Big Hello
The Orange Album (Break-Up!)
by Scott Hefflon
Made the mistake of trying to review Big Hello immediately after finishing a Luckie Strike review. Realized I’d already reached the number of times one is allowed to reference The Bangles in one issue without beng flogged, so I was gonna pass on this ‘un. But wait, song 11 is called “Don’t Step on My Cat” and that’s the extent of the lyrics (yet it took two people to write the song)? I like… And last album was called The Apple Album, this one’s called The Orange Album, and there’s a song called “Apples and Oranges” that sticks a finger in your cheek, twists and repeats “Apples and oranges, la la la la la la la”? Hmmm, intriguing… And they use the same dingy rhythm to read off the credits in “Orange Credits”? Ah, let’s investigate this slow sad tale called “Someday Between One Day and Forever” with the line “I’m so happy I could kill” – yes, bittersweet sorrow like the taste of tears and blood.
Well, that kinda broadens the boa-wearing cuteness that the two girl, two guy photos project, but that first impression probably pulls in more than it pushes out. The first two songs, “Video Star” and “Boys Are Dumb,” are kind of scary in that Letters to Cleo-kinda way, a point rubbed in even more because I recently had a grubby three-day bender during which I wore the same Generation O! tee shirt cuz it was, ya know, clean, at least when I put it on. And Boston’s Kay Hanley sings the theme to that, uh, animated kids show thing (shit, I dunno, I don’t watch network TV cuz they can’t show tits or heads exploding or, ya know, allow foul fuckin’ language, so I sure don’t watch pre-teen girlie cartoons), and there’s a song called “Girls Rule, Boys Drool” and, ya know, it’s that same pour-sugar-in-an-open-wound (hurts almost as much as salt, but doesn’t heal nothin’) thing as Cleo’s covers of “Cruel to be Kind” and “I Want You to Want Me” in 10 Things I Hate About You, a movie I thought was cool until I realized it made heroes of a bitchy chick (and most bitchy chicks aren’t that cute, dig?) and that 12-year-old-lookin’ dweeb from one of those other repulsive teen shows I refuse to acknowledge… um, where was I?
Big Hello offset (somewhat) the sugar with a little pouty snarl like “If You Don’t Stop Crying” which, come to think of it, sounds a lot like a Cheap Trick song. Freaky. So they have some good moments and some of that icky stuff that, unfortunately, is probably what’s going to take them the distance.
(PO Box 15372 Columbus, OH 43215)
