Be Your Own Pet Get Akward by: Thomas Mendelovitis Thu:10-Apr-08 Label: XL Year: 2008 WB rating 55 out of 100

If Operator Please were an answer to anything, then Be Your Own Pet must surely be the question. And if the Australian market needed its own version of the Nashville teen sensations’ 2006 hit self-titled album and single ‘Adventure’, they surely found it in ‘Just a Song About Ping Pong’. Sadly, with Get Awkward, it seems BYOP have taken a step backwards, both musically and chronologically. Where standout ‘Adventure’ was a melodic, ballsy and even poignant take on adolescence, none of the tracks on Get Awkward speak with the same clarity of teen spirit. As such, talk of expectations for the band’s potential remain unfounded.

Musically, the majority of the album’s fifteen (yes, fifteen!!!!!) tracks rely on the same formula. Songs start out in a flurry of crunchy compressed guitars and drums, and before you know it the chorus has come with a tempo shift and drum fill. Far from being short and catchy, however, they are overlong (wait, I just checked the running times and no, they are not long, they just feeeeeel looooong in their repetition). Despite the tedium, there is an urgency to the music, and fans of grrl rock will be at least marginally sated. The riffs are decent and the beats chunky, but as a whole there is nothing new here and what was once effective soon bludgeons.

Chronologically, too, you have to wonder. If they were teenagers in 2006, shouldn’t they be out of school by now? Still, lyrics are peppered with references to class, homework etc. It’s all a bit juvenile, really, and while it’s supposed to be fun, it barely is. Repeated allusions to murder, intended to shock, aren’t even comical. Nancy Vandal did ‘Bikini High Pool Party Massacre’ a decade ago, referencing the earlier riot grrl act Bikini Kill. Sure, recycling ideas is fine, but for anyone over the age of 18, or with a musical memory, BYOP bring nothing new to that trope. Even for a punky 17 year-old girl with a modicum of musical sophistication, I can’t imagine the repeated high-school scenarios being that interesting.

In Get Awkward, BYOP have made an easy sophomore effort; formulaic, tired and silly in the worst way possible. Listening again to ‘Adventure’, you’d think that Get Awkward would be the debut album.

On the 50th anniversary of James Dean’s death, it is worth reflecting on how youth culture has changed since being embodied by the first teen rebel idol. Far from being the poetic answer to Dean’s Jim Stark: “Why do we do this?” offered by Buzz “You’ve gotta do something, don’cha?” in Rebel Without a Cause, BYOP reflect the vacuousness of youth culture as reflected by the Hiltons and Lohans of the world. As a party record for teenage punks, the album would offer some reward. For anyone after some sustenance, steer clear.