{"id":503,"date":"2011-05-03T05:20:28","date_gmt":"2011-05-03T10:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=503"},"modified":"2011-05-03T05:20:28","modified_gmt":"2011-05-03T10:20:28","slug":"album-review-the-genuine-fakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/05\/03\/album-review-the-genuine-fakes\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: The Genuine Fakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Will Owsley (known as just plain Owsley<\/strong>) was a tragically underrated powerpop musician of the highest order. As an early collaborator with Zak Starkey<\/strong> (Ringo<\/strong>\u2019s son and later drummer for Oasis<\/strong> and The Who<\/strong>) in a group called The Semantics<\/strong>, he made a great album that almost nobody outside of Japan heard. That record, Powerbill<\/em>, did establish a template for his sound. Yet for this he gets not much more than a footnote in musical histories.<\/p>\n

His later work with Amy Grant<\/strong> (no, really) and Shania Twain<\/strong> was his bread and butter \u2013 he worked with Grant for sixteen years, up until his senseless taking of his own life in 2010 —\u00a0 <\/span>but powerpop fans revere him most for his first solo album titled Owsley<\/em>. Thankfully it sounds nothing like Amy Grant or Shania Twain.<\/p>\n

What does<\/em> sound like Owsley, though, is the new self-titled album by The Genuine Fakes<\/strong>. A four-piece acts from Sweden, the group includes members with fanciful names (Joey Fake<\/strong> on guitar, Johnny Fake<\/strong> on drums, etc.) But any similarity to The Ramones<\/strong> ends there (and the bassist\u2019s name is Morty Fake<\/strong>, a not-very-Ramones-ish moniker after all).<\/p>\n

The album kicks off with a theme song (or commercial; it\u2019s about a minute long) called \u201cThe Genuine Fakes.\u201d The hey-hey-we\u2019re-the-band approach features earnest powerchording, clearly enunciated Midwestern pop vocals, and plenty of oohs and aahs. \u201cThe Promise\u201d is like most of the record\u2019s songs in that the vocals are nearly too<\/em> perfect: these Swedes have clearly studied pronunciation; there\u2019s nary a hint of Svensk.<\/p>\n

The Genuine Fakes\u2019 recipe is equal parts Owsley powerpop and early 2000s pop-punk, expertly played and with dollops of catchy riffs. In a few places \u2013 as on \u201cWhen Reality Hits You\u201d the band\u2019s sound suggests Jellyfish<\/strong>, but the arrangements are more close-in, never reaching for the epic, widescreen aura of that band. The insistent \u201cI Don\u2019t Want It\u201d is the highlight of the album, but there are no clunkers on this consistent set of tunes.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing on the record (known unofficially as \u201cthe striped album\u201d) that pegs it as a 2011 release; in fact most of the tracks would be right at home on Jordan Oakes<\/strong>\u2019 Yellow Pills<\/em> compilations. There\u2019s no great art within the grooves, no great secrets within the lyrics. But then for the most part that\u2019s not why people are drawn to powerpop. (Of course if\/when they are, there\u2019s always Big Star<\/strong><\/a> and Badfinger<\/strong><\/a>.) This record won\u2019t change your life. But for a more modest goal \u2013 delivering straightahead, top-down-cruisin\u2019 music —\u00a0 <\/span>The Genuine Fakes are the real deal. (Available from Kool Kat Musik<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Will Owsley (known as just plain Owsley) was a tragically underrated powerpop musician of the highest order. As an early collaborator with Zak Starkey (Ringo\u2019s son and later drummer for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}