Bowling for Soup are doing the same thing on their fifth album that better and more popular bands did almost a decade ago. "The Great Burrito Extortion Case", their newest offering, brings nothing to the table except half-baked hooks and a hot topic mentality. The album alternates songs with poppy guitar lines and drum beats that imitate Blink 182 and songs with poppy guitar lines and drum beats that imitate Good Charlotte. I'm sure there are many who hope this brand of pop-punk never fades away, but this sound should've died out when it was at its peak in 2000. The single "High School Never Ends" is admittedly catchy, if vapid, and is about the similarities between high school popularity and Hollywood celebrity. The only stand-out track is "Val Kilmer", where the lyrics are actually funny instead of just funny to the band. Most of the album's lyrics seem to have just been thrown in because they rhyme ("are you still at home/ or did you go to Rome") or to show that the band still think like high schoolers so they can get in good with their core audience ("Did I mention that you both suck dot com?").
"The Great Burrito Extortion Case" is one of those albums where all the songs are about the singer's heart getting broken, but it's okay because the singer's the "lovable loser" type that everyone knows will win out in the end. Or something like that. The disc is like Simple Plan decided to subscribed to the Atari's philosophy of "Angry Nerd Rock", and it's not surprising since Bowling For Soup got famous off that song "1985" which you probably couldn't remember when it was on the air because it sounded like Fountains of Wayne.
Bowling for Soup are good at what they doing, but why do people still think this sound is worth trying to save?
