80’s pop influence. Let’s take a look at this track-by-track, shall we?
01. “I Wanna”: if you read my first review (or the first paragraph of this one), you’ll know I don’t like this record, but one of the good things I can say is that the record opens almost perfectly. “I Wanna” is a solid intro track, and stands pretty well on its own as well. The title is pretty explanatory, and I’ll explain a little more (if, for some reason, you haven’t heard this song). All I have to say, really, is IT’S SEXUAL. There ya go. The entire song, minus the decent enough sound it introduces. Don’t get me wrong; it’s nothing special, but it’s alright and says “Oh yeah, AAR is back” with some dignity. The video annoys the crap out of me, what with the INCREDIBLY SUBTLE product placement of the LG.
02. “Fallin’ Apart”: this is where the pop-pop comes in. Obviously, the whole album is pop, but this is the happy-go-lucky-sound-meets-whiny-emo-lyrics-sort-of-pop the debut gave us. It’s...okay. Again, nothing we haven’t heard before, and the guitar solo adds a little pizzaz—emphasis on little—that the first album didn’t have. If you haven’t heard the first album, listen to this song. There. You no longer have to listen to ‘TAAR.’
03. “Damn Girl”: somehow, missing a comma from the title. Don’t be confused by Tyson or whomever and their bad grammatical skills—Damn Girl is not a proper noun, but a phrase repeated throughout the song. Sure to be a radio hit, it’s new AAR with same old whiny lyrics and bad vocals. Of course, it’s not as though you expected any different from AAR. Once they’ve got whiny lyrics and a terrible vocals from Ritter, anyone will buy it.
04. “Gives You Hell”: go toss yourself.
05. “Mona Lisa”: can’t Tyson try to sing a “sensitive” song without sounding indifferent to the emotion the lyrics are clearly trying to impress? No, he can’t. You didn’t buy this record to hear an emotionally touching song—you bought it because Aint’ItCoolNews, or Rolling Stone, or whatever, told you to. And who told Tyson to super annunciate his “world” as “weruhld?” The guitar and little piano bits were clearly screaming (albeit softly): SING THIS WITH SOME EMOTION AND RELATABILITY! But no. No, Tyson had to take the band in—airquotes—another direction. Stupid, stupid. Skip this track and the toy piano—yes, you heard me—toy piano solo.
06. “Breakin;”: the music sounds great, but once again, Tyson won’t leave it be without some of his own personal touch: ie, singing. Maybe listen to this while you rewrite the chorus and imagine Patrick Stump or another much better singer covering this.
07. “Another Heart Calls”: probably the worst track on the entire album. At least Catherine and Allison Pierce guest spot/star to save the song from inevitable drooling muder-by-Ritter-vocals. The lyrics are pretty bad, as well.
08. “Real World”: why doesn’t Tyson slow down, even for the near-silence of the bridge? Doesn’t he realize he needs to be quieter for stuff like that? Does he understand how to sing? The lyrics are pretty shabby. The orchestration (trumpets and such, specifically) feel awkward at best.
09. “Back To Me” – Or “It Ends Tonight...Again.” At least Tyson has decent vocals in this one. The only really emotional track up to now.
10. “Believe”: nothing worth noting. The best part is pretending this track and “Another Heart Calls” weren’t included.
11. “The Wind Blows”: a good last track, and probably the best song on the album that isn’t essentially a different version of a song from ‘Move Along.’ The video is lovely, the 80’s synth pop influence doesn’t show age at all, and I fully expect AAR to fail in going in this direction for their fourth record, because we all know they’ll do anything and everything to do exactly the opposite of what would truly please fans. Too early to be looking forward, you say? Well, how did you feel when ‘The Phantom Menace’ came out?
12. “Untitled”: the best track on the record, it’s thirty seconds of absolute silence that is perfect for ambience as you ponder the fifteen dollars you just wasted on this disc (or two-discs, if you’re a real fool, like me, and got the Deluxe Edition). This is why iTunes is a beautiful thing. I mean, I’m a real freak, and can’t own an entire record digitally without also buying the physical copy, but when you just want one or two songs because the rest is utterly worthless, you can just buy “The Wind Blows,” “Back to Me,” and probably “Gives You Hell” so you’re up to date with the tossers you call friends who berate you for listening to GOOD MUSIC while they load their brand spanking new iPhones with the latest radio singles, which, apparently, is the standard in this terrible modern-day society the teenagers are building!
