There’s so much hatred about how bad Simple Plan are that I thought I would see what all the fuss was about. I wish I hadn’t. It’s not that Simple Plan are entirely disgusting, it’s just the most obvious disposable pop pap that has more in common with Avril than New Found Glory (which is saying something, I hear many of you groan). The simple fact is that Simple Plan are about as punk rock as a spoon and if you don’t like it you should swiftly move on to something a little more rocking.
Any pop-punk band on this Earth needs to have one thing – hooky, singalong moments in abundance. Simple Plan have absolutely none of these moments at all. There’s no speed, snotty attitude or even anything resembling a punk song on here, so no wonder MTV has lapped this up over in the US. Making Good Charlotte sound like Conflict is a mean feat, but Simple Plan manage to do it. The songs are nothing short of abysmal throughout, both as punk songs and pop songs. There’s nothing on here which grabs my attention at all in terms of hooks, with are more the size of Dulwich Hamlet than Holland. Witness the crimes known as ‘Addicted’ which has absolutely nothing to it at all – it could be Bryan Adams for all I know – a slow meandering song that needs a severe kick in the arse to get going. The chorus is terrible and the guitars sound weedy and pathetic. ‘God Must Hate Me’ reminds me of my stomach bile, while ‘I Won’t Be There’ plods along with all the pace of a snail. And the vocals lack any kind of snarl at all, sounding more like N*Sync than anything else.
There are of course a couple of songs that at least have a little something to them, with small amounts of melody and some kick in the drums. ‘I’d Do Anything’ isn’t all that bad, but by no means a saving grace. It’s lyrically terrible, but then this album really is that diluted and obvious that anything else would be a shock. ‘My Alien’ is by no means a good song, but it’s sugary and sweet enough to convince you to at least listen to the entire song. But again the lyrics are absolutely third-rate and as bad as I have ever come across.
But of course the good moments (and I use the word good in the lightest possible sense) are very few and far between. Lead-off single ‘I’m Just A Kid’ is absolutely terrible, a song aimed at seven year olds everywhere. “I’m just a kid, life is a nightmare, I’m just a kid, I know it’s not fair,” they tell us… but I’m not convinced. If Blink 182 and Sum 41 have a target audience of kids, Simple Plan are surely targeting fetuses. ‘Meet You There’ kind of sounds like BBMak if they turned up their guitars, while ‘One Day’ is the token ballad type effort, complete with jangly acoustic guitar fingerpicking. Dilute Sugar Ray and strip all of the talent and charm and Simple Plan come out kicking and screaming.
‘No Helmets, No Pads…Just Balls’ is just a terrible album and if anyone gets this for Christmas it should be immediately taken back to the shop and swapped for anything that has a tune on it. I accept that this is aimed at the poppiest end of the market, but if that is what you rely on you at least need the melodies to back it up. I can’t find any here. I hate to say it, but Avril’s better than this lot….
Paul