Boy, there\u2019s a cheerful title, eh? Couple that with the album cover of the four band members in coffins and you\u2019ve got a party!<\/p>\n
This album is a far cry from \u201cWe\u2019re An American Band,\u201d \u201cThe Loco-Motion\u201d and \u201cSome Kind Of Wonderful,\u201d the top hits from the band\u2019s last three albums and the ones that brought them to a new audience. Despite the addition of Railroad back to the band\u2019s name, the music still sounds shiny and well-produced, a far cry from the murky slog of, say, Grand Funk<\/i>. But man, these songs\u2026what happened, guys?<\/p>\n
It appeared to be a confluence of things. Mark Farner\u2019s cousin died in a motorcycle crash. The band was exhausted from recording and touring for so long. The hippie dream had obviously died many years prior and Farner\u2019s words about togetherness and love seemed to be lost. There wasn\u2019t much for the band to celebrate, and that angst informs the vast majority of the music here.<\/p>\n
Now, it\u2019s not like this is a Black Sabbath record or anything; many of the songs are over five minutes, but the music is similar to what Grand Funk had been doing the last few years, albeit a bit slower paced. It\u2019s the downcast, defeated lyrics that are such a change from the happy Michigan rockers everyone had come to know. You can look at the titles and guess what the songs are about: \u201cBorn To Die,\u201d \u201cTalk To The People,\u201d \u201cPolitician\u201d and \u201cI Fell For Your Love.\u201d The mournful, soulful sax solo that starts off \u201cTalk To The People\u201d shows promise, but the song doesn\u2019t follow through as it should.<\/p>\n
The highlights are \u201cTake Me\u201d and \u201cLove Is Dyin\u2019,\u201d which inject some energy into things with solid guitar solos and Craig Frost\u2019s keyboards, which turned out to be a necessary addition for this band. Also recommended is \u201cDues,\u201d which captures GFR\u2019s forgotten flair for the musically dramatic set to Farner\u2019s cheerful apocalyptic lyrics: \u201cI\u2019m not stupid and I might be havin\u2019 too much pride \/ Surgeon general has determined that I may as well die \/ Jesus are you watching or have you gone blind \/ Evil souls are upon us and we\u2019re surely runnin\u2019 out of time.\u201d (Remember three years ago and \u201cWe\u2019ll come into your town, we\u2019ll help you party down?\u201d Again, what happened?).<\/p>\n
Some fans also enjoy \u201cGenevieve,\u201d but most will find the six-minute instrumental and fairly devoid of a point or musical resolution, although it sounds cool. \u201cSally\u201d is fun too, the lone attempt at a hit single, but hardly up to the level of what has come before. And the rest, as mentioned, is a slow-to-midtempo trudge that even fans will have a hard time sitting through. If anything, it\u2019s at least interesting to gauge Farner\u2019s state of mind during this time and hear him bare his soul on record; there are no cringe-worthy lyrics, no real political calls to action, just a guy wondering what it\u2019s all for and what\u2019s worth living for.<\/p>\n
The three main highlights are worth seeking out for Grand Funk fans or those who enjoy 1970s classic rock and want to dig deeper than the local radio station\u2019s repetitive offerings. But the rest just isn\u2019t up to par, betraying the band members\u2019 exhaustion and states of mind, making this an interesting but highly flawed addition to GFR\u2019s catalogue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":32663,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5688],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-44432","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-grand-funk-railroad","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44432"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}