Are Cobra Starship’s gleeful Day-Glo appropriations and their unbridled enthusiasm really indications of a disparity between intention and expression? Or is their crime simply the meta-mania of their fusion of ’80s retro kitsch and ’00s celebrity worship? Really, it’s neither.
Only a music fan obsessed with the rules of authenticity and the requirements for lyrical profundity could find fault with the 11 odes to overload that make up Hot Mess. Well, unless that hypothetical music fan is allergic to asshole frontmen: Gabe Saporta leads these tunes with a kind of Auto-Tuned dorkitude that will polarize even the least judgmental listeners.
Lucky for him, this time his band have the tunes to back up his bluster, from the strange coup that was getting Gossip Girl‘s Leighton Meester to guest-vocal on lead single “Good Girls Go Bad” to the quizzically titled hyperkinetic rocker “Pete Wentz Is the Only Reason We’re Famous” (which steals the chorus of the Damned’s “Smash It Up” — I hope Captain Sensible and crew are getting royalties).
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