'Even losers get lucky sometimes'

American Hi-Fi sells monotony with Hearts On Parade.

By Shannon Jewitt, Reporter
April 22, 2005

American Hi-Fi brought us "Flavor of the Weak" and ... oh, that's right, the band didn't have any other hits. We all assumed American Hi-Fi was a one-hit wonder. We were wrong. It'll be a two-hit wonder instead, as the band's April 12 release, Hearts On Parade, proves.

In one word, Hearts on Parade is predictable. If you've heard one American Hi-Fi song, you've heard them all. The band produces mediocre pop-rock. Most of the songs simply fade together on the album.

Hearts On Parade opens with "Maybe Won't Do." The chorus, sung to the tune of Gloria Estefan's "Everlasting Love," is what really won't do: "But you don't understand/ Forget the master plan/ I'd give it all away to have you back again/ I said it in my letter/ We can make it better/ No need for you to read between the lines."

"Hell Yeah!" is filled with bizarre lyrics. First, there are the lines, "The kind of girl we all dream of/ The long legs never stop/ Like all those videos from ZZ Top." Then the question, "Can't you see she put the freak on me?" But the last straw was, "You tell her to blow me up/ I'm one call away." I thought lines like that were reserved for unskilled rap artists, but I guess I was wrong.

The song "We Can't Be Friends" is up-tempo, detailing the transition from feeling victimized after a breakup to feeling empowered. It begins, "We were good/ Playin' hard/ Rollin down the boulevard/ Liquor drinks between the bars/ Making out in back of cars/ Hey, you see that girl?/ She's the one who wrecked my world," and ends saying, "Ex-girlfriend comes in view/ Sees me there with someone new/ See that girl?/ She's the one I wrecked her world."

The geek anthem "The Geeks Get the Girls" is the one bright spot on the album, proving "Even losers can get lucky sometimes/ All the freaks got a winning streak/ In a perfect world all the geeks get the girls."

The remainder of the album is a blur of the same beats, tunes and lyrics. Something about not knowing there would be days like this, popping pills and walls falling down. All these songs are depressing. The bizarre part is that while the lyrics are depressing, the vocals and the instrumentals are upbeat. Who rocks out to depressing songs? Normally, creative musicians are able to give the emotion of depression fantastic images throughout the song.

Needless to say, American Hi-Fi is not a group of creative geniuses. Perhaps the band knows it isn't going to do very well with songs such as "The Everlasting Fall," which indicates an early midlife crisis in the works: "You can wait a whole lifetime to figure out the best days are the ones we forgot about." Or perhaps they've realized what "The Geeks Get the Girls" states: "Even losers get lucky sometimes."

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'Even losers get lucky sometimes'

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