One should make hay while the sun shines, as the saying goes. To judge by “Jealous Minds Think Alike”, there’s still mileage (and money) left in the pacey vanilla emo-pop formula, and You Me At Six are going to run with it as hard and fast as they can, all the while hoping that the thunderheads don’t start rolling over the horizon any time too soon.
OK, so maybe I’m being uncharitable in ascribing some nefarious populist cynicism to You Me At Six, when they’re probably just writing the tunes they love and enjoying the positive response. After all, what band wouldn’t want to tour the country, play the big festivals, headline the Astoria? If you’ve got that flavour of the moment, then by all means grab it with both hands and enjoy yourselves. As a member of the record-buying public, though, it’d be a lot easier to accept if half a hundred bands hadn’t beaten them to the same formula; “Jealous Minds Think Alike” is as unoriginal as it is competent and overpolished, a British mirror image of a Fall Out Boy B-side.
All the ingredients are there: “Jealous Minds Think Alike” starts with wah-swept chords before dropping into muted eighth notes to support the over-earnest vocals (which are, at least, devoid of a faux Californian accent) and ambiguous lyrics about relationship break-up angst. We get a brief ray of hope in the form of a little rhythm shift in the first pre-chorus, but then it’s back to four-chord business as usual with a well-worn chorus chord sequence. Once we’re the far side of the bridge, You Me At Six crank up the emotion and throw in the inevitable layered backing vocals before lumbering toward a quotidian anti-climax. You’ve heard this song twenty times already this year, each time by a different band. Some of them actually managed to make their version sparkle a bit.
I can hear it coming. “Oh, you just hate anything that’s popular, blah blah blah.” Bullshit. I just don’t like hearing the same musical ground being retrodden time and time again, and “Jealous Minds Think Alike” is one more trip round the mulberry bush in search of the last remaining fruit. You Me At Six are evidently good musicians, and to judge by their live circuit success they obviously deliver on stage; kudos to them for that, and I wish them no ill. But they’ll have to do more than Xerox the “edgy” tunes from the Radio 1 playlist before I decide to listen to them voluntarily. Your mileage may vary.
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Posted in Music reviews |
Tags: emo, Jealous Minds Think Alike, pop, pop-punk, You Me At Six
