Either the four bonus tracks are absolutely crucial to getting this album's appeal, or you guys are crazy. This album is most definitely un-good. "Pork and Beans" and "Troublemaker" get by on their riffs. "Dreamin'" and "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived" are way too slight and underwritten to justify their lengths. "Thought I Knew" sounds like the work of an amateur songwriter who's aiming directly at the middle and just barely hits - it's like Z-grade Graham Parker, but with no edge.
But these are all at least halfway listenable, which is more than I can say for most of the others. To spare everyone from too much negativity, I'll just focus my hate ray on the most egregious offender. "Heart Songs" may be the most terrible thing released by a major rock artist this year. It's lazy, "Summer Girls"-level songwriting, although, to their credit, LFO were at least awake enough to fact-check. New Kids on the Block did have a lot of hits, but it was Tiffany, not Debbie Gibson, who covered "I Think We're Alone Now" (as the AV Club review pointed out, but anyone born before 1984 should be able to catch). For a bunch of guys who are increasingly unable to refrain from "aren't-I-clever?" pop culture references, you'd think they'd have a handle on this sort of thing.
I listened to Maladroit a week or so ago, hoping to excite myself for the new album. It was a bad move, not because Maladroit is lousy (it isn't, actually), but because it makes The Red Album sound that much worse by comparison. If this is an improvement on Make Believe, I'm glad I never bothered to pick that one up.
