Is He All the Things You Tried to Change Me Into

After Kelly Clarkson won my unofficial guilty pleasure of the year award and I enjoyed Carrie Underwood’s debut album guilt free (see my review – Oh There’s Nothing Like Oklahoma) I could be warming up to the whole American Karaoke thing. So I decided to check the dude Carrie beat in the latest installment, Bo Bice.

After my first listen through his debut, The Real Thing, I thought, “How horribly bland.” It is really hard to write a review of an album that constantly puts you to sleep out of boredom. The songs are very familiar to his sup-par outing on Santana’s album (see my review – Your Fire Fills My Soul) except Bice Bice Baby doesn’t have Carlos’ guitar to bail him out here. Instead Bice brought in members of Bon Jovi, Chad Kroeger of Nickelback, Ben Moody fresh of his work with Lindsey Lohan and Ashlee Simpson, and John Shanks who is also best know for working with females who try to rock. That’s not necessarily a Murderer’s Row of rock music. At least with pre-for mentioned Lohan and Simpson, their music strikes an emotion, even if that emotion is hatred, which is still better than the uninspiring music that Bice has made here. I would much rather have people hate me than to have no opinion at all.

But the music isn’t even the worst part of the album, the writing here makes Lohan’s confessionals on her latest album (see my review – You Turned Something So Good So Bad) look like Keats compared to the lyrics on The Real Thing. You’d think someone who doesn’t write their own lyrics (Bice only have co-writing credits on two tracks) would at least pick out songs that didn’t sound like a middle schooler who relies way too much on trying to rhyme like, “I’ll open every car door, I won’t go out anymore, I’ll even eat off the floor” (You’re Everything). It’s not too surprising that Kroeger didn’t save that gem for his band.

So with The Real Thing, American Karaoke’s miraculous streak of good music has ended and hopefully Bice Bice Baby will say hello to Justin (whatever his name is) on his inevitable trip to obscurity, or even worse, The Surreal Life house.

Song to Download – For the first time ever, I have absolutely nothing to recommend, although if there is someone you really hate on your Christmas list, this is the perfect gift. Although if I must make a suggestion, check out Bono and Alicia Keys team up on the charity single Don't Give Up (Africa)

The Real Thing gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.