While I Have Hands has some really interesting songs and samples on it, I can’t help but feel there is something missing from the album. Like some sort of central concept or basic idea. There is no use of samples to make a comment about contemporary life and culture, they are instead used only to make fun jingles.
But if that is the case then isn’t it really just using other people’s ideas to make your own album and fame? And that isn’t to say that it is a bad product or not well done, because it is. But it just seems like it is taking ready made songs and then co-opting them in order to sound fresh. And really half the appeal of these tracks is the recognition of the samples.
For example, “Stumble Out of Bed” uses parts of Dolly Parton’s 9-5 mixed with the guitar riff of “Eye Of The Tiger”, and while it does sound good, and did I find myself getting into it, in the end what I really enjoyed was the parts of the song that I recognized and I don’t feel anything was really added to these songs. It still just sounds like a song made from other people’s work.
Now don’t get me wrong I am a big fan of sampled work and I think a band like Negativland does it excellently, and I don’t see a problem with making art from pop cultures toss offs, from forgotten or overplayed songs, but I feel the whole point of using these sounds and turning them back on themselves is to make a point, not just to make happy music. Maybe I’m just too cynical for the Bran Flakes.
Could be right. Maybe I should be a happier person. Yeah I suppose that’s it. I just need to become shiny and happy. Doo doo doo doo doo. See there we go now I’m happy I should enjoy things right? I should feel life has stars and puppies and kitties and gosh darn it I’m going to appreciate all these things all the time. And be a better person for it okay? Okay. That is what I have learned from this album. That I should be a better and happy person and love the world.
The problem is that it isn’t a better and happy world, and the truth is we are inundated with so many different signals coming from so many different places that we can no longer think straight. And just taking samples and trying to collect them into a good time record seems to add to the whole confusion and crushingly overbearing maelstrom of information. We have it beaten around our heads all the time and all the Bran Flakes seem to be doing is to be adding to the broken fractured world we mentally inhabit. They do wear papier-maché smiley faces over their heads though, which I guess makes it all alright.
As they say, it evokes flashbacks of a sugar-induced high while watching Sesame Street, for me this sounds like terrifying drivel, but hell if you like the idea of that, it is actually a pretty good description of the sound. An ADD-riddled child with 7 televisions, 6 radios and a high speed internet connection would basically be the image of the ideal listener for this. If you want a mash up party record I Have Hands will do it. Basically it would be really interesting if you’re stoned roommate made it.
