MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: FUN. - SOME NIGHTS

I hate it when I don't get something.  Here we have the hottest new group on the continent, burning up the charts with both album and single (We Are Young featuring Janelle Monae), and they aren't some pop-tart over-singing diva or kid hip-hop wannabe.  Surely there must be something there to grab onto, as millions of legal downloaders are doing.

To my ears, all I can fathom is that people really miss Queen.  Here we have great, grandious productions, with lots of piano and drama, great pounding drums, and massed vocals reaching for the stars.  I mean, Freddie did We Are Young about 20 different times, just not with these particular lyrics or quite so much bottom-end distortion.  I'm also perplexed by the whole concept, which seems to be some sort of pounding electro dance floor hybrid filled with toy tricks such as auto-tune (because it's somehow cool, not because the singer needs it, he has a fine voice displayed on most of the tracks).  Then you have these tender passages about break-ups and parents potentially dying, the hurt of which is all washed away by the twin saviors of epic falsetto harmonies and the realization that everything can be great because We. Are. Young.

I suppose 20-somethings will be dancing away their cares to such chorus-messages as "Tonight we are young/so let's set the world on fire/we can burn brighter than the sun."  No you can't.  You're binge-drinking another weekend away, and will crawl back to your crap job on Monday thinking you had a great time, but you're fooling yourself.  Just like you're fooling yourself thinking this is a good song and album.  Ooh, harsh.  I hope they're actually trying to be ironic.