Hey Monday, an emerging Alternative band, just released their new EP, Beneath It All, in mid August. Cassadee Pope can pride herself in her vocals - the lack of electronic enhancement in her tracks gives the band a very clean sound that seems to be on the verge of extinction within the Alternative music industry. Under Sony Music Entertainment, the same label that signed like bands such as Avril Lavigne and Boys Like Girls, Hey Monday has released one album, Hold On Tight, prior to the release of Beneath It All. Hold on Tight’s poppy, electronic sound did not seem to click with Hey Monday’s preteen audience; however, Beneath It All takes on an edge that focuses more on vocals and raw instruments than it does on the elaborations of electronics. With this, the band should see a much larger fan base surface than ever before, giving them a reliable shot at fame.
Beneath It All fails to take on a sound of it’s own. Instead, it is very easily compared to – and possibly even confused with – bands like Paramore and Avril Lavigne. Inevitably, the album will be classified as just another CD submerged in a bubblegum pop sound with lyrics that fail to breach the shallow subject matter of boys breaking hearts. Beneath It All comfortably snuggles into the 21st century stereotype of alternative rock bands. Accordingly, that’s exactly where the album will end up – forgetfully placed amongst the hundreds of other teen angst artists of it’s time.
Hey Monday, though successful amongst it’s 21st century preteen fan base, fails to distinguish themselves from any other day of the week. Accordingly, it becomes quite obvious that Beneath It All will fall extremely short of making any type of impact amongst the world of music. Sure, the vocals are bearable and the rest of the band (for the most part) knows how to play their instruments in time and together, but the album lacks any sort of substantial meaning and the lyrics contain no real message. The most one could get out of listening to this album is learning some of the symptoms of a hangover thanks to the track, “Hangover”: “Oh my god, what's wrong with my head? Sweating with the chills, still in my bed…” Despite the fact that America just elected it’s first black president, the country is at still war, the gulf is full of oil, and Tiger Woods cheated on his wife with multiple women, Hey Monday continues to find various ways to sing about getting broken up with. Not that anything is wrong with this tactic, it’s just not the type of material that will be talked about years from now and noted in history books.
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