Back from exile

Another unfortunate return of a band in 2007: Matchbox 20 (that is the only way I will write it) releases a greatest hits album this month featuring a couple new songs including "Thanks for the Memories"... I mean... "How Far We've Come". You can practically hear the Fall Out Boys oozing out of the track and leaking all over the rug. The video successfully rips off Linkin Park's formula of mixing performance footage with global history/events in order to give these mediocre talents the emotional buoyancy needed to fool the public.

Digging further, we find the group covers Bowie's "Modern Love" as the b-side to the new single. What a wonderfully brilliant torch-passing, the band paying homage to the now classic single, as they mimic the legendary chameleon in an effort to bolster their own style change and attempt to reconnect to a broad audience.

There was a time, of course, when Rob Thomas and co. were keeping the envelope firmly in the middle-of-the-road rather than playing a desperate game of catch-up. For me, this is the final nail in the coffin for an otherwise inoffensive band that really could have cashed in on the nostalgia factor in another 3 or 4 years. Ironic TV ads, Adam Sandler comedies, student films-turned-viral videos... those sweet royalties and cool factor points were all theirs for the taking. Now they've gone and fucked it up by exhuming the corpse far too early.

No one ever said pop had to be original... though it is becoming clearer these days that the meme has run dry. And now, a quote to illustrate.

From Ghostbusters:

Dr Ray Stantz: Every ancient religion has its own myth about the end of the world.
Winston Zeddemore: Myth? Ray, has it ever occurred to you that maybe the reason we've been so busy lately is 'cause the dead HAVE been rising from the grave?
Dr Ray Stantz: [Pause ] How 'bout a little music?
Winston Zeddemore: Yeah.