You know you've really made it as an artist when you get your very own
String Quartet Tribute. This time the lucky recipients are Aussie hard rock revivalists
Jet. The disc tackles all 13 songs from their debut album,
Get Born, and the big question in most people's minds is probably what does the ubiquitous "Are You Going to Be My Girl" sound like? Well, it sounds like a dippy novelty song you might hear in the elevator of a winkingly hip office building. It and the rest of the record are stranded somewhere south of interesting, but all isn't as bad as it could be. The players are clearly talented and some of the arrangements are clever, but really there isn't enough harmonic complexity to make it interesting to fans of classical music and it doesn't rock either, so no rock fans are going to be too interested. Basically, you have to wonder just who is going to buy something like this. Maybe
Jet fans. Maybe fans of pointless tribute records. Someone must since Vitamin and other labels keep churning them out at a furious pace. Between string quartet and bluegrass tributes, you'd think CD-pressing plants would be so busy they wouldn't have time to press up the discs that are being paid tribute to. ~ Tim Sendra