 1.5very poor Review by Sowing STAFFFebruary 9th, 2020 | 896 replies Release Date: 2020 |
Tracklist Review Summary: My downward spiral, oh yeahSay what you will about American Idiot, but that album transformed Green Day from snot-nosed punks to grown-up, stately, (boring), rock n’ roll hall of famers. It was particularly influential, capturing the disillusionment of living in a post-9/11 society. No one was naïve enough to believe that Green Day (of all bands) was politically intelligent, but they were savvy enough to capitalize on the moment, crafting a punk-rock opera/magnum opus that swirled with enough political clichés to rile up its target audience. The effect in reality was much larger: not only was it a bullseye hit on its intended mark, but it netted millions of new fans and became a milestone release of the 2000s. These ideas overstayed their welcome during 21st Century Breakdown, but it was tolerable because Green Day still seemed to care about creating music for a larger, more important cause. Whether or not those messages were formed with any sort of clarity is another story, but at least they were trying. Unfortunately, that’s where the wheels all fell off and we were plunged into the UNO, DOS, TRE trilogy, which aside from being an enormous professional failure was also (unintentionally, presumably) an admission of defeat. Each installment sounded the part of a b-side collection, and none of them should have seen the light of day. If you can even remember the name of one song from that trilogy, you are among the blessed. Revolution Radio – a complacent and forgettable album in its own right – teased a return to normalcy for the band, but now we have Father of All Motherfuckers crashing through the walls to institute a full relapse into the trilogy’s absurdity. It’s a hot mess that destroys any hope that Green Day could re-emerge as a band worth listening to.Everything about Father of All Motherfuckers is lazy. It begins with the self-referential American Idiot album cover, which features a unicorn exhaling/vomiting rainbows whilst forcefully blowing flames out of its ass. The music is befitting of said artwork, as even the staunchest fan would have an aneurysm trying to figure out what the hell these guys were thinking on this one. Billie Joe Armstrong wails on in high-pitched falsetto, his vocals either digitally altered or lent that dreaded “canned” effect about ninety eight percent of the time, and for absolutely no reason. The guitars sound slick and washed over, adding absolutely no bite as the band tries furiously and in vain to keep the pace lively. The drums thump like a crumpled up ball of paper hitting the rim of a trash can – empty sounding, devoid of hope, and full of failure. Butch Walker probably regrets having any hand in this dumpster fire of a record, and I’m not convinced that he didn’t at some point during the recording process say ah, fuck it, and then just go all-in on trying to make this thing sound as hideous as possible. To make matters far worse, the lyrics are a noticeable step down for a band that is already renowned for having poor lyrics. If you’ve ever wanted to hear a man approaching fifty years old howl “How high is your low gonna go, girl? Oh-ooh-oh-oh”, then Father of All Motherfuckers might be for you. There’s also the lines, “Huh-uh, come on, honey…Huh-uh, what's so funny?”, “My pride is my pornography, Kool-Aid is my motto”, “I don't wanna be a Romeo”, “I was a teenage teenager”, and “You can take a walk or you can suck my cock.” Every song is chock-full of embarrassment; a veritable who’s who of awkward one-liners with absolutely no logical or thematic ties. There are precious few moments where Father of All Motherfuckers accidentally approaches being listenable. ‘Stab You in the Heart’ comes across as a carefree bop even if it’s lyrically and melodically redundant, while ‘Sugar Youth’ – replete with annoying handclaps and a refrain that is almost a carbon copy of _American Idiot_’s ‘She’s a Rebel’ – still has enough energy to feel like a punk song even though it isn’t. This is where we are at with Green Day, though – essentially picking through the garbage for remnants of something halfway interesting, nostalgic, or worthwhile. The bottom line is this: Green Day has clearly thrown in every single towel that they own, and have churned out Father of All Motherfuckers merely to fulfill a contractual obligation. So if Green Day no longer cares, then why should we? s other reviews of this album |
