Michael Learns To Rock
Played On Pepper

THE REVIEW

As a true Debaserian tinkerer that I am, I was rereading Francescobus's excellent review of “Get The Knack” by The Knack, indeed. Do you remember them? No? At least not by name, but if I were to mention a girl, a certain Sharona...? By the end of the reading, I was thinking roughly like this: was there something, more recently, that resembled this band? A band without too many pretensions that nailed a single? A band with such a famous single, so famous, that it was worth as much as an entire greatest hits, maybe even a double? Famous for that song, and then nothing more? No, not the one-shot bands of the eighties, but something that had rock, or pretensions of rock (or that boasted of playing it)? Rising without ideas, I step into the living room... Unexpectedly, my gaze lingers on the liquor cabinet... No, I'm not an alcoholic, indeed after a decade of indulgence I'm (dangerously) veering towards complete abstinence (what a shitty life!).

The Michael Learns To Rock, although with all the distinctions, with their “Someday”, are the closest thing to The Knack that has reached this creature's ears, now almost teetotal, in the last fifteen years. The name already betrays a purported (and when I say purported, I mean untrue) belonging to the "rock people," a bit like the Tazenda fans of Ramazzotti and Vasco Rossi did once upon a time. In 1995, this quartet of handsome Danish lads released their third album. In the previous two, to be fair, the outcomes in terms of sales were more than encouraging, especially in central-northern Europe and Asia (!). Consequently, with the third album, they had now reached the "moment of landing," the assault on the world record market. And they presented themselves well, with the famous track “Someday”, which I remember was promoted and programmed greatly by Italian radios, and ended up going around half the world (South Africa aside, the non-Anglo-Saxon one).

For those who have never heard it, that is for those who don't own a television, it's a solid pop-rock ballad with dignified singing and decent, non-intrusive electric guitar parts. Nice backing vocals in the choruses and traces of chill in the verses. All good, special and guitar solo included. In 1995, the “grunge people,” of which I was an integral part, spat and hawked abundantly out of the Punto's window at each of its radio passages, but twelve years later, one can finally and detachedly appreciate its flawless structure and good arrangements, as well as a melody line devoid of failings. From the hints of that track, one imagines a CD by a classic rock band, that invents nothing but at least puts in a lot of good will...

And instead, pure melody, with anachronistic ballads even in the then 1995, like “That's Why (You Go Away)” cloned from Christopher Cross, or “How Many Years” identical to hundreds of Christmas songs. Not to mention “You'll Never Know”, with a sound (and a little something more) similar to “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper. Many '80s legacies in the keys and arrangements, Jascha Richter's voice is more similar to Nick Carter's than to Bryan Adams. On the whole, it seems like a boy band product, with the addition of a decent producer. More interesting (but just a little) the initial “Breaking The Rules”, a little rocky, and “Judgement Day”, with passable martial rhythms nullified by the usual chorus for pimply teenagers.

The guys, all in all, have decent qualities, they play without smudges and make nice little choruses, but they lack imagination and especially will. Unlike what was in “Get The Knack,” there is no trace of “hidden gems” (to cite my friend Francescobus again), nor of immediacy and genuineness, both in the approach to the recording room and that to the score... Everything is written and recorded sloppily; everything is purified and filtered; moreover, everything has been done (composed) in such a way as to be easily purified. And as a consequence, the final product is indeed potable and within everyone's (and all ears') reach, like water, but like water it is colorless, odorless, and tasteless. Except for the sugary (but "bitter") “Someday.”

Fate of the single aside, the album will flop in Anglo-Saxon Europe, always rather skeptical towards the "non-native speakers," as well as in the Mediterranean basin. And until then all regular: Italians, French, and Spanish have their own, of neomelodics! Obviously, the hard core will resist at home, while “Played On Pepper” will be a huge hit in Asia... From then on, the very lazy Michele Learn To... I can’t pronounce that word in this context, sorry but for me it still has a value... will demonstrate being even lazier and, rather than coming up with a decent album, that can at least attract some positive criticism in anticipation of better economic success in Europe, they will abandon the "community market" to dedicate themselves, from the following year onwards, to Denmark, central-southern Asia, as well as South Africa and the Far East. A bit like our singers, who sell in South America ten times as much as at home... Only unlike ours, the M.L.T.R. don't have to translate their songs into Chinese, Japanese, Thai, etc., while Pausini & co. have to have their texts translated into Spanish by an employee probably hired with the duty of “translator into Spanish of song texts of neomelodic singers,” with a project contract and firing at the end of the project, or at the end of the translation. But that's it...

That's how it went, it went that Asia dreams of America, while some sly one passes off four Danes who speak and sing in English. It's like when there are samba dancers at carnival, and they're the Nigerian prostitutes working the waterfront... Indeed, at a concert of the Danes singing in English, even a "Singaporean" can dream of being American. If Singapore, for Michael Learns To Rock, is America, then it could be that, for an Asian crowd, these four scruffy Danes are American music! The Rock!!!