After the unforeseen success of their song “Hey There Delilah,” Grammy nominees Plain White T’s are taking their music in a different direction.
Instead of embracing the modern pop-punk that earned the T’s early attention, the band’s new album, “Big Bad World,” finds them adopting a ’50s- and ’60s-inspired sound with limited success.
Singer and songwriter Tom Higgenson’s vision for the new album was to create a more classic sound using vintage gear made before the ’70s.
Recorded live, “Big Bad World” was meant to include recording studio imperfections, which is a departure from the Plain White T’s last album.
Although the album’s 10 tracks attempt to incorporate a hodgepodge of ’50s and ’60s aesthetics, the outcome is a lack of consistency except for the abundance of pop hooks.
“Natural Disaster,” the first single off the album, may be a disastrous choice for a single release because of its bubblegum pop lyrics and generic instrumentation.
“I don’t know what this girl was after / She’s a natural, natural disaster,” sings Higgenson, while interspersed hand-claps and background vocal chants of “cha” and “oh” fall short of creating a retro sound. If the single itself fails to create the right aesthetic, its trite music video only compounds the problem.
In the video, several seductresses lure the various members of the PWT’s throughout their performance at a club. Higgenson is the last to be seduced by the main vixen, with whom he leaves at the end of the band’s show. Ultimately, both the video and track embody the album’s worst qualities: overt commercialism, underachieving instrumentation and exhaustingly colorless lyrics.
“Big Bad World,” the album’s title track, would have made a more appropriate single. Its catchy chorus (“We’ll do it again and again / till we eventually can change / the way it’s always been”), ska-like inclusion of a trombone section, and the simplicity of bassist Mike Retondo’s clear riffs make this one of the more inventive and effective tracks.
Even granting the album credit for being economical with lyrics, the cliches are glaring and unoriginal. With lyrics such as “all my tears flood the streets” and “if I was a pilot of a jet I would let you fly us all the way up far into the stars,” there is nothing strikingly witty about the majority of the album’s tracks.
Even the lyrics in “I Really Want You” are simplistic and lusty, and the harmonica in the song comes off as a hasty afterthought that does not fit with the album.
“Sunlight,” written by guitarist Tim Lopez, distinguishes itself from the other songs with a harmony resembling a Christian worship ballad and a more sincere chorus: “‘Cause I can see sunlight through my window / If you open your eyes you’ll find your way back home.”
Meanwhile, “1, 2, 3, 4,” with its soft guitar chords and catchy lyrics, functions as a throwback to the band’s previous album. Loaded with numeric puns such as “there’s only one thing two do: three words four you. I love you,” this is exactly the guitar-pop the Plain White T’s should stick to.
Part of the band’s charm has always been the directness of its lyrics and the honesty of the story behind them.
While the final track, “Someday,” can be interpreted as a hopeful message for a better tomorrow despite the “big bad world” we live in, at its root, the song is more of a plea that frontman Higgenson will someday overcome his romantic mistakes. With so many autobiographical songs about Higgenson’s love failures coupled with vague lyrics such as “Someday we’ll want what’s better / Someday we’ll all live forever,” “Someday” offers a generic story of hope.
With trite, uninspired songs like this, it’s clear that the band has set its sights a bit too high with “Big Bad World.”
Instead of pioneering a charmingly vintage writing and recording style, the album comes off as a modern pop band playing dress-up in classic pop clothing.
The end result is an incoherent collection that falls well within the “big bad world” of commercial pop-punk, but still may appeal to those with a taste for catchiness and pun-loaded hooks.
““ Patricia Guzman
E-mail Guzman at pguzman@media.ucla.edu.