By Billy Florio
A few months ago, Tegan and Sara played their radio-friendly folk pop on Conan. After a few moments, the girlfriend of this reviewer proclaimed: “Wow, they suck.” Normally the two of us never agree on music, but oddly enough, this time there was concurrence. You know something’s wrong when that happens.
The best way to describe Tegan and Sara is a combination between the New Pornographers and Alanis Morissette. Oh, and throw some sort of folk-pop in there. Oh, and take away a lot of the talent. Tegan and Sara are one of those bands you’d expect to hear on a Melissa Etheridge tribute album, but overshadowed by the Indigo Girls and Toby Lightman’s duet of “Come To My Window.” In other words, they have the ability to be commercially accepted, but their lack of originality and writing talent will leave them stranded as one of the B-level acts at Lilith Fair.
Their album, So Jealous, is nothing to write home about-unless that home is a home for bad, repetitious music. Is there any difference between any of the songs on this album? Survey Says: No! Even if each song were taken apart from the others, they still aren’t good. Songs like “Walking With A Ghost,” “Fix You Up” and “I Won’t Be Left” are horrible bubblegum pop songs. They should be used by our troops in Afghanistan to drive out Osama from his cave (It seems the new Metallica album isn’t working-who knew Osama was a nu-metal fan?).
Maybe it’s wrong to rule the whole album as garbage. Most of the songs avoid the label of bad by being harmless and completely forgettable. Others aren’t that lucky. Three songs on the album though, rise above the others by being actually… well, good. “Where Does The Good Go” and “You Wouldn’t Like Me” are fun songs that at points make the listener wonder if someone slipped a different CD into their player when they weren’t looking. “Speak Slow” is the best song on the album, being both different enough from the others to stand out, and catchy at the same time. It sounds like a combination between the Runaways and the Cranberries. That combination sounds weird, but it works.
On second thought, the comparison to the New Pornographers is probably completely based on the fact that one of the producers is John Collins. That should probably be the only tie-in these two bands receive. Beyond that, they should never be mentioned in the same sentence. New Pornographers=brilliant, Tegan and Sara=crap.