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Tuesday, November 24, 2009

BEDN Day 24- Hank Green's "This Machine Pwns Noobs" Album Review

I dont even want to go and count how many days i've missed for blog every day november. I'm a huge failure at this but I have lots of free time the rest of the week so lets see if I can crank it out the next few days.


Where can I even start? I guess I'll start with my expectations and how they were blown away. While I enjoy Hank's first album, So Jokes, I can't help but feel as if many things about it are missing or undercrafted (is that a word?). Many of the songs on So Jokes are great as they are in their acoustic glory, but then there are songs that I feel are badly recorded that make me want to press the skip button. It seems that all problems I have with So Jokes were looked into for This Machine Pwns Noobs.

I first expected This Machine Pwns Noobs to be in about the same format as So Jokes. I expected to have heard most of the songs and get a few surprises as a result of "album versions" of songs. If you're someone who just cant get into the simple acoustic and quirky lyrics of Hank's songs, you may want to give This Machine Pwns Noobs a bit more of a chance than So Jokes. I expected many of the songs on the album to be simple acoustic versions. I'm not sure why I expected this but I am here to tell you that ALL THE SONGS ARE STUDIO QUALITY VERSIONS! This right away makes the album feel more complete and makes the album overall feel like a huge achievement on Hank's part.

The album starts with the amazing song "DFTBA". You would think that a rap influences song by Hank would be disastrous but it's actually put together very well and the song is extremely catchy.

The next song gets me very excited. "This Isn't Hogwarts" goes into a category that i'm sure MANY people are excited about: Hank making wrock songs. It's easy to connect with this song and it's possibly my favorite on the album.

Next is "The Anglerfish". I don't have much to say on this song because I'm very desensitized to it from listening to it countless times off the DFTBA Vol. 1 Compilation. It's a great song. It seems to get better with age.

The song "I Know" is like a lyrical tornado (that's a compliment). You'll want to listen to it over and over.

Nothing too special to say about "Mules Are So Half Ass". I enjoy the amount of instrumentals on it though.

"Scuzzy Kizoozle Curl" is another one of my favorites on the album (one of my favorite Hank songs overall). The song is fantastic and Hank's accent in the vocals and the fiddle in the background gives the perfect mood that was originally intended for the song.

"Protons and Neutrons" is a song that I wasn't particularly excited about when it came out on YouTube. But this version, while still simple (probably the most simple on the album) has some excellent guitar work in it and makes the song much more than it was before.

"Dead Boy's Girlfriend" is another wrock song on the album. I'm not too fond of it because i'm not really into these kind of slower songs. The lyrics are pretty great though.

"Demolition Derby" is excellent. The fast paced lyrics and the intertwining instruments and backup vocals make for a fantastic song.

I really enjoy "Fathers of the Founding Fathers". My only complaint with this song is that Hank reaches a limit in his vocal range during the chorus and repeats a high pitched part a few times that makes me cringe when I hear it. Other than that the song is still great. It has some really amazing electronic instrumentals in it.

"Ulcerative Colitis" is great. It's got catchy off-beat lyrics that make for lots of replays of the song. This song reminds me A LOT of They Might Be Giants. The song makes me feel sad though because Hank talks about a disease he has and all the money that it's going to cost him.

"I'm Not Edward Cullen" I see as similar to "Dead Boys Girlfriend". I like the lyrics. They seem to be depicting young girl's irrational views towards boys since the Twilight craze.

"Crime Dramas Suck" is a very very catchy song with great instrumentals.

"Jesus Gets Nothing For Christmas" is another song that has a lot of great studio quality

"The Vegetables" is just as you remember it in Hank's video. Funny and ridiculous.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE "Nerdfighteria Island". I have since it first came out. This is a great example of the amazing things that can come from many people working together on something.

"It All Makes Sense In The End" isnt really for me but i'm sure lots of other people like it.

On the whole, this album is fantastic. I'd say its more "male friendly" compared to So Jokes. It's also better than So Jokes for those who do not like low quality music. You can see how much They Might Be Giants has influenced Hank in this album. The packaging of the album is also a high point for me. It comes in a nice digipak, complete with awesome graphics, pictures, A LYRIC BOOKLET!, and some great illustrations for each song.

This album is a must buy.

3 comments:

  1. i haven't bought the album, so i can't really tell you my opinion on it, but it sounds good. though sometimes i do prefer simple acoustic song to the studio version, but i'll still give it a listen to, if i get it that is.

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  2. Dead Boy's Girlfriend is about Harry Potter!!!! ):<

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  3. z-z-z-z-z-z-zz-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-snik-zz

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