Funplex

I was hoping this album would stink balls so I could use all these great new plays-on-words I made up like "More like the B-50-SNOOZE, if you ask me!" and "More like the B-SHITTY-2's, if you ask me!" and "More like the PEE-52's if you ask me!" but in a devastating blow for the entire human race, it's actually pretty good.
And by "pretty good," I of course mean, "I gave it the same grade as both Cosmic Thing, which I said 'could have been recorded by any worthless batch of anonymous studio musicians,' and Bouncing Off The Satellites, which I labeled 'generic pop music '86. Disappointing. Very, very disappointing.'" In other words, Funplex is better than Good Stuff!

On the up side, there's more guitar on here than on their last few albums, but on the down side it's mostly just Fall-esque garage rock chords that ultimately wind up buried under keyboards anyway. Back on the up side, most of the songs have beautiful female vocals, dramatic chord changes and uptempo dancey drumbeats, Returning to the downside, Fred Schneider's gay-talking schtick is more irritating than endearing this time around, the dramatic chord changes are 100% predictable, and the producer relies heavily on '00s-centric production tricks (muffled electronic rhythms, etc -- the kinds of soon-to-be-dated effects that Madonna so enjoys). (and I use Madonna as an example because I don't know the names of all the other awful dance/pop artists I keep hearing who use this kind of shit in every song they release). In short, it's a mighty dancey album (no more of the trance spiritualism dull Good Stuff muck), but most of the melodies have been around the block more times than a WHORE, if you know what I mean.

I mean the dictionary definition of "whore."

There aren't a whole lot of bad songs on here - in fact, I count only one ("Eyes Wide Open" is more of a dance beat than a musical composition) - but there aren't a whole lot of overwhelmingly memorable ones either. "Hot Corner" seems like the most obvious single, pairing a great uptempo dance beat with fuzzy guitar, a catchy bass line and fun vocals from the whole band. Less obvious but more beautiful are the Abba-reminiscent dark disco "Juliet Of The Spirits" and emotion-tinged "Deviant Ingredient," both of which are further reminders that Kate Pierson and The Other One are among the loveliest vocalists (in harmony or out) in pop music. The rest of the disc is unfortunately a bunch of perfectly danceable but not terribly creative pop music marred further by annoying Schneider-isms like "Faster Pussycat - Thrill! Thrill!" and "Stokin' and a-strokin'. Heat up the night - tonight! When bodies collide!"

It's odd how much some of the guitarwork here reminds me of The Fall. Not just the garage rock chords either; listen to the bendy-note lick in "Keep The Party Going," for example, and tell me that it doesn't sound just like Brix playing "L.A." or "Twister." Add to that the "Colosseum"-esque dance-song-with-no-clear-melody "Eyes Wide Open," and it's as if the entire album were written, produced, recorded and sold at auction by Mark E. Smith! The ENTIRE ALBUM!!! Except The Fall have never made an album this bad.

Not that it's bad! Hell, it's 6-good! Somebody in the band needs to think up some new chord changes though. The "I Can See For Miles" sequence shows up in two different songs, for Pete's sake!

And yes, that was a pun. If you didn't catch it, here it is again:

The pictures of naked little kids show up on two different computers, for Pete's sake!

Oh, but I kid Pete Townshend. We go way back, he and I. Remember the time he wrote Quadrophenia and I called him an asshole? Aww hell yeah. He and I = twins with a capital t.