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TyronneThe Starting Line - Please don't leave me?
June 5th 2006 03:37
The Starting Line
In a world where bands are quick to shun the "pop" monicker and kids sing either about California even though they've never been there (seriously, its like every emo band in existence has written at least one song on California), the Starting Line stand proud in their position as the poppiest of pop-punk. It's sometimes easy to confuse between alternative and pop-punk but there's no confusion here. Starting Line are pop with just enough punk to make them rebellious.
I understand the hypocrisy of a genre like pop-punk - you're mainstream yet you're rebelling. But these days, punk is more of a musical style that an ideal and as such, bands have latched onto it for influence, style and money. But Starting Line are seemingly proud in their positions, creating catchy tunes without hesitance and choosing not to sacrifice tonality in return for the beat-driven indie that has become fashionable of late. With two LPs under their belts, the Starting Line are not giving up.
Their last album, Based on a True Story is a mix of fast-paced, heavily accented pop songs and slow emotional ballads, reaching out to the confused iGeneration (coined by MC Lars I gather). From the acoustic opening that is Making Love to the Camera to the heavy riff of Inspired by the $ it is clear that even a band so firm in their poppy stance is beginning to veer off into another direction. While their first album, Say it Like You Mean it is filled more with high pitched vocals and that amateurish punk that adds that dimension to a band, the second album is clearly more mature while retaining that slight teenage sensibility. The band are obviously nostalgic about their teenage years and almost reluctant to enter adulthood.
The best example of that would have to be the third track, Bedroom Talk a pure pop song that talks about a boy's "first time" in possibly the most abstract way possible. First listeners to the song will mistake the lyrics for some inner sado-masochist desire combined with pure male testosterone, but the writer of the song, and lead singer of the band, has cleared it up, explaining it as merely his teenage nerves about losing his virginity. Nevertheless, the song is a clear contrast to the succeeding tracks, with Surprise Surprise beginning the slow transition to ballad form, culminating in Photography, an emotionally charged song with a recurring melody that is almost unlistenable in its pure predictability.
Other songs on the album edge on the border of absolute corniness, with Autography being poppy beyond recognition as a song, and The World sounding like it was performed by Hi-5 after a night on the town, complete with the recurring three-word repition and background chorus. Ready, while a diminished song thanks to the introduction of doo-wop techniques towards the end, is a beautiful ballad, and yet the songwriter can't seem to help but talk about critics, audiences, and fans as if they were the biggest band in the world. Nevertheless, Cut! Print It performs that all important position of being a good enough song to finish off the album and drag the listeners back for one more taste when the third LP hits the shelves. Unlike the Chili Peppers technique of choosing one slow song and then one fast song for its track listing (sorry, had to say it), it is clear that the track listing for this album is completely deliberate, designed to make sure there are always fans for Starting Line in the end.
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