Published on Jul 9, 2001
One can’t be faulted for failing to take a band like Cartoon
Boyfriend seriously… especially when your album
Nipples features three naked men riding a bicycle on one
side of the cover art, and three naked women on the other side.
Granted, the West Hollywood, California trio don’t always take
themselves seriously, either, but
Nipples has enough moments on the disc to prove that Cartoon
Boyfriend is anything but a novelty act. The only problem is that
the group – Tommi, Holly and Boi – don’t seem to know just which
musical direction they want to go.
On one side, they are an irreverent pseudo-punk group who aren’t
afraid to laugh at the world (“Two Hicks & A Immigrant,” “When
I Grow Up”). But there’s also a techno-rock side to this group that
cannot be ignored (“Club Scene,” “Little Glam Fag”)… as well as a
serious musical side that occasionally shows its head (“Lost In The
Jungle”).
Oh – and there’s the techno-rock cover of Garth Brooks’s
“Friends In Low Places”, which actually tries to stay somewhat
reverent to the original version while mirroring life in southern
California. It’s actually well done, and should even put a smile on
the faces of Brooks’s fans.
But one can understand quickly how an album like
Nipples can quickly get bogged down just due to the repeated
and sudden changes in musical gears. In actuality, this is a very
enjoyable album – much more so than I originally anticipated – that
might not win Cartoon Boyfriend millions of fans, but should gain
them a nice-sized following thanks to solid songwriting. All they
have to do – besides drop the bonus track featuring a rendition of
the National Anthem being butchered worse than Rosanne’s infamous
outing – is choose a musical path and not deviate too often from
it.
Nipples actually suggests that Cartoon Boyfriend is a band
to be taken seriously.