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Cover: 0
Bandanas out of 10.
What cover? The cover is just black and says "Bret Michaels"
in red and "Songs Of Life" underneath that. It also says "For
Promotional Use Only." Even though this is supposedly a promo,
you'd think Bret would have been able to get Rikki to do some little
cute artwork or something. When Metal Sludge has better looking banners
than somebody's CD, that's pretty sad. If you have fans paying $16.95
plus shipping for this, then promo or not, put a little effort into
it! Why would anybody really want to buy this when they could just download
the songs off the web and even make a better cover on their own? On
the back it lists the songs and says the CD is a "Ten Song Radio
Sampler." That's funny, since I don't have a clue as to what radio
station would play any of these songs. The entire packaging looks like
a rush job. I've seen promo CD singles with more artwork.
Booklet: 1
Bandana out of 10.
I don't know if I'd want to call this a booklet.
It's one panel which just has production credits, who played what, and
the track listing. It also says, "Thank
you for your purchase of this preview copy of "Songs Of Life."
As this is a preview copy of the CD, not all songs may appear on the
final CD." Is that supposed to make fans think this is more
"special?" Is that an excuse for cheap ass packaging? Whatever.
There is also no mention of who wrote these songs.
Songs: 4
Bandanas out of 10.
Lyrically, a few of these songs are somewhat ok, which makes me think
that Bret co-wrote these songs with somebody. A few of the songs have
lyrics that are slightly better than what's on Poison's "Hollyweird,"
but how hard is that to accomplish? However, I will say that the song
"It's My Party" made the lyrics to "Rock Star" look
like "Stairway To Heaven." It made me wonder, "Is this
the same guy who wrote "Something To Believe In" and "Every
Rose Has It's Thorn?" A song to lose IQ points to.
The track listing is:
Bittersweet
Loaded Gun
Raine
Strange Sensation
Songs Of Life
Forgiveness
It's My Party
War Machine (not the Kiss song)
I Remember
One More Day
As you can see there are some unoriginal song titles, which are probably
the songs Bret wrote all by himself. "Strange Sensation" isn't
that bad, "Raine" is ok, and "Forgiveness" is tolerable,
but the production on these songs is still weak. I've heard better produced
songs in the 70s. The drums and guitars sound very lackluster. The slower
songs seem to work better on this CD than the upbeat ones, which just
sound like demo quality pop/rock songs.
Comment: Could somebody please
buy Bret a Pro Tools system because the production quality is still
lacking by today's standards. My suggestion to Bret is to just sing
other people's songs and forget about writing. If you care to hear these
songs, you're best bet is to use something like Win MX and just download
them.
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