Good News For People Who Love Bad News

Love the Bad News
by: tim wardyn

Warning: Good News For People Who Love Bad News by Modest Mouse is an album full of catchy, strange, disturbing, beautiful, blaring, brilliant songs (and a couple of interludes). Fans of Britney Spears and other cheesy pop need not read any further. Fans of real music (especially fans looking for something different and challenging) will be craving this album for years to come.

The album opens up with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band (who seem to be everywhere these days) wailing for 10 seconds in the exact same manner that they blare at the beginning of "The Devil's Workday." A hauntingly disturbing track, "The Devil's Workday" includes a line that could have come straight from a death metal song: "Gonna take this sack of puppies/ Gonna set it out to freeze." It ends with lead singer Isaac Brock laughing like Tom Maxwell, formerly of the Squirrel Nut Zippers, on their hit "Hell."

Brock and the rest of Modest Mouse do a little bit of everything wonderfully on this album. They go from evil to laid back and mellow on "The World At Large" and "Blame It On the Tetons."

They can also spit lyrics like necessary venom on "Bury Me With It" ("Life handed us a paycheck, we said, 'We worked harder than this!'") and the best song on the album "Black Cadillacs" ("We were done, done, done with all the fuck, fuck, fuckin' around!") The first single, the highly infectious "Float On," is one of the best singles this year and it has managed to create history. It is (possibly) the first song ever to be released that includes yelping.

The album closes with "The Good Times Are Killing Me.", a collaboration with The Flaming Lips. With each band combining their unique talents, this song is truly a one-of-a-kind piece of art.

Modest Mouse has been around since 1993 and every release has not only broadened their musical direction, but they have also broadened their fan base. This album has broadened their fan base by at least one and I am quite sure that there are others that are just now experiencing the brilliance that is Modest Mouse.

Good News For People Who Love Bad News is an album that grabs you from the first song to the last and gets better and better with every listen. This is one of the best albums this year and a must for anyone who is searching for real talent and a new favorite band. 12-Oct-2004 9:47 PM