Cobra Starship - Hot Mess
By Nick Manteris · 0 Comments · Leave a Comment
Cobra Starship is a pop punk band that exploded onto the scene after writing "Snakes on a Plane (Bring It)" for the movie that made the internet its bitch in 2006. That one song pretty much ensured the success of the band while simultaneously locking in their style…and they make the exact type of music that you would expect from a band closely associated with Snakes on a Plane. At least it sounds like Cobra Starship are having fun because Hot Mess is pure campy fluff…and some of their candy pop – like most of the dangerously bad pop music of the world – is annoyingly catchy.
The album starts out with “Nice Guys Finish Last,” a pseudo-tribute to Adam Ant that’s just a little too silly to really reach its full potential, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. They name-drop Fall Out Boy in the next track, which claims, “I’m not street, but I do what I gotta do.” Then they really step up their game by getting Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl (Leighton Meester) to sing on “Good Girls Go Bad,” the quintessential Cobra Starship track. (I wish I related more to this song than the first one, but such is life.) Later on the album is “You’re Not In On The Joke,” which confirms that, in fact, there is a joke…just in case you weren’t sure. “Hot Mess” is up there with “Good Girls” as one of the better tracks on the album…even though it says, “let me make you my boo.” Many of the tracks proudly show off their influences and the Hall & Oates reference in “Living In the Sky With Diamonds” is easily the most blatant. “Move Like You Gonna Die” is full of uptempo fun (and cheery, shouted counting!) and the “The World Will Never Do” has a rhyme from B.o.B. in the middle that prevents it from being skippable.
- Score
- 58%
Hot Mess doesn’t contain any great tracks, but about two-thirds of the album is catchy and fun and really, really close to being better than, well, merely good. Cobra Starship is a calculated move into celebrity by a clever guy that was in the right place at the right time…and they deserve all the success that they’re getting. This might not be one of the better records for sale right now, but I challenge you to find another band that sounds like they were having as much fun as these guys.
