The aptly named album “The Quilt” attempts to fuse many different genres of music together, but the undertaking may have been a bit too challenging for Gym Class Heroes. In their most recent album, they try to mesh hip-hop with other sounds. While many of their songs were successful, there were a few that were more irritating than innovative.
The first song, “Guilty as Charged” really sets the tone of the album because it mixes hip-hop with blues. I liked it automatically. The music and lyrics went together really well, and had a very “Cell Block Tango” feel.
The use of percussion and saxophone to create the blues feel was a nice touch and went well with the vocal talents of the collaborative artist, Estelle.
The music doesn’t match the lyrics in the song “Like Father, Like Son.”?The music is deceptively cheerful, but the song’s lyrics are focused on a father who wasn’t there, and all the problems that come along with a situation like that.
I would expect a song with a theme like that to be set to some really heavy music, but I think the reversal of expectations works here because in the end, the song is just saying that he can rise above the things his father did.
“Live a Little” and “No Place to Run” sound nothing like the rest of the album. The sound is too much like Panic At the Disco, which isn’t surprising since Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy (which sounds almost exactly like Panic At the Disco) helped produce the album.
I don’t necessarily think Panic At the Disco’s music is bad, but if I wanted to hear their music I would have bought their album. I wanted to hear Gym Class Heroes’ album because I feel like they have a lot of potential with their unique sound, so I was extremely disappointed to hear songs that deviate so greatly from their style.
The songs are good, but they just don’t match the rest of the album as far as music or lyrics.
Perhaps Gym Class Heroes decided to do these two songs in this style because of the success of the song “Cupid’s Chokehold” from their previous album that included Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy, who helped produce this album. I think Gym Class Heroes will appeal to a lot of audiences, but I’d rather they spend a lot of time making the music they’re good at than trying to appeal to a specific audience just to be commercially successful.
“Peace sign/Index Down” had an amusing chorus consisting of the lyrics “put up the peace sign, put your index down,” but after the first few times that the lyrics were repeated, they got really annoying.
The album ends nicely with “Coming Clean.” The song is a nice combination of music and lyrics.
The album was a noble attempt at mixing genres, but it wasn’t as smooth as it could have been.
There are a few songs that will be great singles, but, as a whole, the album isn’t as cohesive as it is trying to be.
I think that given more time, Gym Class Heroes could really have success in creating hybrids of different genres.