Jonny Lives! – Get Steady

The first time I heard Jonny Lives! was on the Van Wilder 2 soundtrack. Their track, Get Steady, kicked off the album and I always remembered hearing the first few seconds and then just zoning out until the third track came in and recalled me into consciousness and reminded me I was listening to a CD not just white noise (I still don’t know what the second track was on that CD). When I sat down with Get Steadyfor the first time, I put aside my initial inclinations, chalked it up to the fact that my first introduction to the band was from a less than mediocre compilation, and listened to the album with a completely open mind. Sadly, my initial inclination was right. The album is forgettable and pretty much just white noise.

Each and every time I listen to Jonny Lives! I find myself zoning out. I can never seem to become captivated by the release, and instead forget what I’m listening to as it falls into the background and becomes white noise along with everything else around me. Instead of focusing on the music, I tend to focus more on anything else to occupy my mind; and keep in mind this while I’m riding the exact same bus route I’ve taken two times a day for the past 4 months. There’s really nothing I haven’t seen on that lonely stretch of road, but it still keeps my interest more than the Get Steady does.

That’s not saying the complete CD is a complete snooze fest. There are a few tracks that jump out from the generic melodies that Get Steady is swimming in. Breaking Down jumps out with a more catchy chorus, a sharp acoustic guitar leading the song and vocals with a tinge of a New York accent that really compliment the melody. Lost My Mind stripes it all down with a nice slow sing along to breach the halfway mark of the album and B-Side throws you into the final minutes of the album on a high. But three tracks out of fourteen are not enough to warrant your hard earn cash, and the remaining eleven tracks fail to deviate from the standard indie-rock framework.

With a more pop-oriented sound than The Strokes, Jonny Lives! are capable musicians, with good riffs, a great use of distortion and a rigid vocal delivery, but they’re just not able to keep you’re interest for more than a few tracks. There’s nothing that grabs your attention, and with so many CDs at your disposal, the songs really need to be able to do that if they want to survive. These songs don’t, and become white noise in the process.