aaamusic | On 14, May 2012

I fucking hate the concept of “Real Music”. You know what I’m talking about, it comes from those fossilised, elitist douche-bags on YouTube who feel that there can be such thing as music that is more valid than others (funnily enough the music that is, in their words, “Real” always seems to coincide with their own personal taste) and that people should be ashamed of themselves if they happen to not share their taste in what they like and dislike. One of the oddest things about the “Real Music” phenomenon is that it comes from the usually quite progressive world of Rock. You’d rarely see a comment on a Nas track about how this is “Real Music”, but every third comment on Stairway to Heaven is about how this should be popular and not, say, Jessie J. I bring this up because this, celebrated session guitarist John 5’s sixth album of guitar based instrumentals, is absolute fodder for the real music brigade, it’s 6 tracks of utterly pointless shredding and 4 tracks of utterly pointless acoustic picking. It’s all guitar based, half metal and half country, it’s all very “Real”. And it’s bloody awful.

Honestly there isn’t that much to say about it. There are two kinds of song, either ridiculously pompous metal with guitars that go wee-widdly-woo for four (Four!) minutes, or mildly more palatable country that, while stile possessing things like melody and structure (things the metal tracks lack in favour of wee-widdly-woo) are still composed for little reason other than to demonstrate what a good guitar player John 5 is. Which it does very well, only an absolute moron would argue that John isn’t a stunning guitarist but no-one needs an album of that, let alone the FIVE others that 5 has recorded. However, the fact that it has been released to prove his worth as a guitar player cheapens the whole ordeal, and I say that because I can’t think of any other reason it’s been released, it’s not like you can sing along or dance to it, I guess you could be influenced by it but most who listen to it would probably swear off guitar for life, knowing they could never be that good. This isn’t an album, it’s an audition tape.

So in short, if you’re a dedicated student of the guitar, all this will prove is that you still have miles to go in your study. If you’re a music fan it will bore you to tears. If you’re one of those guys (and it is always guys) who likes to assert their supposed superiority over others because of the kind of music that you objectively like however, then please, buy this album, have your children put it on your iPod, and then never, ever listen to anything else again or bother any other right thinking music fan with your tired, elitist rambling. If this is “Real Music”, then fuck me, I’m glad I’m wrong.

★★★★★

Will Howard