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It’s Hard To Stay Positive With The Hold Steady

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Who listens to the Hold Steady?  Granted, the band is musically talented and the lyrics are interesting.  I can’t slight the band for their efforts, but there’s something about them that bothers me.  Critics gush and fawn over this band in reviews.  For example, Pitchfork gave their album “Boys and Girls in America” a 9.4 on its release.  Pitchfork practically praised the band as the second coming two years ago.  Their new release, “Stay Positive” fared pretty well at Pitchfork with an 8.4 review.  However, it seems that there was some love lost and the boys at Pitchfork are ready to move on to the next big thing.

So what bothers me about them?  I would like to say that they have all the qualities that I would approve of in a band.  I think it’s the fact that they deliberately mine their influences a little too closely.  Sounding like a Replacements era band fronted by Randy Newman isn’t necessarily a bad thing when it is done in one or two songs on an album.  But to sound like a Replacements era band mixed with Springsteen, Warren Zevon, Costello and Dylan is just a little overkill.

This band makes me want to go to the originals and listen to them rather than a second-generation version of the same thing.  It brings up the argument that might have been posed 18 years ago when The Black Crowes were accused of ripping off The Rolling Stones and The Faces because of their similar sound.  On their new album, The Hold Steady seem to throw in guitar riffs and effects that are too close to the source material.  One track incorporates a talk box to a very unflattering effect.  I was looking for a Frampton credit in the liner notes, but sadly never found one.

They say that emulation is a form of flattery. If this is the only crime that The Hold Steady is guilty of, then so be it. If this band can turn others on to different music or even the ones that they are aping, then I would think they have done their job. God knows there are worse things that the kids could be listening to and buying.