ALBUM REVIEW
The What
What's Next
Meet the new dross. Same as the old dross.
What's Next invites listeners both young and old, but mostly old, to take a bow for the new revolution and tip their hat to the new constitution, one that has no 14th, 15th, 16th or 17th amendments, as well as weakened provisions in the First.
The explosive group, consisting of Sarah (lead singer/Facebook), Rand (bass/repeal of the 1964 Civil Rights Act), Glenn (guitar/crying) and Boehner (tan/corporate shill), is known for its trashing of everything from the theory of evolution to the Department of Education to basic spelling.
They champion smaller government, but favor people with bigger financial holdings:
Nobody knows what it's like
To be the rich man
To be the bitch, man
Behind blue chips
- "Behind Blue Chips"
Other songs include an ode to their spiritual mentor called "Bill O'Reilly (Mean Age Wasteland)"; a tribute to health care, "The Law is Over"; and a track outlining their views on what President Obama can look forward to - "Getting Impeached."
The standout number is the anthemic "Will Get Fooled Again." It opens with a synthesizer pattern that replicates the sound of an ordinary Republican voter scraping his last dollars together to send to a campaign that already has big corporate donors.
With guitars heavier than a foot pressed against the head of a MoveOn.org protester, the song's lyrics unravel faster than Social Security:
We'll be fighting on C-Span
We won't be bi-par-ti-san
And the ethics that you worshipped
Will be gone
And the Kochs who spurred us on
Who say that global warming's wrong
They funded the Tea Party all along
I'll tip my hat to the new legislation
Take a bow for the old corporations
Smile and grin at the Dems all around
Pick up discredited economic ideas and play
Just like yesterday
Then you'll get on your knees and pray . . .
But you will get fooled again
Oh yes! Will get fooled again
This album is not without precedent; a previous incarnation of the group caused a stir with "Talkin' 'Bout Miscegenation." The current band had a hit in '09 with "See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, But Keep Your Government Hands Off My Medicare."
But What's Next is even bigger, begging a question about its perpetrators: whoooooo are they? Who? Who? Who? Who? I Can't Explain. They may be a Repubstitute for another guy, their faux embrace of populism may be an Eminence Front, but one thing is clear - that deaf, dumb and blind party sure plays a mean pinball.
In other words, the world looks just the same. And history ain't changed.
Album cover by Rick Majestic
Check out more explosive albums at Tyrannosaurus Rocks.