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Redd Kross, "Show World"
Mercury Records, released: 1997
Here it is, the latest by Redd Kross, and it pleases. Opening with "Pretty Please Me" it's hard not to think of "Please, Please Me" by the Beatles, but this is no rip-off. They take the same idea, perhaps, and create their own creature with it. I've been into these guys since they were a hard-core band and they always seem to come through. The pop is very pure here, nothing out of the ordinary. But the songs are so true and the sounds come across as so heart-felt. The band is billed as a basic 4-piece rock band: guitar, bass, guitar, drums. But they toss in some appropriate keyboard riffs here and there. In some ways this could have come out anytime over the past 20 years. Finely crafted pop songs about love and drugs and rock 'n' roll. It sort of puts me in an Elton John way, but these guys are so hip you can hardly stand it. Highlights include "Stoned", "Mess Around", "Follow the Leaders" psychedelic breakdown, the subdude break of "Vanity Mirror". There is also a bonus unlisted track which I believe is called "Sick, Sick, Love". I don't think anyone is writing pop music as good as this anywhere else in rock 'n' roll. Song after song hits you right in the adolescent heart. Get this record for yourself to listen to and hear the beat go on.
[BdeV 6/25/97]