VH1, Pitchfork salutes you. Thanks for being cable TV's top purveyor of instantly gratifying (albeit non-pornographic) infotainment. But since you saw fit to release I Love the 90s just four years into the nominally fraught Aughts, did you really have to focus so often on the ugliness of that dearly departed meta-decade? Everybody already knew Hootie sucked. Now that our once-reviled teen pop stars have given way to posturing post-grungers, Blink-182 imitators (!) and even lamer teen-pop stars, we long for the halcyon days when Jerry was master of his domain and a quirky Seattle band sat alone in a boggy marsh. To wit: a million rock critics' lazy political puns praising the endearingly unpretentious return of that quirky Seattle band, The Presidents of the United States of America.
The passing of a decade raises questions for any pop act, but especially a group that reached double-platinum prominence in 1995 for its relentlessly childish brand of rock. I first heard "Lump" when I was younger than a critic should admit, watching MTV at my parents' then-home in Tennessee-- just the second of the six states I've called home. Back then, the band's eight glorious strings and nonsensical lyrics instantly won over my unrefined sensibilities. "Do you have any idea what it takes to rock?" Chris Ballew sings on the band's sophomore effort, II. Quite frankly, I didn't. Would "Peaches" sound as sweet in 2004? Could any new album live up to nostalgia?
On Love Everybody, the Presidents don't fully answer such questions. They stick mostly to their old formula of catchy hooks and gleeful goofiness, and it mostly works. On the title track, cheesy "Mach 5" synths and choppy singing sound like Bellew's signing up with this decade's new new-wavers-- appropriately, given the Buggles cover on Pure Frosting. But then again, his banana-fana-fo-fark cadences could just as easily be aping "The Name Game". Later, "Drool at You" proves the band still has a gift for entertainingly bizarre lyrics: "I want to lick your lamb chops dry/ So please excuse me while I hump the sky." They do toss in the occasional surprise, like the gloriously melodic "Vestina", which matches the laid-back pop of Guster's "Ramona" with a Britt Daniel-style vocal.
Armed with steely indie contrarianism, part of me was ready to skewer this long-overdue release by one of my old favorite bands. After all, where were the hypesters and hipsters for Freaked Out and Small, the 2000 release that's so overlooked most writers call Love Everybody their third album? Seattle radio hit "Some Postman" didn't help quash my darker impulses. Granted, its hook is as infectious as anything the group has ever done. But isn't that the chord progression from Eve 6's "Inside Out"? Close enough. Moreover, the new album suffers the same propensity for filler that marred II. "Shortwave" and bland "Clean Machine" will join clunkers like "Bath of Fire" and "Lip" down the memory hole.
For all the Presidents' success in conjuring up the Ben Fold Five fuzz and Dead Milkmen whimsy of records past, the best track here sounds the least like their previous work. That's "Jennifer's Jacket", a mostly acoustic ditty destined to be a preschool favorite. "She's got safety pins and strings holding it together," Ballew intones. "She can only wear her jacket in warm weather." Ballew somehow achieves an understated beauty while sounding more like Kermit than he did on the debut's "Froggie". When the inevitable electric guitars kick in for a blissful, slightly off-key coda, one thing becomes clear: Whether or not they ever record another "Lump", The Presidents of the United States of America should never be misunderestimated. There, was that too subtle to fill my political pun quota?
