Customer Reviews

Pay Attention

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Pay Attention is probobly my favorite album. How can one say that the fact that it has sixteen tracks makes it bad? Jeeze dude, I wish they didn't cut 'Meaning' 'Just As Much' and 'Together' from the album... Pay attention is not an 'upbeat' or 'poppy' album. As a matter of fact, this album is possibly the darkest one they've made yet. Question the Answers dealt with problems in society, Pay Attention deals with personal grief, jealousy, anger, regret, and pretty much every negative emotion an individual is capable of...

The album kicks off with 'Let Me Be' a song about losing control and just wanting to be left alone... The Skeleton Song is about someone's dark secrets being discovered... 'All Things Considered' is an admiration of an older man who rants and rambles, 'so sad to say' is the power song of the album talking about love lost, which as everyone knows is quite painful... Allow Them is the best song on this album. It is a song about disgust with the innerworkings of corporate america (it makes me chuckle considering the Enron scandal... etc...) 'Highschool Dance' is about teenage neglect, 'Over the Eggshells' is about being caught redhanded, 'Finally' is a sort of empty-worded personal triumph of finally having the guts to do something, 'I Know More' is about a person regreting their past and knowing that they knew so little about life back in the day... 'Riot On Broadstreet' discusses a violent riot that occured in Boston; 'One Million Reasons' is a song i really like (but 99% of everyone else hates) about a man trying to stop their loved one from leaving, but coming upon the realization that no matter how many reasons or arguments he tries to make with her, its useless, and that it is time to let go. 'Bad News and Bad Breaks' offers a little bit of an uplifting message after the depression of 'one million reasons' ... 'temporary trip' and 'where you come from' are very rad songs with cool;fun chorus' ... The Day He Didn't Die is one of the best songs the bosstones have ever made, its emotional, but its slow sorrowful emotion not, 'waaa my g/f dumped me' emotion...

All in all... Pay Attention is a rockin' Bosstones album, and A Jackknife To A Swan looks like it's going to contrast this album completely....

Get this album, ...

I have to take a stance somewhere between the critics and diehard fans. ;) This latest Bosstones album is incredibly fun, with wonderful works like 'The Skeleton Song' and the much-overlooked 'Where You Come From'. However, many of the later tracks on the album simply seem to blend together in a lousy punk/ska blur. The album certainly would have done much better with a few more tempo changes! It's hard to pick a rating, since this album's so full of contradictions. It has some *wonderful*, classic Bosstone lyrics in 'Where You Come From' and 'All Things Considered', but I have to agree that some of the lyrics make you wonder what they were on at the time. ("Right now I'm feeling like an ant/Let em ramble let me rant" --Let Me Be) Despite its problems, there's still plenty of fun and even good ole' Bosstone insight in the CD. If you've never listened to TMMBT before you might do better buying _Let's Face It_ or _Question the Answers_. However, fans of the 'Tones deffinately shouldn't miss this one. Hope this helps!

Following up a breakout album is always a tough job, and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones have not quite matched the smash "Let's Face It" with their new release, but they have produced a strong album that should satisfy any fan. Ska is slipping to the background as straight ahead punk/pop begins to dominate the band's sound. This is all right because the best songs here are the more convential pop/rockers "So Sad to Say" and "I Know More". Although a few songs are overdone towards the thrash end of the genre, for the most part this is a highly energetic, upbeat romp along the fence between ska and rock and roll.

I just picked up the new CD, I must admit with some recent band member changes I was a little skeptical at first, but trust me the Bosstones are BACK in FULL EFFECT. If you ever liked them, even if your only exposure to them was a 5 minute scene in CLUELESS, get this album you would regret it! So Sad To Say is just a hint as to what that album is packing!

MuZik631@booyaka.com

I just picked up this CD and I must say that it really is a return to the past for the Bosstones, which is a totally good thing if you ask me or most of the fans. Check out the clips and you'll see what I'm talking about. The CD was just released today, so I don't know what songs are going to be great singles but tracks 1,4, and 8 are kickin.

This week the Bosstones release Pay Attention, the studio follow up to 1997's Let's Face It and their 1998 live album, Live From the Middle East.

I think the first thing I need to say is that my hopes, expectations, and even demands for this album were extremely high. So high, they were probably unfair, and I was probably too rough on this band. But in my mind, Let's Face It was OK at best. It seemed lead singer Dicky Barrett had been caught in a rut with his songwriting, and it showed on that record. The fact the record broke the Bosstones big thanks to the ubitquotous single Impression That I Get, a song I've never truly been any kind of fan of, probably didn't help matters.

