REVIEWS:
Post your comments about Rooney
(reviewed by Kevin Baker)
It's at moments like these that I suddenly feel not-so-masculine. Of course, I'm a man's man on the surface - I like beautiful women, food in large quantities, and trucks, plus I have enough body hair to qualify as a fur-bearing mammal. However, I also like WAY too much pop-rock "sissy" stuff. Like this band. For the unenlightened, Rooney is a band from SoCal whose first break was an appearance in (oh lord, I feel my manliness rating dropping by the second here...) The Princess Diaries. However, I did NOT know that until one of my younger female friends told me that. I discovered them watching re-runs of Daria on late night TV. You know, Daria is a HECK of a show. Along with Joan of Arcadia and Jeopardy (and there goes the rest of my macho rating), it qualifies as one of the three shows I actually watch. Oh yeah, and Survivor. And The Amazing Race. OK, so maybe I watch more TV than I thought I did. But yeah, Daria's great stuff!
Back to Rooney. I saw a video for their first single, Blueside, on TV at like 12:30 one night last summer, and I thought it was GREAT. Crunchy guitars, nice 60s sounding harmonies, a hooky melody, AND the guys have a cool retro sense of style for their approach to music, fashion, and probably choice of recreational drugs, too. So yeah, I downloaded an mp3 of the song, then just went out and bought the cd for like $9 at Target. I also bought a camp chair that's a recliner there since I was shopping for dorm room furniture and stuff at the same time.
After much, much listening, I am of the opinion that this is a GREAT debut. Blueside opens things up with a cool slice of 60s-ish California sound, Stay Away kicks it up a notch with more catchiness and a lot of energy, If It Were Up To Me sounds like GOOD Weezer, I'm A Terrible Person has more hooks than a friggin' bass lure, Popstars rips Britney and N'Sync, I'm Shakin' is the catchy ditty that broke them into the main scene when they played it on The OC, Daisy Duke mentions cuffing a younger girl to a bathtub, Sorry Sorry is really bouncy, That Girl Has Love is the only real misfire, Simply Because makes up for less-than-stellar lyrics with a heck of a catchy chorus, and Losing All Control takes a page from the Weezer Book Of Debut Album Closers and slows things down in an overextended sort of way.
That last sentence was brought to you by the John Bunyan School Of Not Bothering To Write Sentences Of Manageable Length. As I said, the only real duffer is That Girl Has Love, and I definitely think that Losing All Control needs to join the pop song equivalent of Weight Watchers and shave a few minutes off its total length. However, as a whole, this is a tight debut. While not nearly as lyrically proficient as early Weezer, they're definitely more perceptive and glib than present day Rivers Cuomo, and they're every bit as catchy. If you like The Blue Album, you'll like this one, too.
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