Look, ya'll. Andrew W.K. is a fucking genius. That's all there is to it. He is simultaneously making music for the masses as well as for the very select few. He talks about partying as a state-of-being, not about doing drugs and drinking. He is the most singular artist of our generation meanwhile all of his albums represent significant growth and change. He is both a dumb celebrity and a brilliant icon of our times. Fuck yeah.
On this record, Andrew W.K. has slowed the tempo down a little bit and started embracing his inner Jim Steinham as every piano part and guitar solo soars through the air like a eagle of rock. This was really offputting at first as I have heard this album described by friends as a "gay ice capades meets metal and I don't like it" but I think that this is the record that made a lot of Andrew W.K. fans notice that something bigger was going on than just a guy who said "party" a lot. From the tribal chant of "Make Sex" to the orchestral beginning of "Never Let Down", this record subtly expands on the "every instrument all the time" sound of I Get Wet by adding more instruments all the time. The lyrics also reach an even greater point of absurdity such as "you / you live alone / and i do too / I really really really really want you" and "don't ever stop the song / you can never stop, singing your song / singing it loud and you're singing it long / and you can never stop / no, never stop, the song."
I think my favorite moments on this record are where the songs do COMPLETE ABOUT FACES within less than a minute of the song starting. For example, "Never Let Down" starts out with heavy orchestral pounding before immediately changing to a metal power ballad and "I Love Music" starts out with solo piano before changing key, tempo and instrumentation to become 1980's end-of-movie-credits music mid-verse! And it all ends with Andrew W.K. saying "Victory Strikes Again!" which is the name of track number one on this record, bringing it back around full circle. FUCKING GENIUS. Most people stopped their Andrew W.K. collections at I Get Wet and that is a shame because while there is no party rocker like that record, each record gets more and more ridiculous. Missing out on The Wolf is like missing out of The Royal Tennenbaums because it had different characters than Rushmore and to that I would say "fuck you."
2 comments:
A friend and I lost a couple year's worth of work on our recording project when his apartment was raided by criminal neighbors and all his recording equipment and computers were stolen. One of my biggest regrets is that we weren't able to finish a song meant as a tribute to Lifetime and Andrew W.K.
Andrew W.K. is great because he's not ironic. He's just layered - he's not self-absorbed. We know that the whole "party" mantra is slightly tongue-in-cheek, but he also clearly likes to party.
The Wolf was awesome, because he played around with more than just wall of sound party rock, but he didn't lose the spark that made I Get Wet so endearing. He forged a sound in I Get Wet, and a lot of folks, fans and detractors, were expecting I Get Wetter when he threw us a curveball. He dips into the eighties' bag of tricks without sounding like it's a big nostalgic joke.
So yeah, I'm disappointed in so many folks who can't get into W.K. He's not a novelty act. He's just pure fun.
Although I enjoyed I Get Wet much more then The Wolf, I still see where you're coming from.
I first got into Andrew W.K. after seeing him perform at the Video Game Awards. Any man who can be strapped to a wheelchair, yet still have more fun then 90% of musicians do on stage, gets the mad props. Yes, very angry props.
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