Sick Puppies-Dressed Up As Life; Or: An Example of Mediocrity
I got this CD through a friend, who thought I would like it. She is wrong. There are so many things wrong with this release that it boggles my mind. But here I am, trying to review it. To help preserve my sanity as I relisten to it while reviewing, I'm going on the point system. Something good= +1 point or more. Something bad= -1 point or more.
Now: the CD is called Dressed Up As Life. I think they meant that this music is dressed up with post-production to make it kind of sound like it's supposed to be together. Creative irony, worth 1 point.
According to Wikipedia, Sick Puppies are a band originally from Sydney, Australia. They have now shipped out to LA, presumably with the intention of selling out. -1 point. The band's name, obviously, is Sick Puppies. Based on their music, they are trying to reach out to the pre-teen to teen girls who think this is real rock. However, Wikipedia states that the band, back in the day, used to practice RATM songs. +10 points. This leaves me wondering if the band tried to be hardcore and awesome, but failed miserably, and as such decided to sound like a bastard child of Chris Daughtry and Nickleback. -50 points.
I bring their name into question because I wonder: was the original name Sick Puppies? If they had wanted to be an actual rock band, it couldn't be. Perhaps it was 'Puking Hounds of Hell' or something equally badass. +2 points, based on the assumption that Puking Hounds of Hell' was once the band's name.
Sick Puppies is a good name for the band's target audience. It is suitibly cute for parents to allow their 12-year-old daughter Emma to listen to, and hardcore-sounding for the more feminine high school boys to listen to. +1 point for the smooth marketing move on the name.
They get an +60 points because there's a girl in the band, and she's pretty atractive.
Here is their site, by the way. http://www.myspace.com/sickpuppies -30 points for having a page that's hell to navigate around.
But now, on to the actual CD.
Cover art: Kind of sucks. Kind of sucks a lot. It doesn't even make sense, they're just throwing random pieces of songs together via pictures.
Cover art guy 1: They probably sings about dudes in this one, right?
Cover art guy 2: Yeah. Throw one on the cover.
Cover art guy 1: Ok--wait! I make him headless, that way all the young girls seeing will think its edgy and cool!
Cover art guy 2: Genius! Wait! Let's randomly cut out his chest, and put a terribly drawn heart there! It's like his heart is being cut out!
Cover art guy 1: Love it! What about the background.
Cover art guy 2: Well these guys are a soft rock band, right? They're probably drink a lot to help forget the fact that they are only cool enough for middle schoolers to listen to.
Cover art guy 1: I like where you're going with this....
Cover art guy 2: So let's make the background look like a paper towel that mopped up puke!
Cover art guy 1: Brilliant!
Cover art guy 2: Brilliant!
Guinness guys: Brilliant!
Cover art guy 1: Ok, that leaves the title and band name.
Cover art guy 2: Got it. Let's make it look like spray paint vandalism, as a homage to all the kids in Australia who think they're cool cause they're 13 and 'tag' things.
Cover art guy 1: Wow, this is amazing, I love it!
Cover art guy 2: ....cover art guy 1?
Cover art guy 1: ..yeah, cover art guy 2?
Cover art guy 2: ....I hate my life.
Guinness guys: Brilliant!!
Now, to the songs:
My World
Welcome to my world
Where everyone I ever need
Always ends up leaving me alone
Another lesson burned
And I'm drowning in the ashes
Kicking...screaming
Welcome to my world
You think can write this off as the typical depressing song for pre-teens, but wait! There's more! He also sings softly so the listener knows when to feel really sad. Then there's some awkard drumming in the background and crappy guitar rifts.
The rundown: -1 for cookie cutter music, -4 for having a bad drummer, -3 for the soft singing part, and -94 for the singer's voice grating my ears.
---
Pitiful
My life’s so pitiful
Gimme one good reason why I shouldn’t end it all
If there’s a reason then I haven’t found it yet
And I tried every drug I find
Except maybe heroin and cyanide
But there’s a reason
I just can’t afford them yet
Oh, it’s another overdose.
Jesus Christ. -100 points just for that verse, I'm not listening to the rest of this song.
---
Cancer
The song starts off with a Rise Against-esque tune, for about 2 seconds. +1 for almost sounding like a good band, -3 for trying to sound like a good band. The rest of the song is basically the line 'life flashing brefore my eyes'. There's some random guitar thrown in there and it's just so awkwardly played you wonder if they're actually playing instruments or if it's all with computers.
+1 because the singer went 5 seconds with repeating 'life flashing before my eyes.' -3 because that meant it he was singing 'dressed up as a lie' instead.
---
What Are You Looking For
Not this track. -20 for asking a stupid question.
---
Deliverence
He's singing about needing to get away from something again. Nothing new here...let's see....another one of those repetitive guitar riffs. This is packaged feces, make so mistake. Also they may or may not be acting holier-than-thou, but I'm not keen on listening closer to figure it out. -6 for being preachy
---
All The Same
Ah, yes, the single. It starts off with slow guitar that's reminiscent of Chevelle. -5 for ripping off another band for the second time. Basically this song is needlessly slow and the main lyric is 'it's all the same.' I think they're talking about their CD. +40 for admitting the truth. This is song is godawful.
---
Too Many Words
They're talking about this song! Wa-zing! The singer tries to sing quietly and quickly, which he can't quite pull off, so he resorts to his stuttering-singing to go along with the random interjections of loud guitar.
-3 for a terrible song.
---
Howard's Tale
I'd like to start this off my saying I don't care who Howard is, nor do I wish to hear his tale. For a bit the singer sounds like Lily Allen when he sings, "I won't say, I won't say." +12 because Lily Allen is hot. The bands habit of alternating between guitar and loud hitting of drums is annoying. They don't even sound good doing it. -2 for that.
---
A***ole Father
Few bands can swear in song titles and have it come off sounding and looking good. While Puking Hounds of Hell may have been able to pull this off, Sick Puppies cannot. -10 for swearing in the song title. Basically this song is like 'Father of Mine' by Everclear, but with crappy singing and a crappy band. Also, every time he swears his voice pitches up a bit as if he's new to the word and it's exciting to say. He also says he called his father a whore. +3 for having an intriguing father. -3 for saying whore as if he was about to giggle. -4 for putting the a-word into this song to make the CD get a parental warning sticker.
--
Issues
I give up, these next songs are all terrible. For a while they try to go screamo but it fails miserably, so -12. The other two left are Anywhere But Here and Bottom. -200 for being so bad I can't finish listening to the disc.
--------------------
OVERALL: This band, looking back, is a combination of Daughtry, Nickleback, and Puddle of Mudd. If you like these bands, with the exception of early Puddle of Mudd, please get into different music. The CD is 50 minutes long, which is far too long for crappy music. Each song sounds the same, and there are few bands that I can't take. The aforementioned bands that I called bad, I can sit through their CDs. This one I cannot. They take suck and catapult it to previously unthought of levels. Kudos to them.
-100 for just being bad in general, and making the new Nickleback single look good in comparison.
Total points: -523
Good work, Sick Puppies.
Some professional reviewers:
"Brilliant!
--The Guinness guys
"Bleeerghh!"
-A sick puppy
"BLORRRRORRRRRRRRR!"
-A puking hound of Hell
I hope you all never listen to this band.
Cheers, Fuzz.
