We don't like the Get Up Kids much around these parts, but not for the usual reasons we tend to rough up their sort. It isn't because they're fey little rockers with penchants for intolerable whimpering; it isn't because their songs are overwrought with empty frustration; and it isn't because their fashion sense is anally pre-meditated and accessorized (though all three certainly apply). No, our complete disregard for this band-- whether you or your five-year-old cousin thinks it's unwarranted or not-- stems from a much simpler base: they aren't any good.
Need some proof with that statement? What excellent timing! The Kids are in the studio as we speak dishing up another plate of steaming teenage caricatures for springtime consumption. And in the meantime, they've given us Eudora. In 1997, when they dropped their first full-length for Doghouse Records, Four Minute Mile, the Get Up Kids instantly made a name for themselves by beating tried-and-true pop formulas over the cracked skulls of aspiring pro-skateboarders. And this was enough for me. But with Eudora, they somehow succeed at making some of the greatest pop songs ever written-- songs by the Pixies, David Bowie and the Cure-- sound like just another GUKpile.
Eudora, for better or worse (and I know which I'm siding with here), is a 17-track collection of hard-to-find, but nonetheless previously released material. The Kansas City bad boys horde far more than their fair share of covers on this disc, resulting in a vicious bloodbath of unprecedented brutality. Pulled from the wreckage are "Alec Eiffel," "Suffragette City" and "Close to Me," as well as the Replacements' "Beer for Breakfast," New Order's "Regret," and-- yikes!-- Mötley Crüe's "On with the Show"?! While these songs improve the songwriting of the standard Get Up Kids release by roughly infinitely, it unfortunately taints these time-honored classics to know that these guys have had their way with them.
Still, like I said, these are far greater songs than the Get Up Kids should have the privilege to soil, and if I'm choosing between this and, say, Something to Write Home About, I'm gonna side with the one that actually had some talent involved somewhere down the line. Besides, it really is hard to fuck up a great song. All you have to do is show up, and play the notes-- it'll sound decent, perhaps even convincing. But all of this fails to answer the real question: why bother? It's like Donald Trump's AC version of the Taj Mahal. Does anyone need a head-on collision between Sum 41 and Hello Kitty grossly reanimating the Spiders from Mars? No! Nobody needs this!
And just like no one needs to familiarize themselves with a hackneyed cover of a brilliant song, so it goes for the hyper-drivel and anti-melody of "I'm a Loner, Dottie, A Rebel," and the constant reversion across the album to vocal harmony in a sad attempt to achieve some kind of homogenized catharsis. "Shorty" takes a shot at dynamics with chunky guitars and scream-sung vocals, fading out with *extra-*chunky guitars and super-screamy scream-sung vocals. Let me say it one more time for emphasis: NOBODY NEEDS THIS.
That is, except for those among us infected by rabies-- i.e. the card-carrying members of the Get Up Kids fanclub. As they froth at the mouth, they will remain unpersuaded by anything I have to say. They'll probably spend (or have already spent) their hard-earned allowance on this collection of diddly-poo. The rest of you should laugh at them and their pathetic recalcitrance. Feel good about yourself, because god knows they don't.
