"Don't Trust Me", But I Think 3OH!3 is Already Past Their Prime

Denver "electro hop" duo 3OH!3 released their follow-up to 2008's breakthrough album Want, with the release of Streets of Gold this week. I believe 3OH!3 has already seen their 15 minutes of fame (okay, 15 months is more accurate), but maybe that is just wishful thinking on my part. I don't want to make it seem like I'm just an impassioned disbeliever in 3OH!3 and am looking to hate on them for no good reason. When I came across them while they were still under the radar in 2008, I was pretty hyped up about their sound and totally felt their music for a good while; I even regarded "Colorado Sunrise" as one of my favorite songs of all of 2008.

However, times have changed since then... and maybe just like an unprecedented relationship break-up: "It's not you [3OH!3], it's me." But I would like to think that if it is "me", then it is also most other music listeners who were familiar with their previous music. I want to like their new music, but I'm convinced that the state of music has just moved on from the head spinning, party-infused-electro-rap-rock-pop that thrived in 2009 with 3OH!3 and LMFAO. "You were certainly a lot fun while it lasted [party rock-electro-crunk genre], but we both knew that there wasn't enough meaningful substance in our relationship to let the interest persist."

Okay, maybe I'm jumping ship too soon, it might not be over for this party-electronic style of music, nor for 3OH!3. But if this is the case, and the eccentric genre survives (which admittedly is probably the more likely scenario), then I believe that it happens in spite of 3OH!3's latest effort: Streets of Gold. The album is just bad. 3OH!3 was never known for their impressive lyrics by any means, but on Want their music at least sounded focused; the electronic beats were edgier, the verses more driven and this all together succeeded in creating very catchy hooks that led to successful pop songs as well as an overall interesting album. It helped that at the time their sound was pretty unique sounding and new to mainstream levels of music. Now here we are two years later and after achieving mainstream success and singles that were heavily played both on radio and in the house party/club scene worldwide, 3OH!3 sounds more worried about trying to remain a part of the party scene than they are about creating music. Streets of Gold is devoid of almost any intriguing parts at all, and its most obnoxious/boring/painful track comes in the form of a song that was intended to maybe be the biggest party jam of them all. The song I'm referring to is called "House Party" and listening to it makes me want to question if the recording engineer for this song was deaf. I'm truly being serious here, the song (listen to it below) features both very weak production --a fair percent of the beat is just those obnoxious horns that you hear some DJs play before they shout out their name at the beginning of a song-- and also features a pathetic one-two combo of both stupid lyrics and an even more boring flow. 3OH!3 doesn't even sing or rap here, they just yell; the chorus consists of them repeatedly stating "I'm gonna have a house party in my house. I'm gonna pour booze down my mouth. I might stay up until the a.m. Yeah I think tonight I'm just gonna stay in." This all equates pretty obviously to the fact that 3OH!3 is just trying way too hard this time around. It's like they were inspired by the simplicity of the chorus of LMFAO's popular song, "Shots" --if you're not familiar with that song, all the chorus consists of is the word "Shots" being yelled over and over again-- and decided that if they dumbed down their music to nothing but spoken party slogans, then their songs would be destined for success.

3OH!3 has a very distinct and interesting sound when they're at their best, but Streets of Gold is one of the biggest flops I can think of for an artist whose previous album I really liked. The album sounds like 3OH!3 has spent the last two years listening only to the most popular pop songs, and then filtered out what little meaningful content existed in those songs, then amped up the references to partying, all to create an end result of a very weak and misguided album. 3OH!3 has even teamed up with other recent party favorites since the release of Want, with collaborations with singers Ke$ha and Katy Perry. Clearly 3OH!3 do not want to leave the spotlight, but I think the only way they can remain on stage is if they convince themselves
that the spotlight isn't on them in the first place, because that is when they made their best music.

Check out how low 3OH!3 has sank on Streets of Goldwith their new nausea-inducing song, "House Party"(Warning: there's some explicit lyrics):


Funny, I think it'd be considered a "party foul" to play any of 3OH!3's new songs at a house party.