King Tuff - Self Titled

Hey - remember David Bowie?  Tommy James And The Shondells? T Rex? Yeah, I bet you do, and so does the enigmatic figure known as King Tuff, and on this, his 2nd release, he's definitely channeling all of those iconoclastic Glam icons into one giant musical Golem and adding his own Hipster flourishes and embellishments to it, in order to sell it to all the cool kids who hang out at Beauty Bars and other cool kid places like that all across the U.S.A.. Don't get me wrong - I like all of those aforementioned musical giants, but the way King Tuff just blatantly 'emulates' them is a bit of a shocker with it's ballsy brazenness. Is this what passes off as cutting edge music nowadays? A license to steal and a set of brass balls? Rehashed melodies and riffs and pompous overblown productions from the 70's? Booooooooo. It's an interesting mix of tunes on here though, that's for sure. You got some crazy fuzzed out mid paced rockers with monster guitar hooks in them that would make Mick Ronson stand up and take notice (Hit And Run, Anthem, Bad Bad Things), some downright dreamy vocal lullabies that just ooze elegance (Swamp Of Love), a monster Top 40 radio anthem (Alone And Stoned), catchy as fuck Pop songs (Baby Just Break) and then some quirky ass, I don't know what to call it songs that are an excellent comment on his eccentric musical taste and could of easily been pulled off of an early Carpenters release (Evergreen). I guess as a mindless excursion and melodic musical distraction this is pretty good. Original it's not but that's OK I guess. I don't really not like this, and I don't really like it. It's like cotton candy really. Sugary sweet in small doses, but too much will make ya a bit nauseous. Available from Sub Pop records if you can believe that. Yeah, that Sub Pop... heh

---