"Funny" music is so rarely actually funny, but there can be no
denying the genius of Atom Goren's early work. Basically, Atom is a
fat and very clever dork who turned down a promising career as a high
school biology teacher to form a one-man parody of a punk band (the
"Package" is actually a big pile of cheap-sounding electronics). Over
insistent, catchy, and peppy synthesizer, Atom sings songs with
ridiculous lyrics. Like the one saluting former Judas Priest howler
Rob Halford for being gay and out of the closet in the homophobic
world of metal. And then there's the big protest songs about how
America needs to adopt the metric system right now!
This may sound sketchy on paper, but it helps that Atom's lyrics are
legitimately clever; on a song about Norwegian black metal, he sings,
"Black metal: it's not exactly like Living Colour." It also helps
that Atom's high-pitched nasal whine is a perfect natural simulacrum
of other punk rock nasal whines, most notably the whine belonging to
Fat Mike of NOFX. The backing music may be dinky, cheesy electronics,
but Atom has a way with a maddeningly sticky melody. His ironic
covers (Fugazi, Madonna, Misfits, Geto Boys) are done with such
conviction that they may not even be ironic. And perhaps the funniest
part of the whole affair is that Atom plays actual punk shows:
all-ages hardcore matinees, VFW halls, your parents' basement. If you
aren't having fun just thinking about this guy, I do not want to be
your friend.
Atom's previous album, Redefining Music, was as funny as his
previous ones, but it was also a huge leap forward. The songs were
even catchier, and he actually managed to get serious on a few
tracks, with surprisingly great results; it particularly gets me when
one of his guest vocalists sings, "What do you think is in store for
us?/ Is it living room furniture terminus?" Redefining Music
was a wonderful, criminally overlooked record, and its triumph is
part of what makes Attention! Blah Blah Blah so disappointing.
Inside jokes between Atom and his friends have always provided some
of his lyrical inspiration, as on the live favorite "Shopping Spree."
But on Attention!, they completely take over his work. Most of
the songs are slight, ridiculous little letters addressed by name to
people he knows, like the song pleading with one friend to stop
smoking, or the one about him and his roommates doing restoration
work on their house. For anyone not personally acquainted with Atom,
these songs are boring and obnoxious. Every song comes with a written
explanation of the lyrics in the liner notes, but he doesn't include
a note on why he even bothered to make this album. And his butt-ugly
drawings in the liner notes don't help matters.
Even the lyrics not addressed to his friends lack the sarcastic snap
of his best work. For instance "Head With Arms" is about how much he
likes the octopus; who cares? And "The Palestinians Are Not the Same
Thing as the Rebel Alliance, Jackass" has a promising title, but the
song itself is an embarrassingly humorless rant. The music is catchy
and endearing as always, but Atom's loss of lyrical focus is a sad,
sad thing.
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