 See Larger Image | So Long, Astoria Artist : The Ataris List Price : $11.98 USD Your Price : $11.98 USD ProductGroup: Music Release Date : 2003-03-04 Studio : Sony Label : Sony Avg. Customer Rating : (291 reviews)
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Reviews Customer Reviews for So Long Astoria Please make it stop. Rating: You kids today. Pop. Power-pop. Punk. Emo. Rock. Alternative.
Corporate culture has sold you a bill of goods and you've swallowed it wholesale. So much of today's above-referenced music sounds so much the same, when you step away from it a few feet. Arguing over needless categories merely disguises that fact.
I'm not going to say that "back in my day" music was better. There IS good music now, has always been good music, and there will always be interesting music. But there is a whole slew of "kids" today (which is intentionally vague) that feel it's important to know just what category to label the Ataris, or a million other similar bands.... people that say they like alternative but not emo, that they love "punk" but not "hardcore", or who ONLY like indie rock. Let's face it, you're arguing over nothing, and maybe when you're in your 30s will hopefully start developing your own interesting opinions that aren't related to what others in your high school (or whatever) like or don't like.
I've been listening to a lot of this stuff lately, and "So Long Astoria" is another in a long line of today's cookie-cutter rock. Yes there are melodies, yes there are big guitars, yes there are many opportunities for fist-pumping good times. If I was Kurt Cobain, I would be rolling over in my grave at how the truly awesome excitement of what "Nevermind" helped create some 17 years ago has devolved into a formulaic template that keeps selling and selling and selling.
Another "Boys of Summer" cover? These guys should cover, oh, how about Journey's entire "Escape" album, and we can all call THAT brilliant too. If there's a spark of uniqueness in the Ataris, I hope they follow it on future records!
Customer Reviews for So Long Astoria Cd So long, youth Rating: Or so it seems. I like this album a bit less than previous ones. A lot of the songs a "deeper," which in and of itself isn't bad, but takes some of the fun out of the equation. These guys were really good at what they did previously, this comes off a bit too preachy in spots. Still a few winners like "Boys of Summer," which I think effectively ended the Don Henley era.
Editorial Reviews for So Long Astoria Audio Cd Amazon.com With a handful of indie releases and a few hectic years of touring under their belts, this release marks the Ataris big-label bow. And if the concept uniting it is an ode to the power of memory--a conceit attributed to Richard Hell, but one that ironically might as well have originated with the likes of Billy Joel--Kris Roe and company blitz their way through it with kinetic power and hooks to spare. But therein lies the rub: Fans will find this an album rife with positive energy, bright, well-constructed songs, and upbeat deliveries (if sometimes in service of awkward intellectual pretensions like "Unopened Letter to the World"'s parallels between Kurt Cobain and no less than Emily Dickinson); cynics may hear at as further evidence that punk and alternative rock have been co-opted in service of formulas as well-honed--and rigid--as anything the dreaded Corp Rock '80s ever yielded. Still, if play-it-to-the-back-rows, unabashed power-pop is what the Ataris were after here, they've delivered it with nigh perfection, right down to a slick, pumped up cover of Don Henley's classic-rock warhorse "The Boys of Summer." --Jerry McCulley
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