No Substance
Bad Religion
(Atlantic)
Of related interest:
Baffler magazine, Minor Threat/Fugazi, Junkyard

With the exception of the Supersuckers' All the Songs Sound the Same, no album is more appropriately titled than No Substance. Bad Religion, which long challenged Fugazi for the honor of most righteously independent artist, lost its claim to credibility the second it signed on Atlantic's dotted line. I'm glad the guys didn't become cartoonish buffoons crooning love songs, but how can one believe the veracity of their anti-corporate stance when their paychecks are printed at Time-Warner headquarters? Their supposed reason for going major--wider distribution to the great Midwestern unwashed--actually got them what? Glitzy MTV videos and a slot on the Warped Tour with sanctimonious Christian kids like MxPx? This is the sad state of late-'90s punk: political dissent mass-marketed as product, rebellion fetishized as fashion, radical thought transformed into "rad tuneage." Perhaps the greatest disappointment is that this should be obvious to everyone, if only they'd put down the Starbucks latte, close the copy of Rolling Stone and open their eyes for a moment.

Oh, but you want to know how the music sounds? Exactly like every Bad Religion album since 1990: sanitized for your protection. You need some sonic roughage, not this. John Graham

Hello Nasty
Beastie Boys
(Grand Royal/Capitol)
Of related interest: Beck, A Tribe Called Quest, MTV

Throughout the '90s, the Beastie Boys' cred has skyrocketed higher and higher; a flow chart would look similar to that of Wall Street's bull market. So it's understandable that pundits, fans, whomever, expect the three Brooklyn-bred brats to ride in like the pop-culture cavalry and invigorate the music world with a Beck-ian dose of freshness on their first new album in four years. The Beasties try, oh how they try, kicking off Hello Nasty with a relentlessly spunky, name-checkin', turntable-spinnin' bout of mayhem that, as it turns out 67 minutes later, continues unabated and adds up to one helluva mix tape (disguised as the latest Beastie Boys album). The punchy pilots continue their singular reign as walkers of the fine line between hip-hop parody and prowess, dropping (punch)lines like "I'm intercontinental when I eat French toast" and "I got books and hooks and it looks like rain/would someone on the Knicks please drive the lane?" Musically, the Beasties are still following the trajectory set by the Dust Brothers when they produced Paul's Boutique in 1989. They pivot and pillage; tack heavy breakbeats to mellow melodies, sampled Spanish singers or classical guitar; insert self-consciously wacky dialogue bits; and come up with some memorably manic songs--particularly "Song for the Man," "Intergalactic" and "Unite"--along the way. Richard Martin

Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie
NoMeansNo
(Alternative Tentacles)
Of related interest: Hanson Brothers, D.O.A., Jello Biafra

NoMeansNo dances the fine line between pure silliness and genius. Never content with one style of music, the band will play hardcore punk-rock love songs one minute, switch to speed-metal tunes about necrophilia the next, and finish off with soft jazz rhythms and screaming a cappella. From a less creative band, this would be annoying. But NoMeansNo pulls it off. Usually. Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie, its latest release, seems to embrace the loud, despotic and downright idiotic elements of rock and punk but lacks the self-deprecating wit or sense of satire the band once showed. Technically intricate but corny guitar riffs and embarrassingly immature lyrics like "My knees are weak/My breath, it reeks/My face is lined/I have no time" dominate the album. Perhaps NoMeansNo has emptied its creative well; maybe the years have made the three musicians soft-minded. Or maybe their lack of a complex ideology or direction has finally caught up with them. David Kihara

 

originally published July 22, 1998