|
mynameischan Staff ReviewerFebruary 9th 2020 2407 CommentsAlbum Rating: 2.5did butch walker produce this? that's fucking tragic if so**Lucass3241February 9th 2020 1 CommentsAlbum Rating: 1.5Yup, it's pretty bad...Sowing** ModeratorFebruary 9th 2020 44542 CommentsAlbum Rating: 1.5Yeah, he's primarily given production credits here - then Chris Dugan and the band itself.DrGonzo1937 Staff ReviewerFebruary 9th 2020 18513 CommentsAlbum Rating: 2.0 | Sound OffGreat rev sow**Sowing** ModeratorFebruary 9th 202044542 CommentsAlbum Rating: 1.5Thanks, although that whole first paragraph is probably not even really necessary aside from adding perspective...but anyone bothering with this album already knows what GD has been up to and how they got to this point.gravityswitchFebruary 9th 2020 2151 CommentsAlbum Rating: 1.0The Hives really went downhill huh**Sowing** ModeratorFebruary 9th 202044542 CommentsAlbum Rating: 1.5I just can't believe they made something worse than Uno/Dos/Tre. Always figured that was going to go down as the low-point of their careers. Revolution Radio was boring but it gave me hope that they were on the precipice of writing normal albums again and not these throwaway novelty records.MutantsnowstormFebruary 9th 2020 514 CommentsAlbum Rating: 2.0If anything this album actually makes me optimistic for the future. Rumors were circulating since the album announcement that FOAMF was literally just a throwaway album to get them out of their contract with warner records; with the trashed american idiot artwork and the run-time being just over what labels will officially consider a full length album (26 minutes). *If* that is the case (there's no way to know for sure), then whatever comes after this could maybe have some more effort thrown into it. That, and I personally think they can't do much worse than this album.JayEnderFebruary 9th 2020 21182 CommentsSo punk they had to censor "motherfuckers" with a cartoon unicorn.band is a joke onionbubsFebruary 9th 2020 22257 CommentsAlbum Rating: 1.0ngl as bad as this is i still think all three trilogy albums are worse than this (tre and uno barely, dos considerably)LotionLordFebruary 9th 2020 211 CommentsI've never liked Green Day, so when people were saying it was different I thought It'd be worth a spin. It wasn't. The last track is pretty alright tho.KusangiiFebruary 9th 2020 7116 CommentsThis band is still relevant?onionbubsFebruary 9th 202022257 CommentsAlbum Rating: 1.0no AdventFebruary 10th 2020 316 CommentsAlbum Rating: 2.0With the exception of Sugar Youth this all sounds like TV commercial music.Troll album confirmed.botulistFebruary 10th 2020 751 CommentsAlbum Rating: 1.0 |
Sound Offalbum is terrible.but in no way worse than the paramore lady's album.so what's up?deathschoolFebruary 10th 2020 28940 CommentsThe title track is frustratingly awful.rodrigo90February 10th 2020 7387 CommentsI tolerate recycling riffs, BUT NOT THE WHOLE SONG.IsolatedSymmetryFebruary 10th 2020 67 CommentsAlbum Rating: 1.0Great review!Man this is awful. It's sad seeing a band you loved so much in your childhood turn into utter garbage. The trilogy was disastrous enough, RR was boring, but this is just another level of unlistenable. The songs sound lie the music that plays during the ad for Youtube Premium.I've been waiting since I was 9 to see GD play live in my country, but man, if they decided to come now, I probably wouldn't go.trackbytrackreviewsFebruary 10th 2020 3469 CommentsAlbum Rating: 2.5bold of you to mention the unicorn on the sput review when we don’t have that cover**bobbydylanFebruary 10th 2020 241 CommentsAlbum Rating: 1.0** |
Sound Offsuper lame ass record. i struggle to think of anything i actually liked about it at all. I guess they tried some new sounds out i guess? i give up. let's act this album never happened. 1 2 3 4 5 ... 45 Next |