Saturday 25 May
 
 

Iron Aidan

Aidan Carroll Quartet
7 p.m. Wednesday, May 29
University of Central Oklahoma Jazz Lab
100 E. Fifth, Edmond
ucojazzlab.com
359-7989
$5-$7
05/22/2013 | Comments 0

Beat street

Lucky Date with Kids at the Bar and Crystal Vision
9 p.m. Wednesday, May 29
Kamps 1310 Lounge
1310 N.W. 25th
kamps1310lounge.com
819-6004
$20
05/22/2013 | Comments 0

Sun rises

Sunny Side Up with The Last Slice and Classy San Diego
8 p.m. Saturday
The Conservatory
8911 N. Western
conservatoryokc.com
607-4805
$8
05/22/2013 | Comments 0

God bless metal

Becoming the Archetype with Bermuda, The Burial, Horror Cosmic and Veil of Suffering
6 p.m. Saturday
The Conservatory
8911 N. Western
conservatoryokc.com
607-4805
$12-$14
05/15/2013 | Comments 0

Here for the party

Gretchen Wilson with Outlaw Son
6 p.m. Thursday
Newcastle Casino
2457 U.S. 62, Newcastle
mynewcastlecasino.com
387-6013
free
05/15/2013 | Comments 0
Home · Articles · CDs · Pop · Simple Plan — Get Your Heart On!
Pop

Simple Plan — Get Your Heart On!


Guilelessly enthusiastic pop fun

Stephen Carradini June 10th, 2011

Three-minute pop songs about the pitfalls of young love have been a staple of radio for the medium’s entire existence.

simpleplan

No matter what happens, anyone who can put together melodies and evocative (not necessarily deep, just evocative) lyrics will find success if they want it.

Enter Simple Plan and their new album, “Get Your Heart On!”, which drops June 21. With a thinly veiled double entendre in the vein of Blink-182’s “Take Off Your Pants and Jacket,” it would be easy to dismiss this immediately as snotty pop-punk. But the first leak from the album features Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo, while “Summer Paradise” features permanently under-radar rapper K’Naan. There’s more here than meets the eye.

The Cuomo contribution, “I Can’t Keep My Hands Off You,” is a perfect summer pop tune: energetic, catchy, silly and memorable. It is about as guilelessly enthusiastic as pop can get. It is excellent. “Summer Paradise” is a beachy, mellow tune that’s performed predominantly on acoustic guitar. There’s a bit of reggae influence, but only in the “Suburbanites love Bob Marley, too!” sort of way. There’s some whistling, and yet again, an innocent, lovable melody.

It’s not just those two collaborations that work. Whenever Simple Plan includes other musicians, they win. Lead single “Jet Lag” is a “miss-you” song in the vein of Blink-182’s subtly titled “I Miss You,” and with Natasha Bedingfield providing background vocals, there’s pretty much no way it can lose. It does sound a bit like Boys Like Girls with arching arpeggios above the powerchords, but it’s forgivable because of the — you guessed it — great melody.

“Freaking Me Out” features Alex Gaskarth from All Time Low, and it’s a pretty good tune as well. It has more of a rock vibe than the pop songs surrounding it, but the vocals save it. Simple Plan’s production team has a way of modulating vocal “whoa-oh”s so that they nearly become synth noises (“I Can’t Keep My Hands Off You” has the same), and it works to great effect.

The rest make for a mixed bag; some are better than others, but none stand up to the collaborations.

There’s no depth to “Get Your Heart On!”, nor is there really intended to be. But as a collection of pop tunes, it’s pretty great. The songwriting is surprisingly mature for a band that still names its albums so crudely. —Stephen Carradini
 
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