Who put such a high premium on bands being able to sing and play instruments these days? Does music at large really require "talent" anymore? We've got a steaming heap of bleached out, talentless, sexpots who can't really sing, write lyrics or play any instruments and they sell millions of albums! People eat it up! Even if you're not a "musician" or a "singer" you can be an "entertainer". It also helps if you're famous and have enough money to buy a chart position, otherwise who the hell would pay actual money to listen to Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan squelch their useless voices into an autotune? Though it needs to be said that this kind of "pop" should have it's own separate designation within media since essentially people are buying a tediously over-used and inaccurate model of "sexy" accompanied with "music" that was created primarily by computer for boring people to "freak" to. It's not quite the same as actual music. That might sound elitist, but there it is.But back to my original query, moribund pop princesses aside. Does a band actually have to be good at being a band to be relevant? The short answer, predictably, is "yes", otherwise why would we listen to music? The long answer, and probably the more meta, is "no", if you consider music to be art and art to be enigmatic and purely visceral. The Passionistas fit squarely into the round hole that is music; they can't sing, they can barely play their instruments, they play a two and a half minute tune called "Whale Jam" that is comprised of a dozen poorly managed penny whistles and other random noise. They're snotty, they're weird, they scream and yelp and howl and generally sound like they couldn't care less that they're in a band and recording an album. Which is precisely why this band matters.
There is nothing overtly hummable about The Passionistas, there's not going to be any "Official Songbook" put out by Hal Leonard and I'll bet a year's pay that they'll never be on TRL, but somehow, through whatever pagan rite they called out, they managed to throw together this album of highly retro, highly amusing, "songs" about politics, culture, paranoia, fear, grandmas and going gay. Still, however rough the songs may be you can still clearly see the rattlin' old skeleton of rock and punk that they were built upon, pressing against the thin production, the emaciated composition and the virtually starving guitar solos. The music is so sparse that if they'd left out any more layers they'd probably never have plugged in the amps to begin with. Tracks like "Ta Ta Ta" (which seems to be accompanied by hubcaps as percussion and spoons as mallets) and "Y2K" (which sports the most bored, fuck-off lyrical delivery I've ever heard, and I love it) noodle and meander like the worst parts of Ween's "The Pod", but unike Ween there's no question as to whether The Passionistas are tongue-in-cheek; you just know The Passionistas are serious. At their most focused and cooperative ("Going Gay", "One Foot", "The Socialist") they're brilliant, at their most odd-ball and intentionally difficult ("I Am So...(Rock and Roll)", "No No No") they're cheeky, but no matter what, no matter how much precision they lack or how much time they spend making YouTube videos in lieu of practicing, they're doing music on their own terms and the result is something truly unique and... concerning?Puffmagic gives "God's Boat" by The Passionistas 3.5 out of 5 Rob Gordons
Mog Score 7/10
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