The Good Rats - Great American Music
#262
By Bobby Bognar
The Good Rats
Great American Music
Genre: Competency Rock
Allen’s Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Bobby’s Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Highlight:
New York Survivor
I’m not a very good person.
The Good Rats (they go back and forth using the “The” in their promotional materials) formed in 1964, and apparently played as recently as 2014. They have loads of great press, celebrity fans, and a 40-year career, so they have SOMETHING going for them, but I can’t, for the life of me, figure out what it is.
The Good Rats are all competent players, and lead singer Stefan Marchello has a cool rock voice that kept making me think of Billy Squire. The guitar solos were all pretty tasty, if sometimes too long for my taste, and the rhythm section did their jobs, rhythmically speaking, I suppose.
The opening track, “New York Survivor,” is the best of the bunch. Two minutes and forty seconds of what could be a Sweet outtake.
The rest just aren’t firing straight.
Here’s the math: If you took the Cars, KISS, and Styx, and added in Billy Squire’s vocals, you’d ALMOST have the Good Rats. I say “almost,” because the songwriting just isn’t there.
As a listener, the greatest failure was the lyrics. I don’t need depth in my tunes (see “Rock & Roll All Night,” “Bye Bye Love,” and “The Stroke” as examples), but The Good Rats are so LITERAL that there’s no fun in it.
Track 6, “Yes Or No,” perfectly encapsulates this weakness: “Do you like me, yes or no? Yes or no?” And then they ask a bunch more times.
In other songs, it’s spelled out for us as well:
“I am in love with you. You are in love with him. He is in love with her.”
“You are the beauty, I am the beast.”
“Our love is good, oh so good.”
“She called a friend of mine, and told him she was leaving.”
The hooks and playing aren’t enough to save what should have been placeholder lyrics.
Listening to this album was frustrating from a sonic standpoint as well. Yes, this album is old, but instead of sounding classic, it just sounds dated. You know how soundtracks will frequently feature sound-alike tracks (both to save money, and to not pull focus from the scene)? Listening to the Good Rats, I thought, “Man, these guys probably made a few bucks from background club scenes in Miami Vice, Knight Rider, and whatever other cop and actions dramas were on the tube at that time. That’s a compliment to any musician who is trying to earn from their art, but it’s not enough to get me excited about consuming it.
Calling the album “Great American Music” may have been tongue-in-cheek, but the content is neither good enough to hold the title, nor bad enough to make the joke work.
I have no doubt that the Good Rats were fun to watch, had fans, and created exactly what they wanted to create, but after three runs through this album, I realize that the fault likely lies with me.
I told you I wasn’t a very good person.
https://open.spotify.com/album/3V4X6NOYSAK4JD6puQKnnT?si=ukTNOMMnTg-J-6Yx-qvBGw
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