If [Vinyl]

Mindless Self Indulgence, Mindless Self Indulgence | Format: Vinyl

Product Details

• Vinyl (April 29, 2008)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: The End Records
• ASIN: B00163JHQI
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #257,555 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Never Wanted To Dance

2. Evening Wear

3. Lights Out

4. Prescription

5. Issues

6. Get it Up

7. Revenge

8. Animal

9. Mastermind

10. On It

11. Pay For It

12. Due

13. Money

14. Bomb This Track

15. MDC

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...[MSI] have married their love/hate relationship with various music genres to their own ADD-addled, irony steeped worldview..." --Alternative Press

Product Description

New York's Mindless Self Indulgence (MSI) returns with If, an addictive and chaotic mixture of punk rock attitude, heavy riffs and driving electronic music.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Reviewer who has watched the saga of MSI unfold for the last 10 years.., June 3, 2008

By 

TrEE "The Realest" (Venice, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: If (Audio CD)

Let's be honest here...

As a long time M.S.I. fan, this is their first album that gives me an uneasy feeling. The older albums had a lot of lyrics that were inside jokes within the band and wouldn't make sense to your average listener (e.g. Planet of the Apes), which was actually very random and entertaining. Now, these songs seem to be easy to understand and made for the new young generation of M.S.I. fans. I think M.S.I. has forgotten that many of their fans from the Tight and F.G.W.S.S.S. era are now nearly 10 years older.

I think one of the fun things with the old albums was slowly figuring out what Jimmy Urine's lyrics were. Now, apparently somebody came up with the idea for him to make a good portion of his lyrics very easy to understand. (which turns out to be a bad thing) Also, there are some very obvious attempts at songs that are made with the hopes that the younger fans will eat it up. Jimmy Urine is probably around his mid/late-30s. I wish he wouldn't feel the need to make music that caters to 16-18 year olds. The original thing M.S.I. would do at their shows is try to piss off people, but now they are trying to satisfy them.

Don't get me wrong there are some elements of old MSI in here and there are many good songs. However, I'm not used to them having more than 1 bad song on an album, but there is a disgusting run of horrid songs on this CD (especially from track 4 until track 6) that are just the worst songs M.S.I. have ever made. Urine's production has improved, but his lyrics and his delivery of them have suffered greatly. Production = up Lyrics = down Delivery = down

As one of the other reviewers said..I also noticed the over-abundance of hand-claps..which probably have hopes to be used during the live set with the fans. I don't want to see MSI go out with a whimper. I don't want them leaving the music world on this note. I would have been happy with them leaving the industry on the last album, especially if this is what was going to follow. I hope they take a good turn and stop trying to satisfy the little kids at the shows and satisfy themselves (not meaning their pocket-book). This is Mindless Self Indulgence....not Mindless Teenage Fan Indulgence.

I rate this a 3.5, but I won't round up because you have the kiddies who just throw 5s out there without a real review. This is still way better than your average CD coming out lately.

Quick rundown of my opinion of the tracklist:

1.) Never Wanted to Dance - This is actually a pretty good song. Decent chorus.

2.) Evening Wear - The chorus is the what saves this song.

3.) Lights Out - Nothing really wrong with this.

4.) Prescription - Like Adam Cooley said on his review..this song is just horrid. The lyrics are not something that should be written by an intelligent grown man (which Urine is)

5.) Issues - Another song that will probably appeal the young immature kids, but should not have been written and released by a human being with dignity.

6.) Get it Up - Another immature horrible song. The type of lyrics that will appeal to juggalos probably. Not to say MSI is mature, but even on the old albums when they were writing fun songs, they weren't so obviously stupid. There was actually some wittiness behind it.

7.) Revenge - This is M.S.I. This is why we love them. His best delivery on the entire album.

8.) Animal - A very good song. Great delivery...great fun lyrics.

9.) Mastermind - This is such an obvious attempt at making an accessible song. Sadly, it's one of the worst songs MSI have ever made. The music itself is pretty good, but the lyrics and delivery are cringe worthy.

10.) On It - decent song.

11.) Pay For It - Pretty good song as well

12.) Due - Very good catchy song.

13.) Money - Pretty amusing song..the lyrics are pretty entertaining..especially if you've seen Swingers.

14.) Bomb this Track - Jimmy doin' his rap thang....not bad.

15.) Mark David Chapman - Another good song.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars bummer, August 21, 2008

By 

Beth Bachmann "bad person" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: If (Audio CD)

It's more like 2.5. It's not really bad by any means, just completely mediocre and forgettable (and MSI's the sort of band I would rather see release a horrible album than a bland one). All of their previous output has been sneeringly sarcastic, antagonistic, hedonistic, manic, ballistic- whereas everything about this album, from the title and packaging to the lyrics, structute and music itself, is completely ignorable. Songs are repetitive and overlong, Jimmy's vocals are lazy and supressed, and the lyrics are uninspired filler. I'm honestly usually the last person to make the assumption that I'm about to, but no album by any other band has seemed so obviously guilty. This is a cash-in.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars MSI Comes Out Swinging, April 29, 2008

By 

Herbert West (The Rabbit Hole) - See all my reviews

This review is from: If (Audio CD)

First off, I'd like to thank MSI for making an album longer than 26 minutes. They hit the 45 minute mark. Much appreciated! Hah. But anyway, IF is a great album full of all the things that make MSI enjoyable and more. This time, MSI's sound has evolved into a more new wave punk sound. Jimmy Urine's vocals still have some hip-hop tendencies, but there is more singing (and screaming) throughout this record. The guitars have been turned way up and riffs are abundant, giving the album a crunchy punk feel. The synths on this album have an 80's feel to it making IF sound new wave at times which is really cool. You can even hear the bass throughout this record. The lyrics are still usual MSI fare: Prescription drugs, getting laid, dancing, getting laid, and Jimmy's favorite, not being able to get it up. What a weirdo. A lot of the songs on IF have been played live for a couple years so they aren't really new but its nice to finally hear them all sparkly studio fresh now. For instance, you can find Revenge in a more stripped down version on Alienating Our Audience. Now, Revenge is tweaked with Lyn-Z's vocals and some more synths. Cool song. Other highlights include Animal, Mastermind, Never Wanted To Dance, Pay For It, and the hilariously weird Mark David Chapman. I'll admit, I had kind of gotten bored with MSI in the last couple of years having only released one real new studio album in a 5 year period. In my opinion, IF is ten times better than You'll Rebel To Anything, which I think was too short and not nearly as interesting aside from the Nintendo samples throughout the record. As much as I love Frankenstein Girls and Tight for the originality of those records, I much prefer the direction that MSI is going with IF. The straight-forward in-your-face aspect of this album is what makes it so cool. I'm a punk and new wave fan so this album satisfies me on both those levels, while adding that weird ADD-addled flavor that MSI is known for. I totally recommend this record to fans of rock/electronic.

Nuff said.