What does it mean to have over 407,000 plays on Purevolume, over 170,000 plays and over 10,000 friends on Myspace? After listening to Dear Whoever's EP, Sound the Trumpet, I have found the answer to these questions, among others. Such as, what happens when you mix teenage angst with Christian metal? And the ever popular, would you rather listen to seven songs of MTV screamo or lick up the remnants of whatever remains of Paris Hilton's pink princess pussy?
The audacity of Dear Whoever to be classified as "metal" has forced Satan to see how far he can stick his pitchfork up his own scrotum. For that matter, everything that is metal rusts a little bit for every 16-year-old "boy" who adds Dear Whoever on Myspace. If you're really into Jesus Christ, the liner notes have a cross and a quote from I Corinthians. Hecka rad, my XTIAN brothers! The biggest surprise of Sound the Trumpet is no thank you list with Jesus Christ, who died so they could released this album.
Look, I'm not a poet or a good writer for that matter, but who can stomach this? "Can you hear me? I am screaming. / I am screaming. Can you hear me? / Blood is dripping. Nails are piercing. / Thorns are ripping. Ripping through. / I read the tragedy. It comes to me in / bloody...Broken dreams." Since this is the pop-punk generation, I'm sure once Solid State signs this band these lyrics will be tattooed onto every chest piece above dorsal fins and roses. Okay, I made up the dorsal fins part, but the rest is 100% accurate.
Oh, and get this! With the final track, "A Place for the End," they use keyboards and fruity loops techno beats to create some atmosphere. I love how the title of the song is so accurate. It's like the end of the album and they say it straight up. It's nice to know that as bad as the music is these boys have got intelligence on their side. If you're into listening to music and not snotty remarks, imagine The Postal Service beats being injected into your aching head in an emergency room as the doctors and nurses create performance art with their bodies.
If bands such as Thrice, Alexisonfire, Atreyu and Norma Jean are your favorites, Dear Whoever will make a nice new addition on your playlist. But then again, if those are your favorite bands, you might want to visit another website. After listening to this EP from beginning to end, I can honestly say eating the peanuts out of my own shit to see if they would come out tasting like peanuts again would be more satisfying than ever again pressing the play button in conjunction with Dear Whoever.
To answer the initial question, downloads are the new Billboard charts. When an album sells a lot, or nowadays gets downloaded a lot, it means that a lot of people like the album. Just remember that 50 Cent's debut album holds the record for the most sales for a debut artist. As the philosopher Fiddy says, "Don't much good come from me, but my music is a gift given from God so I'm gonna use it." Wow.
