Tuesday, June 21st, 2016

Andy Black – We Don’t Have to Dance

Points for commitment?


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Taylor Alatorre: Andy Black, né Biersack, doesn’t care what any of you “fat bearded motherfuckers” have to say. Which is why, for the lead single to his debut solo album, he’s enlisted the help of three people (Stump, Feldmann, and Reed) who are doing their best to keep rock music in top 40 rotation — he doesn’t care what you think, as long as it’s about him.
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Alfred Soto: Black and co-writer Patrick Stump take “Somebody Told Me” on a list of things they dislike. I still don’t know if they like dancing, presumably with each other.
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Adaora Ede: Wikipedia says it’s gothic rock from a melodic metalcore band’s frontman, but “We Don’t Have to Dance” isn’t for the Hot Topic mallrats or whatever the Cure’s current listening base is. The claimed inspiration for Biersack’s solo project doesn’t shine through the expendable chorus and the splattering emocore drum beat. It’s enjoyable because because the opening verses remind me a lot of Kristin Kontrol’s “X-Communicate” before Andy Black plummets straight into pop-punk normality in the hook. But I digress; it’s just that he should have shouted out Pete Wentz at least once in this song.
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Cassy Gress: Andy Black’s project is inspired by his love for 80s goth/synthpop, and I can hear that. But what I hear even more strongly is James Hetfield and David Draiman taking turns grunting and elongating their vowels over ’03-’04-era alt-rock radio. It’s not a bad song, it’s just really confusing my brain. Thanks for the trip down memory lane, though!
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Brad Shoup: Goon-rock bellowing over a crunchy undergrowth of handclaps and hopped-up disco-rock backbeat. Only the solo is as committed as Black, who hits a leadoff triple (“record scratch/Steve Miller Band”) and promptly runs out of support.
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Will Adams: The first almost-minute of this is an interesting thought experiment manifested: plopping a metal singer in front of a mid-aughts pop-rock arrangement. But then the breakdown revs up and we get the unintentionally amusing line “this is hell, yes, literal hell!” before launching into a compressed-as-hell chorus. Andy Black’s commitment to this squeegee of a song is admirable, though I’m still left to wrestle with its harsh sheen.
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Madeleine Lee: He’s going for The Bravery, but doesn’t even make it to Nickelback. If you told me this was a new-country artist trying some genre mixing, I might be more forgiving of the “list of edgy-sounding nouns” lyrical format.
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Katie Gill: Oh my God, the Spuffy fanvids are editing themselves in my head. Look, I know this is basically the musical equivalent of a really good later career Panic! at the Disco song. It’s perfect background noise for Hot Topics nationwide, innocent enough that they can sell it to fourteen year olds but mature enough that said fourteen year olds feel adult while listening to it. But this is exactly the type of goofy-ass schlock that I adore. He looks like he’s having so much fun with this: Andy Black is just 100% committed to this fricken pseudo-vampire pseudo-80s aesthetic that I am just cracking up and I am just so enthralled. It’s not even sexy! But then again, it’s not supposed to be sexy, this is a song that’s just straight up about fucking, utter animal magnetism, the sheer nastiness of a one-night stand, something that Black’s raw voice conveys magnificently and just look at this Big K cola version of Andrew Eldritch, can we please keep him? One of his lyrics states “this is hell, literal hell” for crying out loud! What’s not to love?
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Tim de Reuse: Let’s all go to the mature bar for mature people where they play mature classic rock on a dying turntable and everyone has neck tattoos, which are for cool and mature people. Let’s all be mature and whinge loudly to everyone within earshot about how miserable we are for no reason. Let’s be really unfriendly, which is mature, and talk about how this is hell, which is mature because hell is actually other people because I skimmed the Wikipedia entry on Sartre’s No Exit last month. Let’s be really melodramatic, which is mature, but also really vague, which is also mature, and drone on and on about how we’re totally heartless monsters (mature) and we find joy in drinking poison (mature) and we’re a hazard to ourselves (mature). Let’s talk about how we don’t have to talk because we’re mature people because we’re Certified Bad Dudes with tortured souls and no redeeming traits except like in a really cool and stylish and mature and chill way. Sounds like a great time! Whoa, no shit, your favorite movie is Fight Club too? 
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