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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Public Drunkenness, September 9, 2009
This review is from: Love Drunk (Audio CD)
The problem with Boys Like Girls' 2006 self-titled debut was that the group sounded like a mid-decade answer to earlier bands such as Simple Plan or Good Charlotte. It was easy to imagine putting various CDs into a stereo and hitting the shuffle button only to guess which group was blaring through the speakers. A few tracks share this on new sophomore set "Love Drunk," but the majority retain distinct flavor.
The verses surrounding the chorus of the Top 40 title track are probing and intriguing, and the jagged, fluctuating ear candy chorus of opening cut "Heart Heart Heartbreak," another potential hit single, indicates that the band has grown stronger. "The Real Thing," which smacks of Bon Jovi (in this case, a good thing) has an awesome lyric which works in all the right spots - relatable sans cliches, stream-of-conscious without being offbeat - as well as a winning, bombastic melody and awesome guitar riffs.
These are the kinds of songs that stick around in the minds of listeners upon repeated plays without wearing out their welcome prematurely, and they make merely adequate tracks like "Shot Heard 'Round the World" and the cute but less interesting "Contagious" sound better by rubbing against them.
Of particular interest are the ballads, the best of which find the band hitting a particular stride and threshold of quality. It is a lyrically banal coming-of-age tune, but "Someone Like You," with its solid, memorable melody and soul-searching, emotionally sincere vocal performance from frontman Martin Johnson elevate it to a stone cold winner. The lo-fi closer "Go" has beauty and bite, and "Two Is Better Than One," which is aided more by Taylor Swift's big-thing-of-the-moment star power than quality vocals (she does fine, but technically she is not ideal), is a potential monster hit with its sweeping arrangements and over-the-top romantic idealism. It is precision-tooled to win over legions of young women and annoy their boyfriends for extended lengths of time.
"Love Drunk" is a sturdy collection of tunes that avoids the sophomore slump. Boys Like Girls up their ante considerably. This record is bound to spin off hits for at least a year.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Very Sophomoric Sophomore effort..., September 21, 2009
This review is from: Love Drunk (Audio CD)
BLG's first album, Boys Like Girls, was an all around perfect album. Boys Like Girls Love Drunk, however, is not. I'm not saying it's bad, but it just does not even come close to living up to how good the first album was. I remember all the songs from the first album. All the songs on this CD, with the possible exception of Love Drunk, are very forgettable. Im not even saying Love Drunk is anywhere near as good as their older stuff, just sayin its the "first single" for this CD so ofcourse it will remembered. Is it worth a purchase? Eh...I was pretty excited to get it, and then not so excited after one listen through...I havent even had the urge to put it in a second time yet...I probably will and maybe it will grow on me...lets hope so.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
disappointing....wait, no....crappy, September 28, 2009
This review is from: Love Drunk (Audio CD)
I'll do the requisite 1-star review I guess...
The vocals on this album are so annoyingly hammed up it just about killed it for me immediately: when he sang "...but now I'm hung o-vahhh" I wanted to stab myself. Knives were downstairs though. Clearly their target audience has shifted decisively toward people with training bras.
The next day I gave it all a second listen, thinking I wasn't in the mood or something. I really liked most of the first one after all. But no! It was just as annoying, hooray!
So...there's too much electronic BS. They had these things in the first album, what are they called...guitars and drums. Hard to tell now. That wouldn't really matter except the songs are genuinely so much worse than the first. Some seem to start off alright but the choruses almost all fell flat. So many times I thought "that's it?" The answer was "yes".
But let's see, in order to salvage something from this, Shot Heard 'Round the World is okay. The slow songs aren't my taste but they're pleasant enough I guess. And hmm, Real Thing I don't think I'll burn at the stake.
Instead I'd recommend All Time Low's new album. It has the same annoying electronic-y stuff but the songs are actually good, so I don't care.
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is Boys Like Girls' 2nd studio release. Browse Boys Like Girls' Discography 
