Britain and America have always had their differences: the whole tea thing; two archaic, musket-based wars in 25 years; the awkward, we-saved-your-ass vibe that WWII generated; the ongoing, blame-filled custody battle over Canada; and last, but certainly not least, the stuff we find on each country's respective radio dials.
Observers of trends in pop music usually explain the discrepancies between who's big in the UK with who's big in the US by pointing to the more refined taste of the Brits. I mean, this is the country that gave the world the likes of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Byron and Roger Waters-- they're above reproach, right?
That kind of logic usually holds up. Since the arrival of the Stereophonics, though, Americans have more solid, exception-noting ammo to deflate the Brits' balloon of superiority. With singles charting by the bucketload and their last album, 1999's Performance and Cocktails entering the British charts at No. 1, competing with and holding its own against Blur's 13, the Welsh band was the musical personification of a lager-loaded Arsenal football hooligan. And Britain ate them up.
Once often compared to a second-rate Manic Street Preachers than to a third-rate Oasis, the Stereophonics are getting farther away from the aggressive, anthemic sound that characterized their earlier work. Considerably tamer than their stadium-rocking, chart-topping previous albums, Just Enough Education to Perform sounds less like a band voluntarily growing into their new-found maturity, and more like a pet's first, forced visit to the castration clinic. The soft, jangly guitar and softer acoustic strums lend the disc a General Foods International Coffees feel. Like something you'd share with you sister on the porch a sunny morn: Stereophonics and douche recommendations. And from a band that used to rock outdoors in the daytime, in front of tens of thousands of fans, J.E.E.P. marks a change in direction that can't be explained away by "maturing."
The album opens deceptively with what, for all the world, sounds like an Aerosmith riff. Immediately after "Vegas Two Times," though, the band slides into a warm-n-fuzzy, mid-tempo groove that's sure to offend no one. Throughout the album, ex-pugilist Kelly Jones serves up 11 tracks of vignette pop-rock. The basis for every song is a little slice-of-life, observational rumination. Jones emphasizes this point by graciously providing revealing liner notes regarding each song's origin. At times interesting, and no doubt welcomed by fans, that little trick might have been more appreciated had the songs been more worthy of the insights. Often fantasy-based-- of killing rock critics or stealing a van-load of money-- the narratives, unfortunately, are weak throughout. This is especially disappointing since the Stereophonics' lyrics always used to counterbalance (or outweigh, even) their music.
Highlights of the disc come with two very different tracks. "Step On My Old Size Nines" uses a lite, acoustic country-pop feel that takes on the subjects of aging vs. getting what you want out of life with a soft-sell approach. And halfway through the album's 11 tracks, "Nice to Be Out" provides a commentary on historical tourism that plays off a simple melody line and a chorusless song structure. Paradoxically sing-songy and monotonic at the same time, the song is graceful, sophisticated and catchy all at once (yes, you are still reading the Stereophonics review, in case you were wondering).
But too much of Just Enough Education to Perform is rehashed, refried and retreaded-- just about the balance of the disc, in fact. A mere three songs later, when "Maybe" uses the identical chord changes to "Nice to Be Out," it would be great to consider it indicative of some kind of musical theme and not just evidence of a dearth of ideas. Alas, it is not so. "Have a Nice Day" has more sap than a Vermont maple. A conversation-cum-commentary as told by a cab driver to Jones, the song goes nowhere new with non-insights like: "We're going wrong/ We've all become the same/ We dress the same ways/ Only our accents change." The "ba-ba-ba's" in the background push the song from merely grating to room-fleeingly bad.
Just when we were starting to accept them for the boisterous-but-genuine band that they were, they go and do something like this. After losing their arena-sized, distorted sound, the Stereophonics have all but stood up and declared to the world their intention to crack that difficult and finicky 35-50 yuppie market demographic. I sometimes wonder if these kinds of radical shifts in a band's sound can ever be attributed to the guys second-guessing themselves up to that point, like an atheist's death-bed conversion. The band, in their furious attempt to create something lasting and worthy of respect, winds up getting mediocrity mixed with a lack of sincerity. I bet God sees right through that.