And so, it was back on a Sunday afternoon last December, at the legendary Middle East club in Cambridge, MA during the Bosstones annual five day run known as the "Hometown Throwdown" (see review) that I got my first taste of Pay Attention. They played two new songs that day and both, in their own seperate ways, tore the roof off the joint. And both made me really excited for this album, and they also put the previously mentioned huge expectations into place.

It's also obvious that the Bosstones could have made an album that had twelve Impressions on it, but they chose not too. Instead, Barrett became much more introspective on some tracks, while sticking with his cool way of telling stories on some others. And it is the tremendous growth, both lyrically and musically, that makes this album so good. Produced by Paul Q. Kolderie, Sean Slade, and the band, the record flows smoothly from one track to the next. Despite the fact the horn section is not nearly as important as Nate Albert's guitar, it doesn't disrupt the flow, and the Bosstones still retain their pop sensibilities on more than a few of the tracks. (Side note on Albert-he left the group after recording for this album was finished)

The album's opening track, Let Me Be, seems to be about a number of things. Fame, uncertainty and inadequacy all seem to be tackled in the lyrics: "I'm unfit to steer this vessel...Time to let the troops regroup...It will take a while to unscramble, let me rant and let me ramble, let me be!"

The Skeleton Song is a punky, poppy number in the vein of previous Bosstone classics like Someday I Suppose and Kinder Words. According to Barrett, this song is about feeling invincible, being on MTV and on the Billboard charts, and juggling two girlfriends during it all, and how he had to look in the mirror to take himself down off that pedestal. The lines "You're not being honest really, you're really not and ought to be, take an honest look at yourself, try a little honesty" are delivered just as catchy as the lyrics in Impression... but the substance speaks volumes more.

All Things Considered deals with fare a lot less serious, telling the story of an old guy who loves to tell the tallest of tall tales. The song is humorous, as this guy supposedly "trained a kid named Cassius Clay," "wrote the soundtrack to A Hard Day's Night," and "on Peyton Place played second base, he said but he regrets, the Stadium was Shea, the team the New York Mets." This is an all too obvious reference to Bill Buckner and the 1986 World Series. The song is the most straight ska song on the record, and is just incredibly catchy and addictive.

So Sad to Say, the first single, seems to build on The Skeleton Song, not only lyrically, but musically as well, as it could be considered that song's twin brother. It deals with Dicky's obvious regret over one of the relationships coming to an end due to his own stupidity. Barrett's lyrics here are straight to the point, and very powerful:"Parting this way is not the way we ever thought, in fact I always thought we'd go the distance, but we went nowhere quick, so sad it makes me sick." If this is Barrett's apology, that's one hell of an apology.

Allow Them, which sees the Bosstones tackling their ska-core roots, rocks, period. The song itself is a straight on attack of seedy record executives in "the designer suit and tie." The song is also most likely a response to the record....

I reviewed this cd three years ago and pretty much trashed it. The tempo of the album was such a departure that I hastily called it crap without really giving it a chance. Bosstones are my favorite band and over time this has become my favorite album. All the songs are well constructed gems.

Combining words to live by with catchy melodies seems to be the M.O. of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. Songs of warning and reproach abound, often sucking the listener in with tunes you can hum, until the listener surrenders to that melody and tries to ignore the incessant preaching. Lessons to be learned: Honesty is really important ("The Skeleton Song" uses the word honest/honestly more times than I cared to count.), but not if you were in the Vietnam War ("All Things Considered") there are "One Million Reasons" for a break up, but you don't have to list them. And so on. I like this band and I enjoy the fact that they are not afraid to make their songs be about more than your average rocker, but sometimes they need to lighten up on the life lessons; it gets to be a bit much.

I wish I could rate this higher, I really do, because there really is some good stuff on here. It's still worth buying, even though it's far from their best album. Tunes like "riot on broadstreet", "skeleton song", "Let me Be", and the big radio-hit "So Sad To Say" are up there with some of the best songs the bosstones have ever laid down, but the abundance of filler material really weigh it down. Had they ditched maybe six of the sixteen tracks, we would've had a killer album on our hands here, but listening to the whole thing straight through becomes somewhat of a chore. I still reccommend it and maybe others out there will actually get something out of the whole thing. I hope their next one is tighter, but for right now, "Pay Attention" will do just fine. The skip button sure does come in handy, though.

Pay Attention is a cd with a mix of sounds. The first few are very old-school bosstones. After song 5, the bosstones decided to mix it up a bit. Number 6 and 7 add a hardcore break to the cd. From then on its Poppy-ska. I bought this cd the day it came out and don't regret it for a minute. It's very good, especially the first and last several. Don't expect it to sound a lot like Let's Face It, because it won't. It's not a definitive ska cd, but its darn good, and you have to admire them for not following not changing their style for the public, but instead going in a complete different direction