The Singles Jukebox

Pop, to two decimal places.

Marianas Trench – Haven’t Had Enough

Reveals Wikipedia: As of 8/17/11, Hot Topic’s website started selling Marianas Trench shirts.


[Video][Website]
[3.89]

Jonathan Bogart: Yes we have.
[0]

Alfred Soto: Fumbling for an allusion worthy of these young men, I decided on Mr. Mister. Lyrics by the yard, attitude you can download anywhere these days, mixing board tricks, and “real” guitar. If girls took them more seriously, I might too.
[2]

Brad Shoup: Anything that has me searching for the palate cleanse of a soulDecision album — and forces me to admit the same — is in for a world of hurt. This is one of the more emotionally-rapey songs I’ve heard in a long while. The alternately pleading and threatening text pairs with an obnoxious stop-start riff motif for a dual assault. Sure, there are nice harmonies in places, and the blue-eyed bridge has its charm, but bad relationships last too long for a reason.
[1]

Michaela Drapes: I was really feeling this (no really, it’s charming, if a bit draggy in the middle) until the lead singer turned into the bastard lovechild of Billy Joel and Rod Stewart and Kenny Loggins on the bridge and outro. Impressive, to be sure, but not exactly the most useful skill; his post-Marianas Trench career will almost certainly include a stint in the potentially endless Rock of Ages roadshow.
[5]

Jer Fairall: This particular schoolyard taunt of a melody transitions so easily to pop that I’m amazed that it doesn’t happen more often, and these guys attack it with sharp, spiky synths and a guileless enthusiasm that could have just as easily arrived, at various other points in history, via Rick Springfield, Hanson, or All American Rejects. Power Pop isn’t dead, my fellow music nerds, it’s just been hiding out at the mall.
[7]

Alex Ostroff: Someone may as well try to fill the gap left in my musical pleasure centres vacated by Fall Out Boy. Marianas Trench get so much right, and still manage to be completely off the mark. The synths, semi-treated R&B vocals, and funk guitar are pure Fall Out Boy; when the chorus hits, I can’t be sure that I’m not listening to an old demo Pete Wentz found in his basement. Lyrically, however, it’s a straightforward emo/pop-punk breakup song that forgets women are people with feelings, needs, desires, minds, etc. “I must insist you haven’t had enough”? “You must admit you want it”? Gross. Wentz was an expert at using hilariously overwrought lyrics to walk the line between the achingly earnest and the sublimely ridiculous so delicately that “Can they possibly serious?” was the wrong question. Marianas Trench, on the other hand, rhyme “want ya”, “taunt ya”, and “haunt ya.”
[6]

Edward Okulicz: That part of my brain that only wants me to be seen liking cool music is going crazy right now, because this is potentially so hateable; it’s a Canadian Fall Out Boy rip-off. But damn, I get a lot more out of this than “This City” (though in the power-pop stakes, it’s no match for Simple Plan!), even if the constant attempts at internal rhyme are worse than clumsy. It’s so damn good-natured and eager to please and it’s hard not to fall for the quasi-funk guitars under the chorus, at any rate.
[7]

Ian Mathers: I’m having that weird feeling where I could swear that the bands that teenagers liked when I was a teenager weren’t nearly as puerile as the ones the kids like these days. I admit to having a grudge against these Canucks; flipping around MuchMusic one day a few years back to see what I was missing I stumbled onto their “ballad” “Beside You,” easily the worst Canadian hit since Simple Plan’s completely unforgivable “Welcome to My Life” (this one had much worse singing, but slightly better lyrics). It turns out that in a more upbeat setting the band isn’t that horrible, but “Haven’t Had Enough” is still pretty pallid, and the singer still ought to do something about his timbre. But I mean, this music isn’t really for me; I’m sure it’s not that surprising that I think it’s pablum?
[4]

Katherine St Asaph: Dr. Luke was taking the day off. He plopped into his third cash-stuffed papasan chair, surfed the Web and stumbled into the den of some angry rockists who somehow still monitored his career. Being Dr. Luke, he appeased them by writing a new song, except this time he added electric guitars and totally de-amplified the track every two seconds to create that “negative space” and “dynamic compression” stuff they whined about It sounded like this.
[3]

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