CD Review of Jupiter Rising by Jupiter Rising

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Jupiter Rising: Jupiter Rising Label: Chime Entertainment Released: 2006

Well, you’d think that having a couple songs picked up for inclusion on an MTV show would be pretty cool for your career. And it may very well be. But lest we forget that MTV plays the shittiest music around when it does get around to playing music videos, it doesn’t matter much at all. But let’s try to give Jupiter Rising, who just happen to be in this “situation,” the benefit of the doubt. Two of their songs, “Home” and “Hero,” have been used in the almighty terrific show that is “Making the Band 3.” Is Diddy Kong still doing this show? Does anyone even care about him anymore? The guy has seriously become one of the most ridiculous pimps in the music industry. I don’t think even he gives a shit anymore.

Oh but wait, we’re talking about Jupiter Rising. Sorry. This band sent three – count ‘em, THREE – lovely CD-R’s with computer printed sleeves and labels to the hacienda. One would have been plenty, but thanks for being so sure of your music being liked that the other copies would be handed around! That takes real gusto, kids! However, there were no press kits or anything added to the CDs. Therefore this disc will be reviewed as-is. It’s more fun that way, don’t you think?

Looking at the cover of the CD, we have a white chick with bad blue eye shadow (Ladies, don’t you know by now that that color just screams “Newark”?). It looks like there’s some type of jewelry in her left nostril, but that could be a skin thing going on or bad printing on the computer’s part, it’s hard to tell. She’s wearing a big blue jacket that looks like some leftover horror piece from the ‘80s with its big, broad puffy shoulders. Her hair looks like it needs to be combed. To her right is a bald black dude in shades with a goatee and an earring. The back cover is another shot of the two (she must be really short as he’s really towering over her) tinted blue and they are both looking simultaneously apprehensive and unsure. The CD label itself has some bubbling under it and is a drab green with the Chime Entertainment logo on it.

One gets the feeling that the dude in the band makes the music. Otherwise, he’s just kinda shouting backing vocals every now and then to let Newark Blue do her front lady singing. Seems like she wants to be Pink when Pink first debuted. She’s got the fake-soul, husky mama voice thing down pretty well. Only thing is, Pink dropped that whole bullshit after her first album and made much better albums afterward. Still, this gal can stay in tune and plays it safe, which is good, because it doesn’t seem possible that she’s one of those singers that could really push the envelope with any panache. The production of the songs is stellar and vapid all at once. It sounds great, but the songs are so beside the point, that pretty mixes aren’t going to prop this duo up for long.

And yeah, those songs…wow. Opening with the strut of “Go,” you know the disc is going nowhere when you have to deal with corny lyrics like “Beat boxers boxing with some popping and locking / MC’s macking stalking folks / Lyrically attacking squawking jokes / Got the bouncers bounding / Get to the pounding.” Mmmhmm, and then at the choruses the other guy in the band yells “GO GO!” making his presence finally known. It’s the kinda crap that you sorta remember from some club back in the ‘80s, when the DJ would play a song just to kill some time to take a piss but not really care if the tune had serious merit.

And then there’s the tragedy that is “The Bus.” It’s a song about being a senior in high school, and it sounds exactly like the kind of song seniors would write for a play or musical that their parents could applaud and then go kick it at a key party after their minds have been numbed. Witness, “Just wait till the last day of senior year / We ruled the school so far but soon / We’ll be out of here working on careers / Gonna be a rock star feel it!” And then feel the threat of, “You can’t mess with us / Cool kids from the back of the bus / Don’t look don’t speak don’t threaten us / We’re coming up remember?”

…You want to be taken seriously, right?

There’s a bad piano ballad called “Hero” that would work wonders on the snoozefest that is “Gilmore Girls,” it’s so predictably sappy. Or how about the abusive relationship tune called “Wicked,” or the lyrical nadir of “They Say,” featuring such navel gazing drama as “They say that love is blind/ They say it’s hard to find / They say that peace of mind / Is unattainable but they lie”? It’s one musical nightmare to the next as you quickly realize that this band just got really damn lucky for anyone to have considered picking them up for any project. And well, that music sounds like it was all created with the push of a button somewhere. It all just reeks of disposable dance garbage that has come a few years too late.

So that’s Jupiter Rising. Jupiter Falling will undoubtedly be more like it. And now, what am I going to do with three copies of this thing? I can’t sell it, and I can’t trade it on lala. I’m not mean enough to give ‘em away. Hmmm. I think my drinks would run away if I used them as coasters, even. Ah well, there’s a garbage bag waiting around here somewhere. Ah, there we go. That’s definitely the best sound I’ve heard from Jupiter Rising, period.