Sorry, where was I?
Yes, ‘When The World Comes Down.’ Buy those three tracks and be done with it. Maybe listen to ‘Move Along’ to restore your faith in the band, because this certainly doesn’t do it. It was just MEDIA TRIPE. The sound was fine, but it was ruined by bad vocals and lyrics! I’d give this two extra stars if it were a completely instrumental disc! Let me know when ‘When The World Comes Down KARAOKE EDITION’ comes out, because I’ll be first in line to buy it! The music was great! It was a sure step forward! But stupid Tyson Ritter had to be in this band! It’s like Twilight and Robert Pattinson—the franchise isn’t much to look at in the first place, but it didn’t have to be that bad! Why make a bad thing worse? If you ask me, the rest of the band should ditch Tyson and come up with a new band—The All-Danish Explorers, or The None-Too-Shy-Irishmen Who Left An Idiot And Made A Once-Bad Band Good! Even if it’s just The All-American Accepted, I expect more out of them later on.
“Sunshine”: but wait, it’s not over! There’s a freaking bonus track! Because that’s not overdone at all. This is actually a decent track, more of what I know they’ll refuse to do in the future because it would actually be good. Oh, well. // 6
Lyrics and Singing: Hah. I might just as well not type in this section, and if it weren’t for the limit of minimum characters in each section, I’d refuse to, or else I’d put in ILOVEYOU followed by NNNNN, etc etc. The lyrics are God-awful, which I’ve always found to be something of an oxymoron. How’s this: if this record’s lyrics were a God, the universe would’ve ended two weeks before the release date. “Oo, and there you go again, you think you just push me around, yeah and there you go again.” Seriously?!
I made note of the songs with whiny vocals and lyrics to boot, so you should know which tracks to avoid by now. A couple of the lines are clever—I only said CLEVER, not GOOD. The rest are either average, below average, or painstakingly awful.
I don’t have much else to say, really. Hopefully, for the next record, AAR won’t be pulling any more material out of the little black poem books from High School. “I never thought that I was so blind, I can finally see the truth,” “Wherever you go, I’m crawling, even when we’re falling apart,” “You don’t but you long...” What? “If it doesn’t matter, then just turn around,” “If we can change the weather if you want it to yourself...” “I hope you choke on the lines, you’re wasting my time” is probably the best lyric to be found. I’ll throw in “What would you think if I sang out of tune, would you stand up and walk out on me?” for relief.
At least the emo lyrics match the emo vocals. // 3
Impression: I’m not impressed. That’s the thing with this record—I keep trying desperately to like it, I really do, but after every listen, I fall flat on my face, covering my ears in deepest pain. ‘When The World Comes Down’ truly sees to it that The All-American Rejects’s world comes crashing down. Sure, the media eats this up like it’s cheap fried chicken (how many other acts are like that? I could make another Twilight analogy...), but the critics see through it. My impression will be summarized with two major issues:
A) If you’re making a record after two “sucessful” ones, aim higher, not lower. AAR aimed LOW for this one, and so they hit low. At least this record’s “innovation” scrapes better marks than their debut, though just barely. The band had regressed from being a decent media-obsessive band into the realm of purest, most dispassionate media fodder.
B) If you’re going to go 80’s, don’t do it with one foot in the synth pop time machine and one stuck in your sophomore effort. The 80’s sounds good when we take them with a grain of salt and as individual tracks, but don’t flow with the rest of the tracks at all. I’m surprised they made the final cut.
I said I’d compare them to other artists, and so I shall. They fall flat against many contemporaries, including other screaming-girl-fans acts Panic at the Disco and Fall Out Boy. Against the 80’s or other pop-punk greats, they’re dead and buried. Against themselves, they barely make the cut. This record is just not good—it’s as simple as that.
So, to conclude my bashing, you may buy this record if you wish. Maybe you still listen to Simple Plan and will see something I don’t. If you’d rather not waste money on what is probably one of the worst albums of 2008 (though there are a lot of terrible pieces that artists threw at us from that year), buy the three tracks I mentioned, and maybe the bonus track.
Actually, no. Don’t.
I’m tempted to tell you to get onto Google and find the tracks free somewhere, but really, even those tracks aren’t worth the potential trouble you could get into. As I (up to this point) don’t think I’d’ve gotten myself in trouble by doing so, I wholeheartedly regret buying the album and not just taking the crap AAR threw in my general direction. Let’s just hope you don’t make the same mistake. // 5
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