Half Japanese
Overjoyed
Reviewed by: Brian Roser
Overjoyed is the sensation I felt when the album was finally over and I didn’t have to listen to it anymore. On his Facebook page, frontman Jad Fair is quoted as saying: “If you rejected conventional ideas about fingering, tuning, and even stringing a guitar, there were no limits on how you could express yourself on what was, after all, your instrument.” Okay, I get that being a bad guitar player is his schtick, but at the end of the day, the guitar playing is still bad. The lyrics are delivered in a half-talk style used by those who have neither the voice to sing, nor the rhythm to rap. Now I will admit that there are times when this technique has worked. The B-52’s do it in “Rock Lobster” and the Dead Milkmen used it to charming and humorous effect in “Punk Rock Girl”. Half Japanese’s music, however, is neither charming, nor humorous and can barely even be called music.
Whatever else he is, Jad Fair is consistent. Not only is the singing and guitar playing atrocious, but the lyrics are horrible as well. The entire album can be summed up in the phrase: Gee, love is nice. Don’t get me wrong, love is nice, but you needed all this freedom to play the guitar badly and this is what we get for it? Because I gotta say… I have heard music made by people who can both sing and play and it was far better than the crap that Jad Fair is shoveling out on Overjoyed.
Half-Japanese has been together since 1975. Rather Jad Fair has been on the music scene since then. Even his brother, who co-founded the band with him, couldn’t take it anymore. You’d think that after doing it for this long, he would have been able to pick up some kind of talent, but Fair is dedicated to his ineptitude. If you’re a fan of Half Japanese, or if you want to listen to an old man be weird for about a half an hour, then feel free to buy the album. If you are anyone else on the planet, go ahead and schedule that root canal, because it will be a far more enjoyable experience.
Rating: No Comment
