JET CRASHES AND BURNS...

If you're a fan of a certain "indier than thou" website, you know that the new Jet album, "Shine On," has been greeted with a the ultimate indignity: a review that, rather than cobble together some desparaging snobbery to illustrate its dislike, simply linked to a video of a monkey drinking its own pee.
I'm not sure what the underlying socio-political statement is there, but I'm not that succinct.
Yes, the new Jet album is bad. And I'm not gonna rely on a urinating primate to get my point across.
Attention Jet...yelling a throat shredding "YEAH!" or "BABY!" and copping a riff from the Angus Young songbook does NOT a hook make. That worked on your first album, but not so much here.
If you've heard "Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is," well, you've pretty much heard the new album. The other 14 songs are similiarly assembled Xerox's, some faster, some slower, ALL lacking any compelling reason not to toss the CD out of the player and put on "Back in Black."
The only musical leap forward Jet makes on "Shine On" is an ability to ape somebody besides fellow-Aussies AC/DC. This time around they seem to have listened to a lot of Oasis. And not the good album either. Considering how blatantly THAT band wears its influences on its sleeve, that's not necessarily some kind of "Revolver"-type musical stretch.
Hell, Jet makes Oasis look avant garde by comparison. Because while Noel Gallagher is able to inject his ripped off riffage with enough attitude and jingle-jangle bombast to give Oasis a sense of ownership, you can't help but hear a Jet song and automatically want to go listen to its more muscular, more interesting, and flat out better forefather.
And yes, I realize that last week I gave a pass to the Killers for playing around in the epic sounding tire tracks of Springsteen...but at least the Killers were trying to evolve their sound and outgrow their glitter pop Huggies.
On "Shine On" Jet just sounds lazy. And uninspired Mad Lib of lifted guitar licks, tired lyrical cliches, and second-album seriousness.
As I was driving to Seattle last weekend with a friend, "Jailbreak" came on on the radio. After sufficiently bashing away on the dashboard, we gather ourselves and marveled at the fact that a brilliant band like AC/DC had made a career out of basically recording the same song over and over again. Seriously...every song is about sex, drinking, or bragging about what bad asses they are. That's it. And yet, every single one makes you want to run through a wall like the Kool-Aid man.
Jet goes for that same succinct brilliance on "Shine On" and misses. Badly.
To butcher that famous line Lloyd Bentsen used in his 1998 Vice Presidential debate with Dan Quayle..."I know AC/DC. AC/DC is a friend of mine. And you, Jet, are no AC/DC."