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| Boys Like Girls - Self-Titled | Boys Like Girls - Self Titled
Record Label: Columbia Records
If you take Something Corporate, Jimmy Eat World, Relient K, Sugarcult, Taking Back Sunday, Brand New, and Fall Out Boy and throw all their sounds onto one CD – what an awesome CD that would be – you have Boys Like Girls. They taken every popular sound in the alternative genre and make a CD that will touch upon the deepest recesses of your soul.
BLG’s self-titled debut was released on August 22, 2006. The Boston quartet of guitarist/vocalist Martin Johnson , bassist Bryan Donahue, drummer John Keefe, and guitarist Paul DiGiovanni started by posting online demos before catching the interest of agent Matt Galle and producer Matt Squire. Before long their debut was hitting stands under the Red Ink label.
The album starts off with an alternative-pop ditty entitled “The Great Escape.” An anthem to getting away from everyone who is trying to tell you what to do. With familiar guitar riffs and a radio friendly sound, this song made a great debut single and will hook anyone who really just wants to breakaway from it all and live for just one night.
Their second single, “Hero/Heroine” makes me wonder if it’s a badly hidden allusion to illegal activities or as the video suggests an innocent crush on a girl. We may never really know but it isn’t uncommon for bands in the genre to make reference to the dubious activity. Something Corporate, one of the bands contemporaries, has a lyric on their debut album that says, “If you could be my punk rock princess, I would be your heroine.” The lyrics to the BLG song can definitely go in both directions, discussing his “heroine” as his “sweetest sin.”
“Me, You, and My Medication” sounds like an ode to a Taking Back Sunday era mixed with ballad sound of Brand New via Deja Entendu, is an interesting song about how “love is just a chemical creation” and takes about the love triangle between a guy, a girl and the guy’s medication. And yet even through all the haze the song boils down to this point, “Were all addicted to something / That takes away the pain.” For the boys of BLG they are addicted to a girl.
In true emo fashion, the album has the scorned lover song “Up Against the Wall”. This version of the story involves, “Who said that it's better to have loved and lost? / I wish that I had never loved at all,” and “You crossed your heart, I hope to die.” BLG however approaches the angered, torn lover not through an angry sound, but through a sound that can only depict a person trying to understand the unexplainable things in a relationship’s end. The longing and confusion are all evident in this song.
“Dance Hall Drug” sounds like a song that Fall Out Boy or more recently Panic! at the Disco would sing. “Five Minutes to Midnight” is a song that reminds me of the Sugarcult and Relient K sound. “On Top of the World” is reminiscent of Something Corporate and “Thunder” could quite possibly have been a track on a Dashboard Confessional album. “Learning to Fall” is an alternative song with a pop chorus that shows that even through all this clutter of band sounds, Boys Like Girls brings a unique approach to the music and sounds completely original.
“Broken Man” offers the tale of a man hurt by a girl but offers mixed tempos and a varying bass line that can represent the moving on process going on in the bands’ life. It has the competing vocalists made popular by Taking Back Sunday and includes lines like, “I will learn to love again but I will stand a broken man.”
“Heels over Head” is a purely BLG song. With an upbeat tempo and catchy lyrics this song really encompasses everything the album is trying to achieve. The chorus makes the song: “Now I'm heels over head, / I'm hangin' upside-down / Thinkin' how you left me for dead / California bound.” It goes on to talk about the “ghost of what we used to be” a popular friend of the alternative artist.
BLG ends the album on a ballad titled “Holiday.” It is so far from where the album began musically and emotionally and yet the message is the same. “I need to take a holiday,” is very similar to making “the great escape.” It’s a somber breaking out but it is still the same message, literally (the bridge from "The Great Escape" can be found in "Holiday".
“All of the wasted time / The hours that were left behind /The answers that we'll never find / They don't mean a thing tonight.” |
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Displaying posts 1 - 12 of 12. |
01:53 PM on 05/12/07 | The stillness is the move Hmm...interesting. I wouldn't have put the lyrics so high at all, but I think vocals and lasting value are dead on. Congrats. | | |
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04:52 PM on 05/12/07 | Personally, I would rate the lyrics lower because there's no distinction between BLG's lyrics and hundreds of other pop-punk bands out there. Sure, lyrics don't have to be creative to be good, but a lot of the lyrics dealt with the same subjects. I felt that there should have been more diversity on the record.
But you wrote an excellent review. | | |
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07:37 PM on 05/12/07 | I wouldn't put the lyrics that high, but this is such a catchy cd. | | |
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09:32 PM on 05/12/07 | The lyrics suck. They don't deserve a 9. | | |
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09:38 PM on 06/23/07 | Hah.. I dunno, if you rate this album anything higher than a 50 your standards are pretty low...
I mean if a bunch of songs on a cd all remind you of a different recent subpar pop punk band, theres no real originality there, thats just a ripoff band riding a popular sounds coatails. | | |
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01:53 PM on 06/08/09 | I personally think every song on this cd could have been a hit. I'm nervous for their next cd just because of how good I thought this one was.
Thats just my opinion, but BLG is one of my favorite bands! | | |
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08:08 AM on 07/17/09 | Twitter is a cat's paradise!!! Originally Posted by ZachTBP I personally think every song on this cd could have been a hit. I'm nervous for their next cd just because of how good I thought this one was.
Thats just my opinion, but BLG is one of my favorite bands! |
i guess you joined this site cause of them? | | |
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06:37 PM on 08/10/09 | just enough to know it's there. Enjoyed the review, but personally, I say the creativity is a point higher and the lyrics down to an 7 (they're good, but not that good - and I'm not talking originality either). I wholeheartedly love this album though and it's by one of my favorite bands.
As for Hero/Heroine, the drug is spelt without an e, where as 'heroine' (with the e!) is the feminine spelling of 'hero' - unless, it was supposed to be taken as a double entendre...? I'm not sure, I don't see it; I just hear the lyrics as a boy being saved by a girl, and visa-versa.
Agree about Heels Over Head.
And I have to say, Holiday, Broken Man, and On Top of the World have always been my favorites off the album. But to be honest, I like playing the album in its entirety. (:
Overall though, nicely thought-out review. Wish I would have caught it sooner, I haven't read many others like this one. | | |
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05:53 AM on 09/29/09 | Music makes life bearable! Absolutely brilliant album, exactly what is needed from a pop/punk album! Great review by the way... | | |
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