Album Review: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (2005)
Track Listing:
1. Clap Your Hands!
2. Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away
3. Over and Over Again (Lost and Found)
4. Sunshine and Clouds (and Everything Proud)
5. Details of the War
6. The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth
7. Is This Love?
8. Heavy Metal
9. Blue Turning Gray
10. In This Home on Ice
11. Gimmie Some Salt
12. Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood
How to write a review for Pitchfork:
"OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG!
TALKING HEADS!!!
OMG!!!!!
RADIOHEAD!!!
OMG OMG OMG!!!!
RadioheadRadioheadRadiohead!
The Bends OMG The Bends OMG The Bends OMG
...most important album to come along in 'X' amount of 'insert length of time here'...
OMG!
DAVID BOWIE SHOWED UP AT THEIR GIG!!!! THIS MAKES A BAND IMPORTANT!!!!
INTERPOL!!!!
RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADIOOOOOOOOOOOOOHEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
David Bowie Davie Bowie David Bowie David Bowie
OMG!!!!
The Arcade Fire! The Rapture! Jesus and Mary Chain! Talking Heads! RADIOHEAD! Interpol! David Bowie! Tragically Hip! RADIOHEAD! Wilco! Random name dropping! RADIOHEAD!
...most incredible album EVARRRRR! 1337!
OMG!!!!
DAVID BOWIE WAS AT THEIR GIG! THEY'RE BETTER THAN RADIOHEAD!!!!!!!
...and remember, we are the authority, because we're 1337er than you! INDIE ELITISTS UNITE!!!"
Now you cannot say, "hey, this schmuck hates Clap Your Hands Say Yeah just because they've gotten lots of underground cred!". Nor can you say "this moron doesn't know what he's talking about! He's just dissing them to go against the grain!". Neither of those apply to me because a.) I've got more gray matter than that and b.) I gave The Arcade Fire a very generous score, and if you indie boys can see through the haze of pot smoke clouding up your Starbucks addled brains, you'll remember that only a few months back it was The Arcade Fire who were supposed to be 'the most important band EVARRR' according to the blog 'n hype machine of the intarweb.
So ignoring the fact that Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is perhaps the worst band name in history, a bunch of pretentious idiots have decided to heap mounds of absolutely unfathomable praise upon them. Why? I can't quite figure it out. This band apparently self produced this album (and believe me, it shows), and also released the album on their own, without the help of a major record label. Oh wait, now I *totally* get why every indie elitist loves this album. It was released without any help from "the man". Thing is, as evil and manipulative as "the man" truly is, even he's got enough sense to stay the hell away from this claptrap of tuneless white noise.
What can I say about the actual music on this album? It's serviceable, but nothing truly amazing or genre defining. There's no way in hell this album is going to be ranked one of the most important of all-time, nor should it (in a perfect world) be looked upon favourably when the dust settles of 2005. However, this world is far from perfect, and your Pitchfork's and crapmachineglow's of the world will lube their rears up and prepare to be entered from behind by this album, probably telling us that we're slavering idiots if we don't like it as they're getting bent over their desks.
Here's where the album really dies though (and when I say 'dies' I mean the most brutal death you could ever imagine. Bors getting chewed alive to a bloody stump by the Killer Rabbit comes to mind)... when the goddamn singer opens his cursed mouth. Remember the Xiu Xiu review? The one where I said the lead singer kinda sucks but his ugly voice compliments the music? Well Clap Your Hands Say Yeah does NOT have that redeeming quality. No, this guy makes Win Butler sound like Frank Sinatra by comparison.
Halfway through the FIRST track, I was BEGGING the gods above for Bob Dylan and Rolf Harris to show up at my front door to do a personal acapella show for me, THAT'S HOW BAD THE SINGING ON THIS ALBUM IS! It took weeks of psychiatric care and mind-expanding drugs for me to forget how PAINFUL the singing is. I'd rather listen to Lemmy Kilmister and myself singing a karaoke duet of "I Will Always Love You" from the fucking Bodyguard soundtrack than listen to this diabolical SHITE again. It makes my blood boil with anger just imagining that anyone out there is enjoying this load of yak turd that some art students have the propensity to call an "album".
Really, there's nothing more for me to say about this album. It's actually worse than Weezer's 2005 disasterpiece. It's not even a 'so bad you have to check it out' type of album either. It's just bad. It's the perfect example of what NOT to do if you want to make pleasant sounding music. End of story.
...and that's how I write a review.
0/10
Nope. No link.