Well, after my short rant about why "State Of The Art" sucks, perhaps I should explain myself a little. Unlike the previous album (for those who inexplicably started on my third entry, "West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum by Kasabian), I know exactly why this album didn't make my original top five list. There are two reasons. The first I have discussed, but can basically be summed up by saying that the Hilltop Hoods insist on staples of their genre: party anthems and rage filled, somewhat sexist rambles and, above all, unoriginality. The other reason is that I love this album for a single track. This is partially true for Kasabian, but not nearly as much. When I put this CD in my discman, I always have to skip right to the last track first, then return for the rest (if I feel like it). Although the rest of the album doesn't hold up to the final track, that isn't to say it doesn't hold up in general.
As with the previous album, I'm just going to pick and choose tracks to discuss, with no set amount of discussion. Now, I've discussed the first track on this album, The Return, in one of my 3 Songs posts, so I'll skip that. After that, the next song which ha always sparked my fascination is the best seller off of this album, "Chase That Feeling", the third track.
Chase That Feeling was amongst the highest rotated songs on Triple J in 2009, and as a result, I feel I've fallen into a "Love it because it's just fucking everywhere" mentality (which is almost identical to my theory on why Nirvana is so popular, but that can wait for another time). Despite this feeling, I do truly enjoy this song. The violin is the thing that truly sets this song aside for me. To be perfectly honest, it feels like this is the only track on the entire album the group put a lot of effort into on every front. The majority of the Hilltop Hoods work falls into the "Good lyrics, good music, good rapping: pick two" category, but this has all three, and it shows in the popularity this track has obtained. There's nothing specific I have to say about this song, but it's one I feel will have a lot of nostalgia value for Australia's youth down the track.
Track 4, She's So Ugly has been discussed much more than it deserves, so let's move right along to the 5th track, "Still Standing". Perhaps it's the fact it shares a title with an Elton John song, but this song is really likable. A lot of hip-hop seems to be challenging the listener to like it, almost seeming to enjoy alienating the audience. It may just be the genre's history and connotations, but it seems to have a "don't like me? I don't care!" mentality, but actually just end up being irritatingly harsh. This song is, by Hilltop Hoods standards, very gentle. It's almost like the Hilltop Hoods are trying to make a pop song without dropping any part of their style. This song is among the best for introducing people to hip-hop, as it isn't offensive, has an obvious narrative and moral, and is just an overall enjoyable song. A definite highlight for me on the Hilltop Hoods discography.
The next three songs aren't my thing, really. "Classic Example" and "Chris Farley" are both party songs, and "The Light You Burned" is an attempt to combine sentimentality and emotion with the Hilltop Hoods on "pissed off" mode, which ends up being sort of a mess which says very little. I absolutely despised this song upon first hearing, but it has grown on me, to the degree I can give or take it, and will enjoy it if it plays.
Song 9, however, is just plain awesome. Hip-hop is possibly the least nerdy of all musical genres, with jazz being a possible exception. In "Parade Of The Dead", however, the Hilltop Hoods show their love of all things zombie, detailing each of their survival techniques for getting out of or surviving in a zombie infested city. I love the lack of pretense, and the fact that the Hilltop Hoods just show their love of something that is not a hip-hop cliche. Like Kasabian's album, the thing about this song that shines through the most is how much fun it must have been to create. To refer back to my previous post, I discussed how I felt "She's So Ugly" was a garbage way of celebrating leaving Obese Records and starting Golden Era. This song says it so much more. The Hilltop Hoods are doing what they love, how the like, and are having the time of their lives doing it. I wish this entire album had had a more celebratory tone, rather than one of anger and regret. But perhaps that's just my own thoughts on the matter. Fuck it, this entire blog is my own opinion. Anyway, this song is what defined the zombie genre for me, throughout my introduction to the fantastically dark world of Max Brooks, at least until Jonathan Coulton's "Re: Your Brains" screwed it over in the best zombie song category.
This leads to the final track of the album. Oh, there are two tracks between Parade of The Dead and this, but I'm not going to talk about them. I have talked about this track before, but only in short and with a link to someone else talking about it. Here, however, I'm abandoning all pretense of organisation and I'm just going to blurt what I think of this song . Firstly, "Fifty In Five" is the greatest song of all time. Done. This is my favourite song ever. There is no debate in my mind, with no song approaching it in any way. This song is so fantastic, it is what propelled an otherwise ordinary album into my top 10 albums, and on a better album (such as Drinking From The Sun) would have easily topped all of my other albums. Before I discuss this song, I must mention it's history. The song was written in response to an obscure song released in 1960 titled "2010" which asked repeatedly "What will the world be like in 2010?" (my apologies for being unable to remember the group. The song itself is nothing special anyway). "Fifty In Five" was written in response to this. Although it does have a very Australian slant (I doubt many outside the country would understand a reference to the politicians Abbott and Costello (lucky bastards, every one of you)0, this song basically recounts important events and world changes to have occurred in the past fifty years. Also, the song goes for 5 and a half minutes, thus the name Fifty (years) in Five (minutes). Also worth mentioning in a really minor irritation of mine, this song was released in 2009. Nothing in the big picture, just a personal problem with the song. Probably my only problem with the song, in the end.
The song begins with a slow almost pulsating beat, which is actually taken from the original 2010 song. The first event they mention is 9/11, which is a pretty damn good place to start. If you were going to sum up big events from 1960-2010, that would damn well be one of them, no matter who you are. I'm not going to talk about every part of this song, but I will make a short list of events which, from an Australian view, are among the most important to be discussed in regards to the missing 50 years.
Vietnam, Gulf Wars, assassination of King & Kennedy, Internet, environmental problems, credit cards, Thatcher, Princess Di, Australian politics, Children Overboard controversy, deaths of Lennon & Elvis, various genocides, MP3's & piracy, population growth, Berlin wall, end of Cold War, Waco, Enron, AIDS & Mandela.
Of course, opinions will vary over what the most important things would be, but that's just me. The reason I'm looking at things in the "if someone missed the past x years" manner, is because I was reading a Doghouse Diaries comic that addressed exactly the same issue. This sums up the past 50 years pretty damn well, give or take. Also, being able to use the phrase "various genocides" is possibly the most depressing thing I've ever typed.
The music of Fifty in Five slowly swells, in a way only possible due to the incredible length.By the end, the song has reached a sense of intense pressure, with the song and the singer shouting at you that things need to change. I've heard "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division, and it's very depressing, but if I were to pick which sounds like the last work of an individual on the brink of suicide, I'd pick this in an instant.
The song presents not even the slightest hope for the future. Every thing is said without much bias, but still showing the narrator to have given up. If I were to hear the concept for this song on its own, I certainly wouldn't have picked hip-hop as the genre to deliver it. This is the kind of song I would imagine an alternative group, who no-one had ever heard of , writing and performing. The fact that the Hilltop Hoods, a group I cold very easily have written off as as bad as pop music managed to deliver this magnificent track shows that they have much more talent than I have ever given them credit for, and fro that I deeply apologise.
On that note, I shall end both this post and my discussion of State Of The Art. Stay tuned probably tomorrow for the reveal of album No. 3.
Feedback and best album lists wanted.
H. Rourke
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