I don’t really know what to say about Mercury Redstone. When I received their new CD Something-Anything-More I was initially encouraged because the packaging of the disc looks very nice, almost like a real CD from a real label. Upon listening to it, however, I quickly discovered that MR makes rock music of the most generic sort. Their songs are almost indistinguishable from the scads of other pop/rock bands that think recycling G-E minor-C-D constitutes an original song. In fact, my knee-jerk reaction was that the CD sounded like they were TRYING to write a beer commercial. It sounds like the band is trying so desperately to make music that will be liked that any elements that might show a little personality, that might compel someone to listen to them, have been edited out in favor of the lowest common denominator. It’s not that they can’t play or their guitars are out of tune, although singer David Chuss is fairly one-dimensional. The problem is that, in a 31-flavor world, these guys are hard-core vanilla.

In some ways, it’s hard to blame MR for the kind of record they have made. The mainstream rock culture only seems to embrace sound-alike bands anymore because, as far as this reviewer can tell, it is easier to replace one with another when they fail to sell 10 million CDs straight out of the box that way. MR seems to be trying very hard to be one of these bands. Their CD paints a picture of a band that values commerce over creativity, which, to a large degree, is the American way. Unfortunately, they are not the only band in this fair city of ours to fall prey to this kind of thinking, the kind of thinking that says that it is more important to get that record deal, no matter what the cost or outcome, than it is to write a song that might last in a listeners’ mind longer than the summer afternoon on which they hear it for the first time. Rock music has a long and colorful history of rebels and renegades that made and still make music on their own terms, whose efforts will still be known and listened to long after every Korn, Blink 182, and Matchbox 20 song has been forgotten. Performers like Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Col. Bruce Hampton, and The Mermen are the real heart and soul of rock music, performers who earned their stature by not doing things the easy way but by giving voice to something that was unique to each of them. Mercury Redstone is at the back of a long line of artists that are all doing the same thing. I hope they can survive the wait to get their turn.