Blow Up Hollywood "The Diaries of Private Henry Hill" (MJ12)
By Kyle Wagner
Thursday. Jul 06, 12:03 AM
The strength of the source material can’t mask the weakness of the resultant music.

I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times before: political songs are notoriously tricky beasts. I feel quite comfortable making the statement that most explicitly political songs are less than impressive. There are countless notable exceptions, but for the most part a good political song is extremely difficult to pull off. No matter how genuine or impassioned the underlying sentiment may be, more often than not the music or lyrics end up leaving something to be desired. In the end, if the art is not compelling, then what is the point? You can be deeply impacted and shocked into contemplation by art that obviously supports or puts forth a political position that is quite different from your own, and you can be entirely unmoved by art that expresses a position similar to your own. It is the impact that counts if you are trying to make a political statement, and on that level The Diaries of Private Henry Hill simply doesn’t deliver.

The album is based on the journals of a solider killed in the Iraq War. While I have no doubt whatsoever that the journal entries possess great emotional gravity as well as provide a biting commentary on the war itself, the songs based on the entries come across more as exploitive for a specific political end rather than intended to illuminate the personal struggles of a soldier. Just as I am frustrated by the use of the stories of soldiers to bolster patriotic feelings and generate support for the war, so too am I frustrated when soldiers’ stories are employed for the opposite end, as seems to be the case here. I refuse to deem this exploitation acceptable just because I happen to hold a rather critical view of the war. These songs don’t feel as though they are trying to tell the story of the solider so much as they are trying to make a point that is in the mind of the musicians. I would much rather read the journal entries themselves than listen to this collection of interpretations and projections onto the words of a man who’s only remaining voice is the journal that survived him.

I suppose it doesn’t help that the music is rather bland. For seven guys who have impressive musical educations, the tracks feel too stagnant to be fully engaging, particularly with the uninspired drumming (for example “WMD,” where the repetitive beat results in a tired version of “I Turn My Camera On” by Spoon). The strings that are interspersed throughout the album tend to be well arranged, but that is just about all there is to sink your teeth into. Most of the songs come across as lesser versions of Pink Floyd tunes, particularly “Charge” and “Bombs Away,” the latter of which bears a striking resemblance to “Mother.” All of this isn’t helped by the saxophone parts that could have been pulled from ‘80s slow pop ballads like Wham!’s “Careless Whisper.” In addition, the rhymes are so standard that you can guess what most of the lyrics will be before you ever even hear the resolution of a couplet.

I firmly believe that we need to be presented with art that allows us to more fully connect with and be impacted by the events that are occurring around the world, and this is particularly true when those events are ones in which this country is a major player. In that respect, I applaud Blow Up Hollywood’s attempt to make a strong political statement, but unfortunately the resultant music is simply too unmoving to garner much praise.
www.blowuphollywood.com
www.mj12musiclabel.com

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Kyle Wagner

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