Andrew W.K. always reminds me of Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out for a Hero.” Aside from being as ’80s and Flashdance-frantic as that gem (quit snickering, watch the lip-synch scene in Bandits as delicious Cate Blanchett prepares dinner and tell me your pulse doesn’t race for a variety of reasons), Andrew W.K. is a modern-day hero. No, really. He’s not some jaded hipster, he’s not a fake “aw, shucks” emo poser, and he writes party anthems that ain’t about hoes and bling-bling. With childlike enthusiasm, Andrew W.K. embraces life and lives life “in the red.” While some might say it’s idiotic and mindlessly repetitive, so is commuting to work, so is sex (in, out, repeat for as long as you can), so is life in general. Which is why Andrew W.K. writes tunes that are a great soundtrack to life.
I took a Fall roadtrip, cruising about 85 mph down the Mass Pike as the leaves were changing, the morning sun glistening, puffy white clouds lazily stretching overhead, and I listened to The Wolf three times in a row. Pulsing tempos, simple, life-celebrating lyrics, Andrew W.K.’s music is a real pick-me-up, and even the piano love ballad, “Really in Love,” is cool, lighter-waving arms-in-the-air fun. Guitars soar the sky like Top Gun fighter jets, choirs “Oh”ing majestically, and the beats pounding away like ’80s rock, rain splashing off the snare drum and everything. Yeah, there’s a lot of Tom Cruise Top Gun drama is the mid-tempo songs, but the 43 second “Make Sex” (“wanna make sex, whoa-oh, whoa-oh”) is a stadium cheer by fat, shirtless guys wearing body paint, and if that’s not an unselfconscious celebration of life, of showing unabashed devotion whether you look cool doing it or not, what is?
(www.andrewwk.com)
