Paris, Texas
Like You Like An Arsonist (2004)
Scott Heisel
When I was barely into double digits, I had my first can of Mountain Dew. I couldn't believe what was hitting my lips: It was unbelievably refreshing, energizing, and bright. The wide-mouth can allowed me to guzzle the twelve ounces of this miracle liquid down my throat faster than I ever could have with any other beverage. I was in love.
So I saved up my money and bought a whole twelve-pack of cans. And one by one, I drank them in succession. Knowing how much I enjoyed my first experience, I figured my next dozen would be just as good. Right? Wrong. The sticky sweet taste got to be just too sickening over the course of twelve cans, and the dyes in the liquid coated my throat to the point where I didn't even realize that I was drinking it anymore. This stuff was so glossy and mass-produced that it was doing nothing but make me sick to my stomach.
The new album from Paris, Texas is that twelve-pack of Mountain Dew. Take a gem like "Hip Replacement" or "Action Fans Help Us" by itself, and you'll enjoy Paris, Texas' pure pop-rock goodness with a crazy knack for catchy hooks. But as soon as you try to digest this whole album, you'll end up praying to the porcelain god of music, as your ears won't be able to take the ridiculously studio-polished guitar tone and almost computerized vocals emitting from your speakers. The album is trying too hard to be mass-produced and commercialized; the aural equivilant of Mountain Dew. This disc wants to be in every 16-year-old's first new car as they speed out of the high school parking lot to their minimum wage job, encouraging the kid to "stick it to the man" with songs like "Bombs Away" and "Rebel Radio" [one thing this disc definitely is not].
Frankly, Paris, Texas has been all downhill ever since their first 7" - it's just taken the polishing of a faux-major in New Line Records to really bring their mediocrity to the foreground through an engineer who got way too trigger-happy recording this disc. Go track down the demo of "Hip Replacement" from a few years back and put it on "repeat" - it's all you'll ever need to hear from this record.