Former '90s alt.rock utility man Stacy Jones brings the gleaming steel wool of his
American Hi-Fi out of the box once again with
The Art of Losing. The album arrives after a curious live offering, which seemed to exist solely as an opportunity for Jones to fulfill a Live at Budokan fantasy. Nevertheless, fans of the 2001 hit "Flavor of the Weak" will find
The Art of Losing and its title track lead single worthy follow-ups. It's appropriate that "The Art of Losing"'s slick, reconstituted punk jerk found its way into a Coors Light ad -- its chants of "Hey ho/Let's go/I'm gonna start a riot" and "One two/F*ck you/Don't tell me what to do" take the packaging of punk for mass consumption to macrobrewery levels. Impossibly, the similarly processed grit of "The Breakup Song" is a straight-up knockoff of
blink-182's "First Date." Jones includes another name-drop of
Cheap Trick here, too; the production inserts handclaps, layer after layer of harmony vocals, and the thousand-foot-high guitar tone typical of songs mixed for radio. In fact, this is the sound that guides both
Losing and
American Hi-Fi, a band that's been designed and built for success in three-minute increments. "Nothing Left to Lose" splices played-out hip-hop phrasing ("Holla back y'all," "All the bitches in the back") into smarmy
Jackson Browne and
Undertones references as the guitars chug and ring referentially; "Teenage Alien Nation" and "Beautiful Disaster" feature more bombastic riffery and meticulously placed potty mouth from Jones. Elsewhere there are the requisite ballads ("Save Me" and "This Is the Sound" -- think a louder
Goo Goo Dolls), but
The Art of Losing is rounded out mostly by a jumble of F-words, cheeky pop culture references, name-drops (
Built to Spill?
My Bloody Valentine? Mentioning them doesn't put you in the same league), and more buzzing 21st century new alternative rock helped out considerably by production chicanery.
American Hi-Fi truly is the flavor of the week. ~ Johnny Loftus