Unsustainable Lifestyle

Beauty Pill | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (March 16, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Dischord
• ASIN: B0001IN0NK
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #308,406 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A superb full-length debut, April 26, 2004

By 

Brian Libby (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Unsustainable Lifestyle (Audio CD)

After two very striking EPs made over the last few years, Washington, DC's Beauty Pill's first full-length album is worth the wait. Led by singer-songwriter-producer Chad Clark, formerly of the legendary but fleeting late-90s DC band Smart Went Crazy, Beauty Pill displays a variety of influences--Fugazi, The Beatles, Stereolab, The Clash--even as it carves out a sound its own.

The opening track of "The Unsustainable Lifestyle", entitled "Goodnight For Real", is like a rock song by Steve Reich, while songs like "Mule on the Train" and "Terrible Things" take the pulse of a paranoid post-9/11 America. The album's best moment, though, is "Won't You Be Mine", Clark's caustic treatise on bling-bling hip-hop style as the emblem of African American culture, performed like a twisted Tin Pan Alley jingle.

One recent review accused the album of being too cynical, and indeed it's not an album with a happy outlook. But when the lyrics and especially production are as smart and rich as they are on "The Unsustainable Lifestyle", it's clear cynicism is as valid an emotion as any other. While Beauty Pill's LP indeed lacks the cathartic fury of more punk-leaning Smart Went Crazy, this is a different band with a different agenda--and for that matter, one with more sonic dexterity and subtlety. "The Unsustainable Lifestyle" is an album that gets better with every listen.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars sleeper, August 27, 2007

By 

Mordikai Crump "Mordikai Crump" (Olympia, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unsustainable Lifestyle (Audio CD)

This album was the most slept on album of the early part of this decade, when you consider how complex, intellectual, and beautiful it is. An earlier reviewer panned the lyrics, and my only response would be that such a reviewer is the most literally minded person to not 'read between the lines," as all the songs deliver a somewhat stinging jab to establishments, whether indie scene or racist hierarchy (the overlap therein), etc. To the pitchforkers who once inpugned the album for being cynical, how can anyone hear "terrible things" and conclude cynicism? "...terrible things, they are gonna happen, this record's over, so why not go outside and stop them?" is the last missive of the album. I think of Gramsci's line, "Pessimism of the intellect, Optimism of the will," when I hear this record. Most reviewers were not smart enough to value it when it was released, and the band makes no effort to distract 'consumers' from atrocity. It is difficult, because it is an indictment, from the musicians, to themselves, and to all of us.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars chad clark you've done it again, May 22, 2005

By 

Andrew R. Fetter "andyfetter" (Lansing, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Unsustainable Lifestyle (Audio CD)

this was my favorite release of 2004. i've been a huge fan of chad clark's work since smart went crazy's con art. this is nowhere near that album, but this is definitely formidable. i had a chance to see this band play live and they were amazing. the drumming is what really stands out. ryan nelson (from the most secret method) seems to just rock out on every song.