Mindless Self Indulgence have always been a band that alternates between having their tongue planted firmly in cheek (and simulating a blow job while they’re at it) and wagging that tongue in the faces of any who come within earshot. At this point in their career what they do is going to be scrutinized more carefully.
See, the reason why MSI hasn’t disappeared is mainly due to their fan base, composed primarily of teenagers, and as any savvy music executive knows, they have the most powerful buying power of all demographics in regards to the media markets. So it was smart of Metropolis to pick them up, and it’s smart for the band to keep a steady stream of releases to keep the fan base happy, that is, it’s business smart.
However, to be able to keep up in the quality of the product is a challenge, and that’s where I come to their latest release, Another Mindless Rip Off. The previous two paragraphs will start to have some relevance now. What the EP consists of (which is exclusively released through Hot Topic, by the way) are five new tracks, and five remixes of “What Do They Know?†from the 2005 album You’ll Rebel To Anything. Strike one towards the disk is that the songs are mediocre. Sure, there are little hints of some clever bits, but nothing is expounded on with the exhilaration that was evident in the past, particularly on Frankenstein Girls Will Seem Strangely Sexy (which may have had too many tracks, but at least it had a decent number of gems). Jimmy Urine’s vocals for the most part sound relatively uninspired, which reflects on the songs themselves. The structures are there, but nothing ingenious was done with them.
The second half of the disk is more enjoyable, as it presents itself as simply dance mixes to move around to. Thankfully the mixes sound different from each other (unlike some of the Nine Nails non-album releases, such as the Head Like a Hole maxi single and the Things Falling Apart LP).
Perhaps MSI is starting to lose steam, something a lot of young bands that hit the gravy train fast and furious run into. This is evident in the past two releases, which for the most part were nothing but remixes (Straight To Video: The Remixes and Shut Me Up: The Remixes + 3). Perhaps this is one of those tricks that are out in the open, in that they are feeding the commercial music machine, and they know it, but it’s too obvious for the fans to realize… yet.
Website: Mindless Self Indulgence
