Love and Theft

These recent Today Show performers aren't doing much for me.

Other than some CMT approval and some occasional mandolin, these guys are on a Fray/Third Eye Blind/Vanessa Carlton tip. I'm all about rock crossover (hello, Darius), but this track sounds like the work of a marketing team, not the type of homegrown crossover that Kenny Chesney works up on anthemic fist-pumpers like "Young."



Point being, fuck this. The breakdown in the middle, the reverse-video plot, I can't hang. There are small Nashville-style details, such as violin plucks and some high-end banjo sparkle, but tracks like "Don't Wake Me" feel like a label's attempt to salvage what would have been a mall-punk band, if focus groups still showed mall-punk bands sold records. I guarantee you, Love and Theft sounded exactly like Simple Plan until 2008.

This is part of the bigger trend of pop and rock stars like Jessica Simpson and Kid Rock looking to sell some albums by country-ing it up -- and in the case of Love and Theft, there's a huge glossy sincerity that can only be the result of a team of producers turning up the schmaltz knob.

Mostly, I can't get behind any band whose career aims are to be as big as Daughtry.

Fuck this.
Love, BFMH.