The Kinison - What Are You Listening To? (Cover Artwork)
Staff Review

The Kinison

What Are You Listening To? (2004)

La Salle/Atlantic


I just can't take the Kinison seriously. And frankly, I wonder how the band members other than the singer can take the Kinison seriously, as well.

This record is actually pretty solid musically, mixing a number of styles together. Equal parts At The Drive-In [see "Every Genius Has Their Hang Ups"], Blood Brothers [see "Xoxoxo"], and ______ [insert your favorite dance-post-punk band here {perhaps The Rapture, or Radio 4?}] [see "Lake Calmern Is Full Now" or "No Talk"], The Kinison do some serious plagiarizing here, but it's not to the point of complete being complete copycats. The band has a knack for writing some seriously catchy, ultimately hummable hooks and most of the songs here are evident of that.

The problem comes in as soon as the singer opens his mouth, however. The lyrics on this album are some of the most contrived, sophomoric, just plain bad words put to paper in quite some time. To quote "You Kissed Lilly:

"Just kissed Lilly
Just kissed Lilly
Just kissed a whore
Just kissed Lilly
Just kissed Lilly
You don't love me anymore"
That's just the beginning of all the terribly trite and embarassingly bad poetry contained on this disc. How on earth the other 4/5ths of this band let this kind of crap represent them is beyond my comprehension. It's almost fitting that the album's best track, "I've Got Something To Say" - a hardcore freakout clocking in at under two minutes - is the one with the least amount of words. All that is sung [or yelled, rather] is "I've / Got / Something / To Say!". Sadly, no he doesn't.

Oh Boy That Girl Can Move [clip]