Boys Like Girls – Love Drunk
For the better part of the last four years, it has been utterly impossible to escape the runaway single “The Great Escape,” from Boston power-poppers Boys like Girls (BLG). The song’s feel-good chorus and soaring vocals were undeniably convincing and that track, along with lead single “Hero/Heroine,” and yearning ballad “Thunder,” thrust the quartet into the national spotlight. Now they’re back with sophomore album Love Drunk.
The disc begins with the electro-inspired effort “Heart Heart Heartbreak,” which features muscle-tight guitar tones, crystalline vocals, a sizzling snare and air-tight production. It also sounds eerily reminiscent of Slippery When Wet-era Bon Jovi, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing; it just makes it less original. Title track and lead single, “Love Drunk,” follows and opens with a chiming guitar line, blistering drums and a wall of na-na-na’s. The exhilarating opening wastes no time and dives right into the chorus, “I used to be love drunk, but now I’m hung over.” The song’s shining moment is in the last 30 seconds, as a gorgeous key change and rousing final chorus kickstart this song to Billboard heaven.
The contrived and uninspiring should-be second single “She’s Got a Boyfriend Now,” spins a tale about the one that got away, and aside from a supremely catchy chorus, there’s nothing substantial about the song at all. Johnson settles things down on the acoustic “Two is Better than One,” a string-backed ballad about a broken relationship that’s rousing, reflective and passionate. Pop-country superstar Taylor Swift lends her vocal talents on the chorus, but her contributions aren’t as promising as one would expect. Regardless, of the album’s first half, no song is stronger than this one. The album dips even lower on “Real Thing,” a song heavily indebted to 80s darlings Duran Duran, that works well if that’s its purpose, but flops altogether if it is indeed going for something different.
Johnson returns to playing the pensive, heart-on-the-sleeve crooner with the soaring, arena ballad “Someone like You,” a touching lament to the prospect of newfound love. The song’s structure and movement reflects the sort of maturity one would expect from a sophomore album, and aside from “Two is Better Than One,” this is the first time BLG has displayed any profound sense of deep maturation, and even that term is a bit of a stretch. The kitschy, uncomplicated, boon “Shot Heard Round The World,” follows and Lord love a duck it is painful. Boring, predictable and wholly analogous to the album’s five other sugar-coated rockers, “Shot Heard Round the World,” are the sound of a band being lazy and not testing their creative boundaries.
After the mildly appealing “The First One,” Love Drunk ends with two of its best tracks: “Chemicals Collide,” and “Go.” The former is a hard-charging, top-down, fist-pumping fireball that explodes out of the gate with energy, charisma and confidence. By the album’s conclusion it’s utterly obvious that Boys like Girls know how to write a pop-hook. But that’s nothing we didn’t already know. That being said, eight of eleven Love Drunk‘s songs are sealed with danceable beats, hummable melodies and a bevy of gearshifts, dropouts and chorus chants. Additionally, Johnson is a surefire vocal talent, and knows how to throw his voice around a verse and a chorus. He dips his tenor into falsetto more than a couple times and the results are worthy of libations. There’s a good chance that these songs when melted down to their brittle, acoustic base are probably more engaging, more earnest and more welcoming. Instead though, the disc is eleven commercially viable tracks that scream radio airplay and Disney channel specials. But is this really what the radio needs right now?
It seems unconscionable that Martin Johnson can sit back in his Boston futon and smile at this body of work. Is this really what his few years in the business have created? These are trite, unconvincing, generic rock songs, tailor-made for Hannah Montana-loving tweens and pre-pubescent. There is little merit or integrity here. Moreover, Johnson’s fleeting glimpses of lyrical acumen seem to have dissipated in the time in between albums, making for some of the most unoriginal lyrics since N’Sync’s No Strings Attached. And yet, despite all this, it seems almost assured that these sugary, processed slices of radio-rock are going to find their way on the charts and remain there for days to come. Which poses the quintessential question, in an era of digital downloads and pay-what-you-want schemes, can radio-rock be taken seriously anymore? Is Love Drunk what high school freshmen in their parent’s basements are trying to ascend to? Is this utterly uneventful album the future of music? Perhaps it’s best these questions remain unanswered. After all, Willy Wonka once said, “We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of the dream.”
