Wakefield, American Made Review
Posted by Ryan T. Murphy on 05.18.2003
Not bad, just....blah.
Wakefield, American Made Arista Records, 2003.
Mechanicsville, Maryland's Wakefield are more than likely best known for their drummer, Aaron Escolopio, being the former drummer in Good Charlotte. Wakefield and the GC camp have some hatred for each other over this. The connection is easy to see, as Wakefield sound like a watered-down Good Charlotte. They aren't the worst pop-punk band to come down the pike, but their major label debut American Made is painfully middling.
The first song out of the box is pretty bad. The melody is pretty good and it mixes in some electronic drum beats in key areas. The main problem is the song's lyrical theme. It's called "Sold Out". The basic premise is that they think they suck but they wrote a cheesy pop song so they can sell out and make lots of money. My main thought the first time hearing it was "I liked this song better when it was by Reel Big Fish." I mean its not just that its about selling out that makes this song a rip off of "Sell Out" by RBF, its that the whole idea of it is the same. That same ironic belligerent attitude runs in both songs. Both songs effectively say "we know we're tools for selling out, so lets be proud of being tools in the name of comedy." When some band does another song in this manner, it will become a valid song style. It takes 3 of anything to make it a style; when only two bands do it, the most recent is always ripping off the first. Sorry Wakefield, better luck next time.
The next song is called "Un-sweet Sixteen" and features the bad vocals of singer Ryan Escolopio. Ryan (obviously, brother of drummer Aaron) is the next in the recent trend of pretty boy pop-punk singers under the legal drinking age (he's 18.) His voice is generic, flat, and whiny. He does all the trademark strains of someone singing from deep in their diaphragm, but apparently he forgets to fine-tune the note in his throat because the sound of his voice is severly lacking in substance. This song is basically the same kind of teen fashion-angst that made "Sk8r Boi" such a phenomenon. "Un-sweet sixteen, you're always like a beauty queen when you're posing in a magazine" etc. etc. Just not a good song at all.
Wakefield try to slow it down on "Heaven's Coming" and fail miserably at making an enjoyable song. The riff is pseudo-bluesy at the beginning, and when coupled with Ryan's whiny vocals it almost sounds like the beginnings of a nu-metal song. The chorus and proceeding riffs are a throwback to grunge/alternative bands of the mid-90s ala Bush & Silverchair. If you imagine Bush with an emo singer, you can picture this song. I can't fault them too much because its clear they're trying to break out of the ordinary with this song but mediocrity is a hard habit to break.
The shining light of this album is track 5, entitled "Girls Rock Boys". The opening riff is bouncy and rocks it fun-style right out of the gates, and then this cool effect kicks in. It sounds just like an echo-y synth effect, except I can hear faint sounds of a voice within it. So I'm thinking maybe a Talkbox? The rest of the song is in the Green Day vein, but with that effect punctuating the post chorus. A very fast and upbeat tempo throughout this whole song. Also, the lyrics are intriguing, adding little lines you wouldn't expect to hear in most pop-punk songs. The bad vocals are overcome by an all around good song, that looks even better next to the shit shingles it shares an album with.
Whoops, they fucked it up. "Honesty" starts out with an intro section that sounds ridiculously like Mott the Hoople's "Sweet Jane". This is another of their attempts at slowing down, only lowering to about mid-tempo. The verses are all played in clean channel with the focus on Ryan's vocals, and that ruins the song. His vocals simply aren't strong enough to carry these songs. The chorus is catchy though, repeating "You're crying, I'm begging" enough times to get it stuck in your head. In retrospect from the first time I heard this, I don't hate it too much, I just think it is a little too mediocre.
"Positive Reinforcement" is another of the good songs on this album. It starts out with an electro-drum beat and then a sweeping, 80s-era-Van Halen style riff, before launching into a higher concept punk number. The song content is pretty sardonic (the chorus goes "Today sucked, you knew it would, tomorrow's not looking good") and the song shows a bit more attitude. I also notice Ryan's vocals are more melodic and a little less grating. Too bad he didn't do that for the WHOLE album.
What's up with the little splash of electro-drumming on "Give Me a Reason"? Did Tone Loc do a guest spot on this? Quintessential high school lyrics here, talking about the year almost being over and actually mentioning teachers at one point. The whole thing is about high school love apparently. I'd condemn this as being retarded and weak song subject matter, but from a marketing standpoint its gold. All of their target audience can relate to these high school puppy love themes, and all it takes is one band in the mainstream to make that kind of thing acceptable just by singing about it to open up the floodgates. I imagine Wakefield were oblivious to this concept and were just singing about high school crushes.
Another question I have: at the beginning of "Goodbye", is the sound effect supposed to be a scratchy record or rain? I'm leaning towards scratchy record but my first reaction was rain. Slow emotive punk anthem, with a thick riff. The line "Screw hello, you had me at goodbye" is cute but not too bright and really, it doesn't mean anything. Its pretty common to have someone at goodbye, why do they need to make a point of it? Are they competing with Relient K's new album title for butchery of somewhat common phrases? Silly Wakefield.
I absolutely fucking hate the last song. Not for the music, the music is some of the best on this album with a quick punk rock riff (not pop punk but straight up punk) and there's a ska-influenced breakdown at the end. And the verse vocals are rapid fire, which I'm a sucker for. I hate this song because of its lyrical content. It's called "Infamous" and it consists of that hackneyed self-mockery punk attitude. The chorus is ACTUALLY "We suck yeah we're never gonna make it, we're too dumb to be rich and famous". For one thing, Presidents of the United States of America had almost the same song like 8 years ago. For two, that whole "we suck" punk attitude is SO MOTHERFUCKING OVERDONE that I never want to hear it again. Blink 182 were doing it at least 5 years ago and 90% of all other punk bands have something in that vein. It was a terrible way to end this album and any time I hear ANY band claiming themselves that they suck, I have no choice but to agree.
There was so much wasted potential with this album. For one thing, Ryan Escolopio needs to get some vocal lessons like yesterday. He should start smoking or something because that whine in his voice is just terrible. These songs show ideas like they want to do something original (there are a lot of variations on the traditional v-c-v structure, with chorus & riff intros and melody shifts akimbo), but Wakefield just fall into overdone and trite characteristics of everyday boring radio music. They get so bogged down in it at points that I question whether they're able to overcome it or not. I'd recommend checking it out for yourself to judge based on your tastes, because it's not as though this album isn't salvageable. This cd wasn't a terrible experience but I've heard way better albums in this genre.
The 411: Wakefield might have a big future ahead of them but compared to a lot of other bands that are similar in substance and style to them, they just don't match up. Here's to better luck for their next album.
