Puddle of Mudd - Re:(disc)overed Review

Posted by Jeremy Thomas on 08.30.2011

Puddle of Mudd returns with a collection of covers of classic rock songs. But does the band do the originals justice or come off as a cheap karaoke version of the all-time greats? 411's Jeremy Thomas checks in with his full review!



1. Gimme Shelter (5:05)
2. Old Man (5:06)
3. T.N.T. (3:55)
4. Stop Draggin' My Heart Around (4:07)
5. The Joker (4:08)
6. Everybody Wants You (3:36)
7. Rocket Man (6:05)
8. All Right Now (5:35)
9. Shooting Star (5:17)
10. D'yer Mak'er (4:19)
11. Funk #49 (4:13)

Listen to this album on Spotify

Puddle of Mudd is a band that got lost in the shuffle of the post-grunge avalanche that grew in late 1990s and early 2000s, yet has managed to survive nonetheless. The four-man band, led by frontman and rhythm guitarist Wes Scantlin, hit the big time in 2001 with their first studio album Come Clean. That album rode the wave of alt-rock popularity that was cresting at the time, going triple platinum and giving us several big Billboard hits. While the band has never come even close to recapturing that level of success on any of the three subsequent studio albums they've released, they maintain a following thanks to their initial success and the staying power of songs like "Blurry" and "Control." Their last album as a group, 2009's Volume 4: Songs in the Key of Love & Hate, was their lowest-selling album to date and the first not to chart a single in the Billboard Hot 100. Now, just under two years since that album, the band has gone for something a bit different with their first cover album Re:(disc)overed.

The eleven-track album, recorded between January and February of this year, consists entirely of covers. The band's tastes become very evident just scanning down the tracklist, which consists almost entirely of songs from the 1970s. In fact, the only two non-70s songs came in 1981 and 1982, when the 1970s influence was still very strong in the rock genre. Scantlin and his bandmates have set out to take these older, iconic songs that are favorites of theirs and pay homage while presenting them to their younger fans for appreciation.

That concept and the execution of it actually turn out to be the biggest flaw of the disc. It sounds like exactly what it seems to be conceived as—studio karaoke recordings of classic tracks from legendary artists, performed by a not-great band. Lead guitarist Paul Phillips has said that the idea "was to pay more tribute rather than reinvent. These are all classics that are perfect in every sense, so who are we to mess with that?" While Phillips and the band has a good point there, the immediate question is why would you want to try and remake what is already a set of classic songs without offering your own take? It doesn't make any sense and it just doesn't work for the most part. The first track on the album—and the first single to boot—is a perfect example. The song, "Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones, is one of the more famous rock tracks in the history of the genre. It's a classic in every sense of the word, and it has earned it. However, Scantlin's voice is not Mick Jagger's by any stretch and the rest of the band has little else to do than ape what the rest of the Stones did. This is not a fresh, original take; it is just the same song sung the same way by people who are nowhere near being able to claim toward being in the same sports as the Stones, much less the same league.

A similar problem runs through the rest of the album. The next track, Neil Young's 1972 hit "Old Man" is virtually indistinguishable from the original but for modern production values and Scantlin's vocals. AC/DC's "T.N.T." comes off vaguely better, simply because it fits the band's down and dirty style a little bit better and the vocals seem a better overall fit. A cover of Tom Petty's "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" would be ultimately forgettable if not for the fact that the band brought in BC Jean as their Stevie Nicks substitute and her voice is comparable to the rock icon's. The utterly derivative feel doesn't fade away though, and runs as a common thread through most the tracks. The best cover songs are ones that offer something different and the band seem too busy worshipping at the altar of the classics they're covering to provide their own takes on the material.

The worst track on the album by far is the cover of Elton John's "Rocket Man." While it may seem a crutch to keep going back to Scantlin's vocal work, it is the only thing that distinguishes the updates from the originals and his vaguely throaty sound is incredibly ill-suited to the 70s pop feel of the song. The last fourth of the album is a bit better than the rest overall thanks to some decent work on Free's "All Right Now" and Bad Company's "Shooting Star," where they lighten up just a touch. However once they hit Led Zeppelin's "D'yer Mak'er" Scantlin tries to do his own thing a bit and you find yourself thinking that maybe it's a good thing they stayed too reverential, because his vocal riffing at the end is nearly sacrilegious. The last track, "Funk #49" from the James Gang, is decent but not spectacular and the joy of the listener is more in the album's end than any excitement provided by the song itself. That's definitely not the way you want a listener to feel and it finishes out the disc with a sour aftertaste, leaving you wondering why you didn't just buy the individual original songs.

The 411: Puddle of Mudd's cover album Re:(disc)overed is the worst collection of songs that the post-grunge band has released to date. Whether the band stays too reverential of the original works or occasionally try to go their own way with the material, they just can't get a handle on what they're trying to do long enough to produce anything worth listening to. Perhaps a better plan would have helped as a whole, but more likely it's a concept the band just shouldn't have tried, at least with the classic songs that they try to pay homage to. It's time for the band to go back to the well and start doing their own original songs, which is clearly their strength because as a cover band, they're not even remotely up to snuff.

Final Score:  3.5   [ Bad ]