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The Cheats

Cheap Pills (2003)
Da Core

Reviewer Rating:

Contributed by: JanelleJ
(others by this writer | submit your own)

Published on December 12th 2003

For cheap (redundant) punk thrills The Cheats deliver with their debut full-length ‘Cheap Pills’. To wit, you don’t have to invest much into this Pittsburgh five-piece’s raucous ’77-era punk, as their disc is a mere 20-minutes in length and the lyrics are quite straightforward and elementary, dealing with girls, drugs, drinking, and just generally being a loser.

Sure the album’s fun and the band is competent, but with all the classic punk song references sprinkled in the lyrics, you just have to wonder if they’re trying too hard to be punk – “Got to Get Out” features the words “straight to hell” recalling The Clash and frontman Todd Cheats’ vocals sound eerily like the late great Dee Dee Ramone (think “Warthog”…), on the title track Todd says his girl is “born to lose” blatantly quoting our man Johnny Thunders, while G.G. Allin is resurrected with the use of “crash and burn” in “Buzz Bomb.” And how could I not mention that obvious Sex Pistols rip-off at the end of “I Just Want to Tell You”? The famous last words Johnny Rotten pukes out on “EMI” are uttered, as Todd methodically articulates a drawn-out “A&M”. That has to be the most irksome: we KNOW who their influences are, why do they have to shove it in our face? Furthermore, on this song, it’s as though they repeatedly shout “fuck you” merely for some crucial punk points. The band closes out the album with a cover of Rubber City Rebels’ “Young and Dumb”.

So, basically, as aforementioned, if you want something new, don’t look here, but if recycled punk is your thing, by all means check out The Cheats.

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Anonymous (December 16, 2003)

"Ten scene points to Janelle for use of the words 'lobotomy' and 'cretin' in the same comment."

Hey, in the end, that's really what it's all about...
-Janelle
...I thought it was cute...that is all.

GreenVandal (December 16, 2003)

Nooooo, i misspelled a word! the gods of elitistness will not be pleased!!

sk8punx4evr (December 15, 2003)

i just read the i get wet review at pitchfork and no, it wasn't priceless, and not because i disagree. it was a worthless attempt at pseudo-high brow humor. good one, pitchDORK! ouchies.

Anonymous (December 15, 2003)

Ten scene points to Janelle for use of the words "lobotomy" and "cretin" in the same comment.

And the pitchfork review of I Get Wet is fucking priceless, whether you agree with it or not. But the review for Bleed American is honestly one of the worst things I've ever read, even worse than most of the stuff that goes on here.

Anonymous (December 15, 2003)

hey and by the way, the present score should be lower - more like a two...
-Janelle
i hate the star system

Anonymous (December 15, 2003)

it's lobotomy, cretin. get it right.
-Janelle

GreenVandal (December 15, 2003)

If pitchfork rated BSD, theyd say he was "A feigned attempt at coolness. We have seen this before, and frankly, Radiohead did it better. Man I love my own voice. Man I listen to good music. Avoid BSD like a labotamy - 2.3"

heh

thats not including the paragraph beforehand explaining said persons allegiances to the UK scene and how the clash helped them to decide on there favorite color.

Anonymous (December 15, 2003)

Yes, they did deserve scores that low. Because they blow. Thank you.

-BSD

GreenVandal (December 15, 2003)

Im not gonna argue that they dont know good music...cuz as there best albums of the 90's feature shows, they do. But most of there newer reviews just simply latch onto a single flaw, which they then use mercilesly as a way to talk about their ideas of "the scene" and "labels" or whatever bullshit. Thrice, Cursive, and The Mars Volta DID NOT deserve scores that low. thats just ridiculous. Each is at least a 7.

funkisdead (December 15, 2003)

*sophomoric.

thats the hat trick, ladies.

funkisdead (December 15, 2003)

because it has a life of its own!!!

no, pitchfork do know their shit, but i think a lot of their reviews are ridiculous. too many half-baked literary allusions and sophmoric references to classic art.
i'm not saying that i could do it as well as them, but i am saying that i could do it differently than them. and not "bad" differently, either.

funkisdead (December 15, 2003)

my cock could choke you.

Anonymous (December 15, 2003)

pitchfork knows more about music than you do, if that makes them elitist, i can't fault them.

-waste

Anonymous (December 14, 2003)

pitchforkmedia.com

Anonymous (December 14, 2003)

what is pitchfork's web site?

GreenVandal (December 13, 2003)

Pitchfork is such a terrible fucking website. Its like giving music to harvard grads to review. They spend the whole review showing how clever and varied there vocabulary is, and then give shit reviews to everything that is vaguely liked by more then 2 people. Unless its artistic noise bullshit. They love to think they are artistic to, cuz ya know, artistic people have big clever vocabularys like them.