My initial response to hearing first track ‘Hello Lover’ was that Courtney Love was doing Bowling For Soup songs on the karaoke. By the time sixth track ‘Slow’ came round, I just thought Court was doing karaoke. Badly. I’m not sure if Johnnie Burton is major-label bound or the product of a clever indie, but this is radio-friendly fodder which I’m sure will be lapped up by mums and dads on Radio 2-type stations in the not-to-distant future. But ‘punk’tastic it’s definitely not.
The promo shots that come with this release suggest poptastic would be a more apt website for a review. The likes of ‘Ordinary Day’ and ‘Volcano’ are just very average pop-lite tracks that could have been discarded by Ashlee Simpson’s writers. It’s all very predictable, very polished and, well, I don’t think it’s very good. But then in sending a CD to PT I think this is being marketed at completely the wrong people – Smash Hits readers will probably find more to like than those who like Leftover Crack or Avenged Sevenfold…
www.johnnieburton.com
paul