If I Get Boring, Would You Still Call Me Superman?

A recent gift provides me a chance to review the third album by 3 Doors Down, Seventeen Days. The first aspect of the album that jumps out at me is not one but two FBI Anti-Piracy Warning. The first warning on the back cover, is something I've seen recently. The new one is planted right on the CD itself. Unlike the one on the back cover, The FBI warning on the CD is pretty big and takes up about 1/5 of the CD. The RIAA is really going too far with the Anti-Piracy agenda when they are impeding on the actually artwork. I'm not going to go any further on my rant, but I will encourage you again to check out Mark Cuban's thoughts on the RIAA - Let’s test the RIAA logic… - Blog Maverick.

On first listen of the album, I found it very hard to distinguish one song from the next. The only song that stood out was Landing in London featuring Bob Seger. Yes the man that inspired many of us in the 80's to slide across wood floor in nothing but a dress shirt and our underwear (or am I the only one?). Sadly Bob didn't bring the Silver Bullet Band.

I heard somewhere the album's name was inspired by the time they spent making the record. It shows as every song blends into each other with only the tempo changing. 3 Doors Down started their career off right with a thoroughly good debut, The Better Life. Each song had its own feel to it. Kryptonite was something out of the post-grunge era, maybe something the Smashing Pumpkins might have done if they grew up in the South. I will always be partial to this song as I used the first line of the chorus as a deterrent to a girl who became too needy. Loser was like a harder version of a Smiths' song that progressed into a rocker. Duck and Run was a strait ahead rocker that could get you pumped up for some kind of sporting event (or if you are like me, anything competitive). Then you had the introspective Be Like That which was something you put on during a summer night with the windows rolled down. All songs different, but all great in their own right.

Then the follow-up album, Away From the Sun, is when they tried to perfect the power balled with song like When I'm Gone, The Road I'm On, and the title track or they went with the strait balled like Here Without You that ended up sounding like a more depressing version of Be Like That. All in all, not as good as their debut, but good enough for a listen.

That leads us back to the new album which won't be breaking any new ground. It was almost like some one suggested they needed to dumb down their music to attract the matchboxtwenty market (which is not a good thing) and sadly they took the suggestion. Hopefully 3 Doors Down listens to their first album for influence for their next album. Or bring Bob Seger back again and have him give them some Old Time Rock & Roll advise.

Seventeen Days gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.