Good News for People Who Love Bad News, Modest Mouse

Horn Intro
The World at Large
Float On
Ocean Breathes Salty*
Dig Your Grave
Bury Me With It
Dance Hall
Bukowski*
This Devil's Workday
The View
Satin in a Coffin
Interlude (Milo)
Blame It on the Tetons*
Black Cadillacs
One Chance
The Good Times Are Killing Me

During my research of Modest Mouse's Good News for People Who Love Bad News, I found nothing but good reviews and remarks. Not to ruffle any feathers, but oh dear god they are wrong.

Musically speaking, there are only a few good things to say about the album: the bass player is occasionally creative, and most the songs are quite catchy. However, there is a lot of catchy music and most of it is better than this.

The number of things wrong with this album musically are almost countless, namely that The World at Large, Float On, and Ocean Breathes Salty are the same four chords over and over; the background vocal track adds absolutely nothing but noise (you'll recognize it as the whisper-like squealing that simply repeats everything already being sung); and how very little of the album is solidly in tune.

One final note on the poor quality of the music, what is with the baby crying in Interlude (Milo)? Since Pink Floyd's The Wall, everyone thinks having a baby cry is some great effect, as opposed to just being horribly out of place. Oh, and Interlude is basically the same chord progression as the songs previously mentioned.

The lyrics, at first glance are promising. There are many clever lines such as, "Life it rents us. And yeah I hope it put plenty on you. Well I hope mine did too." After the whole album however, the frailties in the lyrics are apparent. Songs begin to sound the same, not just the same voice but the same story: a presentation of a negative viewpoint, and the solution being an optimistic perspective or the assurance that you don't know what will happen. The most trite is, "I backed my car into a cop car the other day, well he just drove off sometimes life's okay."

Bullocks. You hit a cop car, you're screwed, I don't care how optimistic you are. I'm aware of the exaggeration's use to be poignant, however, it really just takes away from credibility of the statement. Beyond these poorly expressed lines, there are attempts to be deep that are really just statements of the obvious like, "If God takes life, then he's an Indian Giver." Well, of course he is an Indian Giver. If he gives you life, then takes it away, that is Indian Giving by definition.

Also, there aren't many depressing lyrics on the album, mostly just statements of depression followed by witticisms about the duality of good days and bad days, which becomes very redundant.

As much as I was disappointed with this album, I do see the potential Modest Mouse has for doing something great. I only hope the success of this album doesn't make Modest Mouse not so modest. Overall, Good News for People Who Love Bad News is a great idea, just very poorly executed. My suggestion is instead of listening to the album, just repeat the words, "take the bad with the good," over and over for about 49 minutes.

Grade: D+