Mr.Big
Get Over It

The year 2000 is a turning point for the American group. The Mr.Big, a very famous band from the 90s known for hugely successful albums (Lean Into It, Bump Ahead) and arenas packed to the brim at every concert, finds itself at the dawn of 2000 practically missing half the band... Paul Gilbert leaves the band. The band promptly recruits another six-string wizard. Ritchie Kotzen. But something doesn't work anymore.

"Get Over It" comes out in 2000 and represents the worrying decline of this great band. "Get Over It" lacks that energetic, powerful yet playful and fun style that Mr.Big had with Gilbert. An album that at times seems almost bad. It's a shame because the album opens with a bang with "Electrified", perhaps the most beautiful song to spring from Kotzen's mind. Nice melody, nice chorus... but then comes the solo, and I wonder where Gilbert's furious solos are... there... you understand how it was actually Gilbert who kept the band's power high.
"Static" continues a timid energy line, which ultimately collapses with "Hiding Place". Eric Martin keeps his voice consistently warm, and that's the only positive point of this album. "Superfantastic"... doesn't add anything, it's the usual acoustic ballad, but it shows a small positive point, being a group standard, and Gilbert's absence is not too noticeable.

"A Rose alone" and "Hole in the sun" literally bore me, and "How does it feel" really strikes me as pathetic and a song-written-just-for-the-sake-of-it. "Try to do without it" I do like. Its slightly country manner, although not very original, marries wonderfully with Martin's voice, and it's one of the few successful tracks in the entire lot. "Dancin' with my devils" and "Mr never in million years" seem like songs just to fill the album and get to the second ballad, another track that adds nothing original, and I feel they try to replicate the form of previous albums. Nothing more. The album is incoherent, lacking an aim or a decent closure like "To be with you" could be (which now seems like a masterpiece to me).

It leaves a bitter taste, because this band of "all stars" couldn't create anything really decent anymore with the band's mind gone. There remains the regret of immense talent, which on this album is truly wasted.