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Happiness... Is Not a Fish
That You Can Catch
Our Lady Peace
A CD Review |
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You know what bugs me sometimes when I read a CD review? You
don't. Well I'll tell you. I hate when I'm reading a review and the
reviewer is spouting what they think the lyrics mean, analyze guitar
riffs, or pull out their thesaurus to come up with any synonym for
loud, but in the end the reviewer doesn't answer the simple question
of is the CD any good, if they liked it or not, or maybe better yet,
even if they thought it sucked, do they think fans of the band may
like it. Now, sure, maybe the reviewer's tastes aren't the same as
mine so he or she may think it sucks while I thinks the CD is the
greatest, but all I ask for is a clue if the CD might be worth my
hard-earned money. Our Lady Peace has a CD out. It's called
"Happiness… Is Not a Fish That You Can Catch." I think
it might be worth your hard-earned money but you might have to
listen to it a few times to think so.
I write that last line because the first time I listened to
"Happiness…" I didn't like it. I didn't care for the
opening track, "One Man Army", I thought "Stealing
Babies" was weird, and just finished the CD going "Ehh."
But the CD stayed in the CD player because I try not to dismiss a CD
after one listen. I quickly found myself singing along to the chorus
of "Potato Girl," liking "One Man Army" a little
more, really liking "Thief," and finding the massive shift
from blowing my ears out to having me strain a little to hear the
lyrics on "Stealing Babies" was more to my liking than I
thought.
I will come out right now and say that I'm not going to try to
analyze the lyrics on "Happiness…" I tried to read along
and understand, but the best I can say is that even though the story
of "Annie" is kind of reminiscent of Pearl Jam's
"Jeremy", nowadays I'd be surprised if they'd play it on
the radio, even with its fun-sounding chorus, due to the song having
the line "Annie dreams that everyone's dead." Everybody
blaming everybody and I can hear Our Lady Peace getting blamed for
some girl who went off the deep end after getting her hair pulled
one too many times. (See, that's why I don't analyze song lyrics).
Anywho, you go right ahead and figure out if doom and gloom is what
many of the songs are about or if actually it is the doom and gloom
that shows a light at the end of the tunnel. All I know is that I
can listen to the CD in my car or my office, find myself singing
along, and I'm not pressing the "fast-forward" button
through any of the songs. Yea, yea, maybe as a reviewer I should try
to get all analytical and stuff, find the hidden meaning to
"Talking is just masturbating without the mess" from
"Happiness & The Fish," but all I know is that, in the
end, I liked "Happiness…" and find myself liking Our
Lady Peace even more than after I saw them in concert a while back.
"Happiness… Is Not A Fish That You Can Catch" mixes
"in your face" modern rock with catchy, almost Beatle-esque
chorus' to sing to. Any song on the CD can start softly but will
almost always snag your eardrums with a hook (get it, hook, catch a
fish. Oh, never mind), but I guess I'll just wrap this up by saying
the CD doesn't suck. I give it an 80% on the Entertainment Ave!
listenability scale.
That's it for this one! I'm The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!! |
